THE  WORLD'S  PARLIAMENT 
OF  RELIGIONS 


AX    ILLUSTRATED  AND   POPULAR  STORY  OF  THE  WORLD'S 

FIRST  PARLIAMENT  OF  RELIGIONS,  MELD  L\ 

CHICAGO  IN  CONNECTION  WITH 


THE  COLUiMBIAN  EXPOSITION  OF  1893 


EDITED   BY   THE 

REV.  JOHN  HENRV  ^RROWS,  D.D. 

chmrmav  of  the  generai,  committee  cm  religious  congresses  of  the 
world's  congress  auxiliary 


VOLUME    II 


CHICAGO 
THE  PARLIAMENT  PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

iS93 


COPYRIGHT,  1893 

BY  THE  PARLIAMENT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

CHICAGO,  ILL. 


Engravings  by  Pf'"'""^  »"J  "°""^  ^^ 

J.  Manz  a  Co  ,  Chicauo.  Geo.  M.  Hill  Co.,  Cuicaoo. 


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KXr'(;SlTl(.K\. 


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KACII'^N,  THAT  TO  THK  KliSIDIiNTS  OK  A  NKW  CITV,  IS  A  KAK  COUNTKV.  SHOLT.D  I!E  ACCOKUICI) 
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EXI'OSITIUN." 


INTRODUCTION   TO   VOLUME    II. 


In  preparing  these  volumes  I  have  had  the  aid  of  skilful 
co-laborers,  to  whom  I  owe  an  expression  of  warmest  thanks  — 
Rev.  Leonard  VVoolsey  Bacon,  D.D.,  Rev.  E.  C.  Towne,  Rev. 
VV.ilter  M.  Barrows,  D.D.,  Prof.  George  S.  Goodspeed  and  Mr. 
Clyde  W.  Votaw,  of  the  Chicago  University,  Mr.  Frederic 
Perry  Noble,  and  Mr.  Kiretchjian  of  Constantinople.  In  con- 
ducting the  Parliament  I  was  aided  by  friends  whose  fidelity  I 
gratefully  remember  —  Bishop  Keane,  Dr.  Momerie,  Dr. 
George  Dana  Boardman,  Dr.  Hirsch,  Rev.  L.  P.  Mercer,  Dr. 
S.  J.  NiccoUs,  Dr.  W.  C.  Roberts,  Dr.  F.  M.  Bristol,  Rev.  A.  J. 
Lewis,  Bishop  Arnett,  Rev.  Augusta  J.  Chapin,  D.D.,  Mr. 
Theodore  F.  Seward,  Rev.  George  T.  Lemmon,  my  indefatiga- 
ble Secretary,  Mr.  William  Pipe,  Rev.  Jenkin  Lloyd-Jones, 
and  Mr.  Merwin-Maiie  Snell.  That  I  have  been  able  to  give 
so  much  strength  to  this  work  is  due  to  the  kindness  of  the 
Elders  and  people  of  my  own  beloved  Church.  To  them  I 
desire  to  offer  my  loving  and  heartfelt  thanks.  Lasting  grat- 
itude is  due  to  those  who  have  helped  me  in  preparing  for 
the  Parliament,  or  in  securing  the  worthy  publication  of  its 
proceedings.  My  best  obligations  must  be  expressed  to 
President  Charles  C.  Bonney,  Mrs.  Henrotin,  Mr.  H.  N.  Hig- 
inbotham.  President  of  the  Columbian  Exposition,  to  Mr.  A. 
C.  Bartlett,  Mr.  Daniel  H.  Burnham,  Mr.  Marshall  Field, 
Mr.  James  VV.  Ellsworth,  Mr.  O.  S.  A.  Sprague,  Mr.  Byron 
L.  Smith.  Mr.  M.  D.  Wells,  Mr.  John  B.  Sherman,  Mr. 
William  E.  Hale,  Mr.  Jay  C.  Morse,  Mr.  John  Davidson,  Mr. 
Edward  E.  Ayer,  Mr.  Andrew  Onderdonk,  Mr.  William  Deer- 
ing;  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  Lakeside  Press,  to  Col.  Henry 
L.  Turner  and  Mr.  Schiller  Hosford  of  the  Parliament  Pub- 
lishing Company,  and  to  my  assistants  in  the  office,  Miss 
Bernice  McLaflin,  Miss  Belle  Scott,  Mr.  Harry  B.  Chamberlain 

80s 


8o6  INTRODUCTION. 

and  Mr.  Harry  T.  Marsh.  This  record  of  gratitude  would  not 
be  complete  if  I  did  not  remember  among  others  —  Rev.  E.  M. 
Wherry,  D.D.,  of  Chicago,  Dr.  A.  P.  Happer,  Dr.  Miller  of 
Madras,  Dr.  Timothy  Richard  of  Shanghai,  Dr.  Washburn  of 
Constantinople,  Prof.  Alexander  Tison  and  the  Rev.  Zitsuzen 
Ashitsu  of  Japan,  Hon.  D.  Naoroji  of  London,  Prof.  Max 
Miiller  of  Oxford,  Count  d'Alviella  of  Brussels.  I  have 
had  assistance  also  from  Chaplain  Allen  Allensworth,  of  the 
United  States  Army,  and  from  Mr.  Clarence  E.  Young,  Secre- 
tary of  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary.  It  is  a  pleasure  here 
to  record  gratefully  the  names  of  friends  who  extended  hospi- 
tality to  the  members  of  the  Parliament  or  who  aided  in  enter- 
taining them — Mr.  and  Mrs.  A.  C.  Bartlett,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  E. 
W.  Blatchford,  Mrs.  Potter  Palmer,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Marvin 
Hughitt,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  A.  A.  Sprague,  Mr.  John  B.  Drake, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  B.  Lyon,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  H.  Laflin, 
Mr.  H.  M.  Sherwood,  Mrs.  Wm.  H.  Swift,  Mrs.  L.  C.  Paine 
Freer,  Dr.  S.  J.  McPherson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  E.  A.  Hamill,  Mrs. 
H.  M.  Wilmarth,  Mrs.  Flora  Fisher,  Mrs.  John  Angus,  Mrs. 
Henry  Corwith,  and  others.  I  wish  also  to  mention  my  obliga- 
tions to  the  reporters  and  editors  of  the  Chicago  newspapers. 
The  press  of  this  city,  furnishing  from  forty-five  to  sixty 
columns  of  daily  reports,  helped  to  widen  the  interest  in  the 
Parliament  which  has  reached  such  a  vast  extent.  And  now 
as  this  work  goes  forth,  may  it  bring  back  pleasing  and  sacred 
memories  to  those  who  stood  in  loving  fellowship  on  the  plat- 
forni  of  a  common  humanity  during  the  Parliament,  and  may 
it  carry  a  multitude  of  blessings,  hope,  inspiration,  enlighten- 
ment and  renewed  devotion  to  the  highest  things,  to  all  those 
who  faithfully  work  and  patiently  wait  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  on  earth  ! 

John  Henry  B.arrows. 

Chicago,  Nov.  17,  1893. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PACK 

The   Hon.   H.  N.   Higinbotham,   Presidemt  of  the    World's 

Columbian  Exposition,  -  -  -  Frontispiece. 

Group  No.  6  —  Rev.  Julian  K.  Smyth,  Rev.  S.  J.  Niccolls,  Pres. 
Sylvester  F.  Scovel,  LLD.,  Prof.  D.  G.  Lyon.  Rev,  Marian 

MURDOCK,        .......  821 

A  Jewish  Synagogue  in  Berlin,       .            -            .            .            .  827 

Ruins  OF  loNA  Cathedral,          .            .            .           -           .  833 

Cathedral  at  Ostankino,  near  Moscow,            -  ■          •            -  839 

Stone  Carved  Car,  Humpey,  India,       ....  847 

The    Platform    of    the    Parliament    on    the    Morning    of 

September  14,    -            -            -            -            -            -            -  853 

H.   Dharmapala,  Ceylon,          -            -            -           -           -  861 

Delada   Maligawa,   Te.mple   of  the   Sacred   Tooth,   Kandy, 

Ceylon,  -.....-.  867 

A  Buddhist  Shrine,        -            -            -            -     .       -            -  875 

The  Right  Rev.  John  J.  Keane,  D.D.,  Rector  of  the  Catholic 

University,  Washington,        .....  881 

Group  No.  7  —  Rev.  J.  Kittredge  Wheeler,  Theodore  F.  Sew- 
ard,   Mohan    Dev,    Rev.    Carlos   Martyn,   Rev.  Jenkin 
Lloyd-Jones,  Rev.  Frank  M.  Bristol,      -            -            -  889 
Interior  of  the  Sheve  Dagon  Pagoda,  Rangoon,  Burma,           -  895 
The  Naver  Ceremony  —  Initiation  Into  the   Parsee  Priest- 
hood.    I.  Invocation,         .....  899 

The  Naver  Ceremony.     2.  The  First  Ablution,              -            -  903 

The  Naver  Ceremony.     3.  Initiation,              -            -            -  907 

The  Naver  Ceremony.     4.  Final  Orders,             -            -            -  911 

The  Naver  Ceremony.     5.  An  Ordained  Priest,        -            -  915 

Towers  of  Silence.     A  Parsee  Ce.metery,             -            -            -  919 

Church  of  Notre  Dame,  Paris,            ....  923 

Professor  Minas  Tcheraz,    ......  931 

Monastery  of  Etchmiadzin,  at  the  foot  of  Mt.  Ararat,     -  937 

Sir  William  Dawson,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,            ....  945 

Rev.  II.  R.  Haweis,  London,        -            -            -            -            -  95' 

Large  Guporam  at  the  Entrance  of  the  Temple  at  Munjan- 

GOD,  India,          .....--  959 

Group  No.  8  — Rev.  James  Brand,  Mohammed  A.  R.  Webb,  Prof. 
Waldo  S.  Pratt,  Prof.  C.  H.  Toy,  Rfv.  Ida  C.  Hultin, 

Rev.  B.  Fay  Mills,             .....  965 

SwAMi  Vivekananda,             ......  973 

Brahman  Pandits,            ......  979 

Count  A.  Bernstorff,            -            .            -          .  -            -            -  987 

Taj  and  Garden  from  the  Entrance  Gate,  Agra,  India.      -  99^ 

Trinity  Church,  Boston,    ......  looi 

St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  New  York,  -            -            -            -  1007 

Rev.  Hiromichi  KozAKi,  ToKio,  Japan,       ....  1015 

807 


8o8  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIOMS. 

PAOB 

Professor  Isaac  T.  Headland,  Peking  University,  -  1021 

Group  No.  9  —  Prof.  C.  R.  Henderson,  Rev.  Anna  G.  Spencer, 
Rev.  R.  a.  Hume,  Prop.  V.  G.  Peabody,  Prof.  Richard  T. 

Ely,  Dr.  J.  A.  S.  Grant  (Bey),  ....  1029 

His  Holiness  Pope  Leo  XHL,  .....  1035 

The  Right  Rev.  Zitsuzen  Ashitsu,  Japan,  -  -  -  1043 

Interior  of  Mosque  at  BrOsa,  Turkey,         -  .  -  1049 

Cathedral  of  the  Annunciation  in  the  Kremlin,  Moscow,   -  1057 
Seven  Pagodas  or  Marvelepuram,  the  Bhima  Rath  or  Split 

Temple,       .......  1063 

The  Rev.  James  M.Cleary,  Minneapolis,  -  •  -  1071 

A  Sacrifice  at  Kali  Ghat,  Calcutta,  -  -  -  1077 

Panel  in  the  North  Entrance  of  the  Temple,  Representing 

Ganapatti,  Halabede,  India,  ....  1085 

•Group  No.  10 — ^Miss   Alice   C.  Fletcher,  Rev.    E.  P.  Baker, 
Rev.  T.  J.  Scott,  Rev.  Olympia  Brown,  Rev.  Washing- 
ton Gladden,  Prof.  Albion  W.  Small,           -            -  1091 
A  NiPAL  Buddhist  Temple,          .....  1099 

Bishop  Benjamin  W.  Arnett,  ....  1105 

Aaron  M.  Powell,  -  -  -  -  -  -       ■    -  ni^ 

Rabbi  Joseph  Silverman,  New  York,  -  -  -  11 19 

Buddhist  Cemetery  at  Kioto,  Japan,    ....  1127 

Rev.  P.  Phiambolis,  Chicago,   .....  1133 

President  VV.  A.  H.  Martin,  University  of  Peking,      -  -  1141 

Group  No.  ii  —  Rabbi  H.  Berkowitz,    Hon.  John   W.  Hoyt, 
Mrs.  Fannie    B.   Williams,   Rev.    S.  L.    Baldwin,  Hon. 

Thomas  J.  Semmes,  Rev.  Antoinette  B.  Blackwell,  -  1147 

Ghermanus,  Metropolitan  of  Athens,  -  .  -  .  1155 

Church  of  thd  Nativity  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  Russia,    -  1161 

Rev.  Dr.  George  S.  Pentecost,  London,  ...  1169. 

Sv/AMi  Sungath  Anum,  Madras,  ....  1175 

The  Rev.  Dr.  George  T.  Candlin,  Tientsin,  China,      -  -  1183 

Te.mple  on  the  Great  Wall  of  China,        -  -  -  1189 

The  Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York,  -  -  1197 

The  Rev.  Dr.  W.  M.  Barrows,  ....  1203 

Mr.  William  T.  Stead,  London,    .....  121 1 

Jain  Temple,  Mount  Aboo,  India,        ....  1217 

Mr.  Virchand  A.  Gandhi,  India.  ....  1225 

Miss  Frances  E.  Willard,  Chicago,    ....  1231 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  E.  Clark,  Boston,  -  -  .  1239 

Group  No.  12  —  Rev.  David  J.  Burrell,  Mrs.  L.  F.  Dickinson, 
Rev.  M.  L.  Gordon,  Bishop  Jenner,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward 

Howe,  Mr.  Herant  M.  Kiretchjian,  -  -  -  1245 

Rev.  Dr.  James  S.  Dennis,  New  York,  -  .  -  1253 

Interior  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  Jerusalem.  -  -  1259 

Group  No.  13  —  Rev.  Dr.  Assadourian,  Bishop  Daniel  Payne, 
Rev.    W.   C.    Roberts,    Dr.    Paul   Carus,   Mrs.    Celia 

Parker  Woolley,  Dr.  K.  Kohi.er,        -  -  -  1267 

A  Christian  Family  in  Almora.  India,    -  -  -  .  1273 

Group  No.   14  —  Rev.  J.  T.  Yokoi,   Rev.  T.  Matsuyama,  Dr. 
Ernst   P'aber,    Rabbi    B.  Drachman,    Lakshmi  Narain, 

Prof.  Conrad  von  Oreli.i.         .  .  .  .  1281 

Interior  OF  Buddhist  Temple,  Ningpo,  -  -  -  1287 

Stone  Lanterns  Before  Shinto  Temple.  Tokio,  Japan,      -  1295 

Muezzin  Announcing  the  Hour  of  Prayer,       -  -  -  1301 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS.  809 

PACE 

Group  No.  15  —  Prof.  Lutker  F.  Townsend,   Rev.  James  .A. 

HtnvE,  Rev.  11.  K.  Carroll,  Rev.  John  Gmeiner,  Pruk. 

Thomas  O'Gorma.n,  Pres.  H.  L.  Whitma.n,         -             -  i;^09 

Festival  Car  at  Triplicane,  Madras,     -            -            -            .  i\i^ 

Church  of  St.  Stephen,  Vienna,         ....  1*^23 

Cathedral  of  Rheims,        --....  1^29 

The  Rev.  Dr.  George  C.  Lorimer,  Boston,     -            -            -  1337 

The  Rev.  Dr.  George  Dana  Boardman,               -            -            -  1343 

Ervad  Sheriarji  Dadabhai  Bharucha,  Bombay,       -            -  1351 

View  of  Shravana  Belagola,        .            .            .            .            .  1357 

Ramnath  Temple  at  Kali  Ghat,  Calcutta,              -            -  1365 

The  Great  Mandala.     A  Chart  of  Nichiren  Buddhism,          -  1371 

Three-Headed  Figure  of  Brah.ma,  Vishnu  and  Siva,          -  1379 

Prof.  Thos.  Richev,  D.D.,               .            -            -            .            .  1385 

Canterbury  Cathedral,  England,     -            .            -            .  1389 

Bishops  VVayman,  Ward,  Payne,  Browne,  Tanner  (Af.  M.  E.)  1393 
Messrs.    VVhitford,     Ordway,    Dunn,    Rogers,    Liver.more, 

(Seventh-Day  Baptist)              ....  1403 

Bishops  Bradley,  Durier,  Messmer,  Matz,  Maes,  Ryan,  (R.C).  141 1 

Church  and  Tower  in  St.  Peter's  Monastery,  Bulgaria,    -  1421 

Mary  B.  G.  Eddy,     -------  1431 

Monkey  Temple,  Benares,        -           -           -            -            -  1439 

W.  E.  Dodge,  Dr.  W.  G.  Rainsford,  Rev.  G.  A.  Gates,  Rev.  R. 

H.  Conwell,  Dr.  C.  H.  Parkhurst,  Rev.  Josiah  Strong,  -  1445 
Bishops  Esher  and   Breyfogel,   Rev.  Messrs.   Knobel  and 

SpRENG,        .----..  1451 

H.  M.  Jenkins,  J.  W.  Plummer,  Ben.  Smith,  Eliz.  P.  Bond, 
Emma  R.  Flitcraft,  R.  S.  Haveland,  J.  J.  Jannev,  E.  H. 

Magill,            .-.-...  1459 

Miss  Jeanne  Sorabji,            --..-.  i^^g 

Bishops  Lee,  Salter,  Gaines,  Grant,  Turner,  Handy   (Af. 

M.  E.),        -..-...  1479 

Bishops    Inglehart,    Haven,   Parkhurst,   Moore,   Merrill, 

Peck,  Rogers,  (M.  E.),           -----  1485 

Rev.  Messrs.  MercerJ  Goddard,  Ager,  Wright,  (New  Jerusa- 
lem),              --.....  I4gi 

Rev.  Messrs.  Pearson,  Harris,  Bell,  (Cumb.  Press.),  -  -  1505 
Rev.  Messrs.  Nyvall,  Trykman,  Bjork,  Skogsberg,  Hallner, 

Hogfeldt,  Hultman,  (Swed.  Ev.  Miss.  Cov.),  -  1515 
Dr.  Buck,  Mrs.  Besant,  Mercie  Thirds,  Prof.  Chakravarti, 

\V.  Q.  Judge,  Dr.  Anderson,  G.  E.  Wright,  (Theosophy),  15 19 

Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,         ....            -  1325 

A  Hindu  Wedding  Cere.mony,        .            -            .            .            -  1529 

Susan  B.  Anthony,          -            -            -            -            -            -  1533 

A  Religious  Procession,  (Siam),     -----  1541 

Mrs.  Potter  Palmer,      -.-.-.  1567 

Scene  at  Last  Evening  of  the  Parlia.ment,       -            -            -  1583 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  IL 


^ 


"::^ 


Introductory  Note  to  the  Second  Volume.         ...        805 

List  of  Illustrations. go/ 

Table  of  Contents. ■       .     .   .        .        gio 

PART  THIRD.— Continued. 

THE  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS. 

THE  EIGHTH  DAY. —  Continued.  Jewish  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  Civil- 
ization.    By  Prof.  D.  G.  Lyon,  Harvard  University.     Pages  817-82S 

>JThe   Law  of  Cause  and  Effect  as  Taught  by   Buddha.      By  the 
Right  Rev.  Shaku  Soyen,  Japan.  -  -         -  Pages  829-831 

Christianity  an  Historical  Religion.  By  Prof.  George  Park 
Fisher,  Yale  University. Pages  832-841 

The  Need  of  a  Wider  Conception  of  Revelation  :  or  Lessons  from 
THE  Sacred  Books  of  the  World.  By  Prof.  J.  Esti.in  Carpen- 
ter, Oxford  University.  ....         -  Pages  842-849 

Christ  the  Reason  of  the  Universe.  By  the  Rev.  James  W.  Lee, 
St.  Louis.        - Pages  850-860 

The  World's  Debt  to  Buddha.     By  H.  Dharmapala,  Cevion. 

Pages  862-880 

The  Incarnation  Idea  in  History  and  in  Jesus  Christ.  By  the  Right 
Rev.  John  J.  Keane,  D.D.,  Washington.         -         -  Pages  882-888 

The  Incarnation  of  God  in  Christ.  By  the  Rev.  Julian  K.  Smyth, 
Boston  Highlands.  -  .         .         .         .         .         Pages  890-893 

Orthodo.x  Southern  Buddhism.  By  the  Right  Rev.  H.  Samangala, 
High  Priest  of  the  Southern  Buddhist  Church  of  Ceylon.    Pages  894-897 

The  Religious  System  of  the  Parsees.  By  Jinanji  Jamshedji  Modi, 
Bombay.  -         - Pages  898-920 

Divine  Providence  and  the  Ethnic  Religions.  By  the  Rev.  T.  J. 
Scott,  India.       - Pages  921-925 

THE  NINTH  DAY. —  Letter  from  Lady  Henry  Somerset,  Eastnor 
Castle,  England.  -  -  -         -         -       .  -  Pages  926,  927 

The  Armenian  Church.     By  Prof.  Minas  Tcheraz,  London. 

Pages  9^8-934 

Greek  Philosophy  and  the  Christian  Religion.  By  Prof.  F.  Ma.k 
Muller,  Oxford  University.  ....  Pages  935,  936 

Man's  Place  in  the  Universe.  By  Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.D.,  Glasgow 
University.       ......--  Pages  938-941 

The  Religion  of  Science.     By  Sir  Wflliam  Dawson,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

Pages  942-946 

8to 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  8ll 

Mfsic,  Emotion  and  Morals.     By  the  Rev.  Dr.  IIaweis,  London. 

Pages  947-950 
Man  in  the  Light  of  Revelation  and  of  Science.     By  Prof.  Thomas 

DwiGHT,  .\LD.,  LL.D.,  Harvard  University.  -  Pages  950-956      ^ 

What  Constitutes   a    Religiol's,  as   Distinguished  from  a  Moral, 

Life?    By  President  Sylvester  F.  Scovel,  D.D.        Pages  956-960 
How  can  Philosophy  Aid  the  Science  of  Religion  ?    By  Prof.  J.  P. 

Landis,  D.D.,  Ph.D.,  Dayton.         ....  Pages  960-968 

Hinduism.     By  Swami  Vivekananda.       -        -        -  Pages  968-978 

Science  a  Religious  Revelation.    By  Dr.  Paul  Carus,  Chicago. 

Pages  978-981  "^ 
The  History  and  Prospect  of  Exploration  in  Bible  Lands.    By 

the  Rev.  Dr.  George  E.  Post,  Beirut.  -  -  Pages  982-983 

THE  TENTH  DAY. — Christian  Evangelism  as  one  of  the  Work-     o 
iNG  Forces  of  American  Christianity.    By  the  Rev.  James  Brand, 

D.D.,  Oberiin. Pages  984-986 

The  Religious  State  of  Germany.     By  Count  A.  Bernstorff. 

Pages  986-989 
The  Spirit  of  Islam.    By  Alexander  Russell  Mohammed  Webb. 

Pages  989-996 
Christ  the  Saviour  of  the  World.    By  the  Rev.  B.  Fay  Mills,  D.D.        \^ 

Pages  997-1000 

Reconciliation  Vital  not   Vicarious.      By  the    Rev.  Theodore   F. 

Wright,  Cambridge,  Mass.  .....  Page  1002 

The  Essential  Oneness  of  Ethical  Ideas  Among  all  Men.     By  the 

Rev.  Ida  C.  Hultin,  Moline,  Illinois.         -         -  Pages  1003-1005 

Religion  and  Music.     By  Prof.  Waldo  S.  Pratt.  Pages  1005- 1008 

The  Relation  Between  Religion  and   Conduct.     By  Prof.  Craw- 
ford Howell  Toy,  Harvard  University.     -     -     -      Pages  1009-101 1 

Christianity  in  Japan:  Its  Present  Co.ndition  and  Future  Pros- 
pects.    By  President  KoZAKi,  Doshisha  University.     Pages  1012-1015 

The  Redemption  of  Sinful  Man  through  Jesus  Christ.    By  the  Rev. 
Dr.  D.  J.  Kennedy,  Somerset,  Ohio. Pages  ioi6-ioi8 

Religion  in  Peking.     By  Prof.  Isaac  T.  Headland.      Pages  1019-1023 

THE  ELEVENTH  DAY. — Christianity  and  the  Social  Question.    , 
By  Prof.  F.  G.  Peabody,  Harvard  University.     -     -     Pages  1024-1030    '^■ 

Religion  and  the  Erring  and  Criminal  Classes.  By  the  Rev.  Anna 
G.  Spencer,  Providence. Pages  1030-1031 

The  Relations  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  the  Poor  and 
Destitute.     By  Charles  F.  Donnelly,  Boston.      Pages  1032-1036 

Women  of  India.     Bv  Miss  Jeanne  Sorabji,  Bombay.    Pages  1037-103S 

Buddha.     By  the  Right  Rev.  Zitzuzen  Ashitzu,  Japan.  Pages  1038-1040 

The  General  Belief  in  the  Need  of  Vicarious  Sacrifices.     By  Prof. 

Conrad  von  Orei.li,  Basel.     -         -         -        -  Pages  1041-1045 

The   Influence  of   Islam  on  Social    Conditions.     By   Alexander 

Russell  Mohammed  Webb.      -         -  -         Pages  1046-1052 

What  has  Judaism  Done  for  Woman?     By  Miss  Henrietta  Szold. 

Pages  1052-1056 


8 12  TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 

d     Christianity  as  a  Social    Force.     By  Prof.    Richard  T.   Ely,  Uni 
^  versity  of  Wisconsin.         -         -         .         .  .  Pages  1056-1061 

y  Individual  Effort  at  Reform  not  Sufficieni".     By  Prof.  C.  R.  IIkn- 
■^  DERSON,  D.D.  University  of  Chicago.       -       -       -         Pages  106 1 -1064 

Religion  and  Labor.     By  the  Rev.  James  M.  Cleary.    Pages  1065-1067 

^^TWYL  TWELFTH  DAY.     Religion  and  Wealth.  By  the  Rev.  W.ashing- 
TON  Gladden,  D.D.,  Columbus,  Ohio.     -     -     -     -       Pages  1068-1070 

The  Hawaiian  Islands.     By  Rev.  Edward  P.Baker.    Pages  1071-1072 

The  Worth  of  the  Bible:  or  Colu.vinar  Truths  in  Scripture.    By 

the  Rev.  Joseph  Cook,  LL.D.,  Boston.     -     -     -     -     Pages  1072-1075 

Crime  and  its  Remedy.     By  the  Rev.  Olympia  Brown.  Pages  1076-1078 

The  Religion  of  the  North  American  Indians.     By  Miss  Alice  C. 

Fletcher,  Cambridge,  Mass.         .         -         -         .      Pages  1078-1079 

-The  Churches  and  City  Problems,     By  Prof.  A.  W.  Small,  University 

of  Chicago.         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  Pages  1080-1083 

The  World's  Religious  Debt  TO  Asia.     BypROTAPCnuNOER  Mozoo.m- 

DAR. -  -  Pages  1083-1091 

/Criticism  and  Discussion   of   Missionary    Methods.     Addresses  by 

^         Messrs.     Dharmapala,     Candlin,     Narasima     Charya,     Hume, 

Haworth. Pages  1093-1100 

The  Ethics  of  Islam.  Quotations  from  the  Koran  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
George  E.  Post,  Beirut. Pages  1096-1099 

Addresses  of  Bishop  B.  W.  Arnett  and  the  Hon.  J.  M.  Ashley. 

Pages  1101-1104 

The  Catholic  Church  and  the  Negro  Race.  By  the  Rev.  J.  R. 
Slattery,  Baltimore. Pages  1104-1 106 

THE  THIRTEENTH  DAY.— Religion  and  the  Love  of  Mankind. 

By  the  Hon.  John  W.  HoYT.         -         -    y    -         ■       Pages  1 107-1108 

Gp.ounds  of  Sympathy  and  Fraternity  among  Religious  Men  and 

'^  Wo.men.     By  Aaron  >L  Powell.        -        -        -       Pages  1108-1 109 

The  Essence  of  Religion  in  Right  Conduct.     By  the  Rev.  Alfred 

Williams  Momerie,  D.D. ,  London.        .        -       -     Pages  1110-1112 

What  can  Religion  Further  do  to  Advance  the  Condition  of 
THE  American  Negro.  By  Mrs.  Fannie  Barrier  Williams,  Chi- 
cago.           Pages  1114-1115 

''  Intern.ational  Arbitration.  By  Prot.  Thomas  J.  Semmes,  Louisiana 
University. Pages  1116-I120 

Popular  Errors  about  the  Jews.  By  Rabbi  Joseph  Silverman,  D.D., 
New  York. Pages  Ii20-i  122 

The  Religious  Mission  of  the  English-Speaking  Nations.  By  the 
the  Rev.  Henry  H.  Jessup,  D.D.,  Beirut.  -  Pages  1122-1126 

The  Spirit  and  Mission  of  the  Apostolic  Church  of  Armenia.  By 
Ohannes  Chatschmuyan.        .        -        -        -         Pages  1126-1 128 

The  Greek  Church.     By  the  Rev.  P.  Phiambolis,  Chicago. 

Pages  1 1 28- II 30 

International  Justice  and  Amity.  By  the  Rev.  L.  L.  Baldwin,  D.D., 
New  York.  ...----         Pages  1 130-1 132 

Men  are  Already  Brothers.  By  Prince  Serge  Wolkonsky,  St. 
Petersburgh.  -..----      Pages  1134-1136 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS.  813 

America's  Duty  to  China.     By  President  W.  A.   P.  Martin,  Imperial 

Tung-Wen  College,  Peking.         -         .         .         .         Pages  1137-1144     -^ 

Toi.ERATiuN.     By  Prof.  Ml.VAS  Tcheraz,  London.  Pages  1145,  1146 

The  Kor.\\  and  Othkr  Scriptures.     By  J.  Sanua  Abou    Naddara, 

Paris.  ...-.--.  Pages  li  46-1 148 

Woman  anu  the  Pulpit.  By  the  Kev.  Antoinette  Brown  Black- 
WELI,,  Elizabeth,  New  Jersey.         .         -         -         .      pages  1148-1 150 

The  Voice  ok  the  Mother  of  Religions  on  Social  Questions.  By 
Rabbi  II.  Berkowitz,  D.D.,  Philadelphia.  -         Pages  1150,  1 151 

THE   FOURTEENTH    DAY.— The   Relation  ok    Christianity    to    >^ 
America.     By  Prof.  Thomas  O'Gorman.  -        Pages  11 52-1 157 

What  Christianity  has  Wrought  kor  America.     By   the    Rev.   Dr,   ^^ 
David  James  Burrell,  New  York.  -  -         Pages  1157-1161 

The  Present  Religious  Condition  of  America.    By  the  Rev.  Dr.  H.  ^ 
K.  Carroll,  New  York. Pages  11 62- 11 65 

The  Lnvincible  Gosfel.     By  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  F.  Pentecost,  Lon-     /^ 
don. -  Pages  11 66-1 172 

The  Present  Religious  Outlook  of  India.  By  the  Rev.  T.  E.  Slater, 
Bangalore.         ..-----  Pages  1172-1178 

THE  FIFTEENTH  DAY.— The  Bearing  of  Religious  Unity  on  the     -- 
Work  of  Christian  Missions.     By  the  Rev.  George  T.  CandllnV 
Tientsin,  West  China.         -----         Pages  1 179-1 191 

The  Reunion  of  Christendom.  By  Prof.  Philu-  Schaff,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
New  York.         -------  Pages   1192-1201 

The  Religious  Reunion  of  Christendom.  By  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  W. 
H.  Fremantle,  Canon  of  Canterbury,         -         -         Pages  1 20 1 -1209 

The  Civic  Church.     By  Mr.  W.  T.  Stead,  London.       Pages  1209-1215 

Interdenominational  Comity.  By  Pres.  D.  L.  Whitman,  Colby  Uni- 
versity, Waterville,  Maine.  .         -         -         .  Pages  1215-1220 

The  Persistence  of  Bible  Orthodoxy.  By  Prof.  Luther  F.  Town- 
send,  Boston  University.  ...         -  Pages  1 220-1 222 

The  Philosophy  and  Ethics  of  the  Jains.  By  Virchand  A.Ghandi, 
Esq.,  Bombay.         -         -  .  -  -  .  Pages  1222-1226 

Spiritual  Ideas  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj.     By  Mr.  B    B.  Nagarkar, 

Bombay. -         Pages   1 226-1 229 

A  White  Life  for  Two.     By  Miss  F.  E.  Willard.        Pages  1230-1234 

The  Worship  of  God  in  Man.     By  Mrs.   Elizabeth    Cady  Stanton. 

Pages  1234-1234 

Christianity  as  Seen  by  a  Voyager  Around  the  World.  By  Dr. 
F.  E.  Clark.  -----         -         Pages  1237-1242 

THE  SI.XTEENTH  DAY.— The  .Attitude  of  Christianity  toward 
other  Religions.     By  Prof.  W.  C.  Wilkinson.       Pages  1243-1249 

What  is  Religion  ?     By  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe,  Boston. 

Pages  1 250-1 25 1 

The  Message  of  Christianity  to  other  Religions.  By  the  Rev.  Dr. 
James  S.  Dennis,  New  York.         -         .         -         .     Pages   1252-1258 

The  Mission  of  Protestantism  in  Turkey.  By  the  Rev.  Mardiros 
Ignados.         ---.--'.         Pages  1258-126 1 


^ 


V 


8  14  TABLE    OF    CON'IENTS. 

The  Lkadixg  Powers  Shaimnc;  Rki.u;ioU3  TKi>ui;irT  in  France.  By 
the  Rev.  G.  Bonet-\1  aury,  Paris.         -         -         -     Pages  1261-1264 

PRI.VtITIVE  AND   PROSPKCTIVF,   RkIJCIOL'S  UnIoN  UK  THE    HUMAN  FaMII-Y. 

By  the  Rev.  John  Gmkinkr,  St.  Paul.         -         -  Pages  1265-1266 

\    The  World's  Rkligious  Deut  to  America.     By  Mrs.  Cki.ia  Parker 
Woui.i.EY,  Chicago. Pages  126S-1 269 

The  Contact  OK  Christian  and  Hindu  '1'hoI(;h  r.  Points  (jk  Con- 
trast AND  of  Likeness.    By  the  Rev.  K.  A.  Hume.       Pages  1269-1276 

A  Voice  from  the  Young  Men  of  the  Orient.  By  Mr.  Herant  M. 
K1RETCHJI.A.N,  Constantinople.     -        -         -         -  Pages  1 276-1 279 

The  Future  of  Religion  in  Japan.    By  Mr.  Nobuta  Kishimoto,  Oka- 

yama. Pages  1 279-1 283 

Christianity — What  is  it?    By  Rev.  J.  T.  Vokoi.         Pages  1283-1284 

s/Arbitration  instead  ok  War.   By  Rev.  Shaku  Soyen.  Page  1285 

Synthetic  Religion.     By  Kinza  Riuge  M.  Hirai.  Pages  1286-1288 

Points  ok  Resemblance  and  Dikkerence  between  Buddhism  and 
Christianity,     By  H.  Dhar.mai'ala,  Ceylon.      -       Pages  1288-1290 

A  Declaration  of  Faith,  and  the  Truth  ok  Buddhism.  By  Yoshi- 
GlRO  Kawai,  Japan. Pages  1 290-1293 

Some  Characteristics  of  Buddhism  as  it  exists  in  Japan  which 
indicate  that  it  is  not  a  final  Religion.  By  the  Rev.  M.  L. 
Gordon,  of  the  Doshisha  School,  Kyoto.    -         -  Pages  1293-1296 

Buddhism  and  Christianity.  By  the  Rev.  Dr.  S.  G.  McFarland, 
Bankok, Pages  1 296-1 297 

What  the  Christian  Bible  has  wrought  for  the  Orient.  By  the 
Rev.  A.  Const.\ntian,  Constantinople.        -         -  Pages  1 298-1 300 

THE  SEVENTEENTH  DAY.— Religion  and  Music.  By  Mr.  W.  L. 
Tomlins,  Chicago.      -         -         -         -     -    .         .  Pages  1302-1303 

Elements  of  Universal  Religion.     By  the  Kev.  Dr.  Emil  G.  Hirsch,     ^ 
Chicago.         .---.-.-      Pages  1304-1308 

:'     The  World's  Salvation.      By  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Duke  McP'adden, 
'^  Carleton,  Nebraska.        .......         Page  1308 

What  has  Christianity  done  for  the  Chinese?  By  the  Rev.  Y.  K. 
Yen. Pages  1309-1312 

.  '  How  to  Achieve  Religious  Unity.  By  the  Rev.  Dr.  Willia.m  R- 
Alger,  Boston. Pages  1312-1315 

i^  Evolution  and  Christianity.  By  Henry  Drummond,  LL.D.,  F.  R.  S.  E., 
F.  G.  S. Pages  1316-1325 

The  Future  ok  Religion.     By  Mr.  Merwin-.Marie  Snem.. 

Pages  1 325-1 327 

The  Religion  of  the  Future.    By  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Talbot  Gracey, 

Rochester. Pages  1327- 1330 

The  Ultimate  Reliciion.      By  the   Right    Rev.  John  J.  Keane,  D.D., 

Washington. ,  Pages  1331-1338 

J      Christ  the  Unifier   ok    \L\nkind.      By  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  Dana 
Board.man,  Philadelphia.  ....  Pages  1338-1^46 


/ 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS.  Si  5 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  SECTION. 
KEroRTS  .\ND  .VBSTR.VCTS  OF  r.M'ERS. 

Skkvick  <)K  riiK.  SciKNCK  i)K  Rklicions  to  Uni  ty  a.n'I)  .Mission  Enikr- 
PRisK.     (Jpeuinij  .-Kdclress  by  Mr.  .Mek\vi.n-.\I.\rie  Sneli.,  Chairman. 

I'age  1347 

Thk  Ec.viMiAN  Rki.icio.n  a.ni)  its  I.nki.ue.nce  O.N  oiHEK  Kki.iuions.  15y 
J.  A.  S.  Grant  (Bey)  A.-M.,  M.D.,  LE.D.    -         -         Pages  1348-1349 

Genesis  and  Devei.oi'.ment  ok  Confucia.vism.  By  Dr.  Ernst  Fahek, 
Shanghai.    .---...-         Pages  1 350-1 353 

Zoroastrianism.     By  the  Parsees  of  Bombay.  -  Pages  1353-1354 

Taoism:    .\  Prize  Essay. Pages  1355-1358 

The  Natu-ke-Rei.igion  ok  the  New  Hebrides.     By  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 

G.  Paton.  -         -         -         -         -    .    -         -         Pages  135S-1360 

The  E.stimate.  ok  Human   Dignity  in  the    Lower    Religions.      By 

Prof.  Leon  Marii.lier,  Paris. Page  1361 

Some  Superstitions  ok  North  Africa  and  Egypt.     By  the  Rev.  B.  F. 

KiUDER,  Ph.D. Page  1362 

Conditions  and  Ol'ti.ook  for  a  Universal  Religion.  By  Prof. 
Albert  Reville,  D.D.,  Paris     -         -         -         -         Pages  1363-1367 

Principles  of  the  Scientific  Classification  of  Religions.  By  Jean 
Reville,  Lecturer  at  the  Sorbonne,  Paris.  -  Pages  1367-1369 

The  Dev  DilARM.  By  a  Member  of  the  Mission.  -  Pages  1369- 1370 
Origin  OK  Siiintoism.  By  Takayoshi  NLxtslgama.  Pages  1370- 1373 
The  Shinto  Religion.  By  P.  Goro  Kabcragi  -  Pages  1373-1374 
The  Three  Principles  of  Shintoism.     Bv  Nishikawa  Sugao. 

Pages  1374-1375 

The  Relations  ok  the  Science  ok  Religions  to  Philosophy.     By  Mr. 

Merwin-.\La.rie  Snell. Page  1375 

The  Tenkalai  S'ri  Vaishnava,  or  Southern   Ra.manl'ja  Religion. 

By  S.  Parthasarathy  .Vivangar,  Madras.         -         Pages  1376-1378 
Why   Protestant    Missionaries    in   China   should    unite   in    using 

"Tien-Chu"  for  God.     By  Dr.  Henry  Bi.odgett.  Pages  1378-1380 

The  Doctrine  and  Life  of  the  Shakers.     By  D.  Offord.     Page  1380 

PART    FOURTH. 
THE  DEN0ML\.\TI0NAL   CONGRESSES. 

Presentation  ok  the  .Vnglican  Church.  By  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas 
Richey,  New  V(jri<. -         Pages  1383-1390 

The  Advent  Christian  Church  Congress.  Speech  by  Rev.  D.  R. 
Manskield.     Paper  by  the  Rev.  .Miles  Grant.  -        Pages  1391-1392 

African  Methodist  Episcopal  Congress.  -        Pages  1394-1396 

The  Presentation  of  the  Baptist  Churches.  By  the  Rev.  Dr. 
George  C.  Lorimer,  Boston.     ...         -         Pages  1397-1402 

The  Seventh  Day  Baptist  Congress.       -        -  Pages  1402-1406 


8l6  TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 

The  Christian  Science  Congress.       -        -        -  Pages  1419-1429 

The  Congregational  Congress.        .        .        -        .  Pages  1429-1433 

The  Women's  Congregational  Congress.     -         -  Pages  1434-1436 

The  Congress  of  the  Disciples  of  Christ.   -        -  Pages  1436-1440 

The  Evangelical  Alliance  Congress.          -         -  Pages  1441-1449 

[This  report  belongs  among  those  of  the  Interdenominational  Congresses.] 

The  Congress  of  the  Evangelical  Association.  Pages  1449-1453 
Presentation    of   the    Free    Baptist   Church.     By   Dr.  James  A. 

Howe.      -          - Pages  1453-1456 

Congress  of  the  Society  of  Friends  (Orthodox).     -  Pages  1456-1457 

Congress  of  the  Society  of  Friends  (Hicksite).  Pages  1457-1460 
Presentation  of  the   German  Evangelical  Church.    By  the  Rev. 

J.  G.  Kircher,  Chicago. Pages  1460-1461 

The  Jewish  Congress  (Inc.  Jewish  Women).      -         -  Pages  1461-1467 

Lutheran  General  Synod  Congress.  -        -        -  Pages  1468-1473 

Lutheran  General  Council  Congress.    -        -        -  Pages  1473-1477 

Lutheran  Missouri  Synod  Congress.    -        -        -  Pages  1477-1478 

Methodist  Episcopal  Congress.        ....  Pages  1480-1488 

New  Jerusalem  Church  Congress.        -        -        -  Pages  1488-1495 

The  Presbyterian  Congress. Pages  1495-1504 

Cumberland  Presbyterian  Congress.          -        -  Pages  1504-1507 

Reformed  Episcopalian  Congress.          -         -       •-  Pages  1507-1510 

Congress  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  U.  S.      -  Pages  1511-1514 

Swedish  Evangelical  Mission  Covenant.      -        -  Pages  1514-1517 

The  Theosophical  Congress.       ....  Pages  1517-1522 

The  Unitarian    Congress. Pages  1522-1528 

United  Brethren  Congress,  by  L  L.Kephart,  D.D.  Pages  152S-1531 

The  Universalist  Congress.        ....  Pages  1531-1535 

Inter-Deno.minational  Congresses.          -        -        -  Pages  1536-1554 

Congress  of  Missions. Pages  1536-1549 

Sunday  Rest  Congress. Pages  1 549-1 553 

Other  Congresses. Page  1554 

PART    FIFTH. 

REVIEW  AND  SUMMARY. 

Chapter  I.     Spirit  of  the  Parliament.        -        -  Pages  1557-1566 

Chapter  II.     Influence, of  the  Parliament.      -  Pages  1568-1582 

Biographical  Notes. Page  1584 

Index. Page  1590 


PART   THIRD. 


THE    PARLIAMENT    PAPERS. 


THE  EIGHTH  DA  Y—  Continued. 


JEWISH  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  CIVILIZATION. 
By  Prof.  D.  G.  Lyo.v,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

In  this  glad  Columbian  year,  when  all  the  world  is  rejoicing  with  us, 
and  in  this  hall,  consecrated  to  the  greatest  idea  of  the  century,  I  could 
perform  no  task  more  welcome  than  that  to  which  I  have  been  assigned,  the 
task  of  paying  a  tribute  based  on  history.  I  shall  use  the  word  "Jew"  not 
in  the  religious  but  in  the  ethnic  sense.  In  so  doing  the  antithesis  to  Jew  is 
not  Christian,  but  non-Jew  or  Gentile.  The  position  of  the  Jews  in  the 
world  is  peculiar.  They  may  be  Englishmen,  German,  American,  and,  as 
such,  loyal  to  the  land  of  their  birth.  They  may  or  may  not  continue  to 
adhere  to  a  certain  phase  of  religion.  But  they  cannot  avoid  being  known 
as  the  scattered  fragments  of  a  nation.  Most  of  them  are  as  distinctly 
marked  by  mental  traits  and  by  physiognomy  as  is  a  typical  Englishman, 
German,  or  Chinaman. 

The  Jew,  as  thus  described,  is  in  our  midst  an  American,  and  has  all 
reasons  to  be  glad  which  belong  to  the  community  at  large,  but  his  unique 
position  to-day  and  his  importance  in  history  justify  the  inquiry,  whether  he 
may  not  have  special  reasons  for  rejoicine  in  this  auspicious  year. 

I.  Such  ground  for  rejoicing  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  discovery  and  set- 
tlement of  .\merica  was  the  work  of  faith.  Columbus  believed  in  the  exist- 
ence and  attainableness  of  that  wliich  neither  he  nor  his  fellows  had  ever 
seen.  Apart  from  his  own  character  and  his  aims  in  the  voyage  of  discov- 
ery, it  was  this  belief  that  saved  him  from  discouragement  and  held  his 
bark  true  to  its  western  course.  What  though  he  found  something  greater 
than  he  sought,  it  was  his  belief  in  the  smaller  that  made  the  greater  dis- 
covery possible. 

Copyright.  i8g3,  by  J.  H.  B. 

5-:  817 


Si 8  r.vRi.iAMKN'i-  ['ai-kks:  Ki(;m-|[  dav. 

What  is  true  of  the  discovery  is  true  of  tlie  settlement  of  America.  This 
too  was  an  act  of  faith.  The  colonists  of  Chesapeake  and  Massachusetts 
Bays  left  the  comforts  of  the  Old  World,  braved  the  dangers  of  sea,  and  cold 
and  savage  populations,  because  they  believed  in  something  which  could  be 
felt,  though  not  seen,  the  guidance  of  a  hand  which  directs  the  destiny  of 
individuals  and  of  empires. 

Now  the  Jews,  as  a  people,  stand  in  a  preeminent  degree  for  faith. 
They  must  be  judged  not  by  those  of  their  number  who  in  our  day  give  them- 
selves over  to  a  life  of  materialism,  but  by  their  best  representatives  and  by 
the  general  current  of  their  history.  At  the  fountain  of  their  being  they  place 
a  man  whose  name  is  the  synonym  of  faith.  Abraham,  the  first  Jew,  nurtured 
in  the  comforts  and  refinements  of  a  civdii:ation  whose  grandeur  is  just  begin- 
ning to  find  due  appreciation,  hears  an  inward,  compelling  voice,  bidding  him 
forsake  the  land  of  his  fathers  and  go  forth,  he  knows  not  whither,  to  lay  in 
the  distant  West  the  foundations  of  the  empire  of  faith.  The  hopes  of  the 
entire  subsequent  world  encamped  in  the  tent  of  the  wanderer  from  Ur  of 
Chaldaea.  The  migration  was  a  splendid  adventure,  prophetic  of  the  great 
development  of  it  which  was  the  beginning. 

What  was  it  but  the  audacity  of  faith  which  in  later  times  enabled  an 
Isaiah  to  defy  the  most  powerful  army  in  the  world,  and  Jeremiah  to  be  firm 
to  his  convictions  in  the  midst  of  a  city  full  of  enemies  ?  What  but  faith 
could  have  held  together  the  exiles  in  Babylon  and  could  have  inspired 
them  once  more  to  exchange  this  home  of  ease  and  luxurv  for  the  hardships 
and  uncertainties  of  their  devastated  Palestinian  hills  ?  It  was  faith  that 
nerved  the  arm  of  the  Maccabees  for  their  heroic  struggle,  and  the  sublimity 
of  faith  when  the  dauntless  daughter  of  Zion  defied  the  power  of  Rome. 
The  brute  force  of  Rome  won  the  day,  but  the  Jews,  dispersed  throughout 
the  world,  have  still  been  true  to  the  foundation  principle  of  their  history. 
They  believe  that  God  has  spoken  to  the  fathers  and  that  he  has  not  forsaken 
the  children,  and  through  that  belief  they  endure. 

II.  A  second  ground  for  Jewish  rejoicing  to-day  is  that  America  in  its 
develojjuient  is  reali<;ing  Jewish  dreams. 

A  bolder  dreamer  than  the  Hebrew  prophet  the  world  has  not  known. 
He  reveled  in  glowing  pictures  of  home  and  prosperity  and  brotherhood  in 
the  good  times  which  were  vet  to  be.  The  strength  of  his  wing  as  poet  is 
seen  in  his  ai)ilitv  to  take  these  flights  at  times  when  all  outwartl  appear- 
ances were  a  denial  of  his  hopes.  It  was  nnl  the  prosperous  state  whose 
contiuuance  lie  foresaw,  but  the  decaying  state,  destined  to  be  shattered. 
then  burieil,  then  rebuilt,  to  continue  forever.  It  was  not  external  power, 
but  external  power  in  alliance  with  inward  goodness,  whose  description 
called  forth  his  highest  genius.  Hi.i  dream,  it  is  tiue,  had  its  temporal  and 
its  local  coloring.  His  coming  state,  ijuiit  nn  righteousness,  was  to  be  a 
kingiloMi,  because  this  was  the  form  of  gmeriiment  with  which  he  was 
familiar.     The  seat  of  this  empire  was  to  be  Jerusalem,  and  his  patriot  heart 


LVON:  JEWISH  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  CIVILIZATION.      819 

could  have  made  no  other  choice.  We  are  now  learning  to  distinguish  the 
essential  ideas  of  a  writer  from  the  phraseology  in  which  they  find  expres- 
sion. A  Jewish  empire  does  not  exist,  and  Jerusalem  is  not  the  mistress  of 
the  world.  And  yet  the  dream  of  the  prophet  is  true.  A  home  for  the 
oppressed  has  been  found,  a  home  where  prosperity  and  brotherhood  dwell 
together.  Substitute  America  for  Jerusalem  and  a  republic  for  a  kingdom, 
and  the  correctness  of  the  prophet's  dream  is  realized.  Let  us  e.xamine  the 
details  of  the  picture. 

I.  The  prophet  foresees  a  home.  In  this  he  is  true  to  one  of  the 
marked  traits  of  his  people.  Who  has  sung  more  sweetly  than  the  Hebrew 
poet  of  home,  where  every  man  shall  "  sit  under  his  vine  and  under  his  fig- 
tree,  and  none  shall  make  them  afraid  ;  "  where  the  father  of  a  large  family 
is  like  the  fortunate  hunter  whose  quiver  is  full  of  arrows;  where  the  , 
children  are  likened  to  olive  plants  around  the  father's  table,  and  where  a 
cardinal  virtue  of  childhood  is  honor  to  father  and  mother  ?  And  where 
shall  one  look  to-day  for  finer  types  of  domestic  felicity  than  may  be  found 
in  Jewish  homes  ?  Or,  taking  the  word  home  in  its  larger  sense,  where 
shall  one  surpass  the  splendid  patriotism  of  the  Hebrew  poet  exile : 

"  If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem, 
Let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning. 
Let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth. 
If  I  remember  thee  not ; 
If  I  prefer  not  Jerusalem, 
Above  my  chief  joy." 

Yet  notwithstanding  this  love  of  a  local  habitation  the  Jew  has  been  for 
many  cruel  centuries  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  nations 
have  raged,  the  kings  of  the  earth  have  set  themselves  and  the  rulers  have 
taken  counsel  together,  and  the  standing  miracle  of  history  is  that  the  Jew 
has  not  been  ground  to  powder  as  between  the  upper  and  the  nether  mill- 
stone. 

But  these  hardships  are  now,  let  us  hope,  near  their  end.  This  young 
republic  has  welcomed  the  Jew  who  has  fled  the  oppression  of  the  Old 
World.  Its  constitution  declares  the  equality  of  men,  and  experience 
demonstrates  our  power  to  assimilate  all  comers  who  desire  to  be  one  with 
us.  Here  thought  and  its  expression  are  free.  Here  is  the  restful  haven 
which  realizes  the  prophet's  dream.  Not  the  Jew  only,  but  all  the  oppressed 
of  earth  may  here  find  welcome  and  home.  The  inspiring  example  of 
Columbia's  portals  always  open  to  the  world  is  destined  to  alleviate  the  ills 
and  check  the  crimes  of  man  against  man  throughout  all  lands.  And  what 
though  here  and  there  a  hard  and  unphilanthropic  soul  would  bolt  Colum- 
bia's doors  and  recall  her  invitation  or  check  her  free  intercourse  with 
nations?  This  is  but  the  eddy  in  her  course,  and  to  heed  these  harsh 
advices  she  must  be  as  false  t(j  her  own  past  as  to  her  splendid  ideal, 
dearv  exclusion  acts  and  some  of  the  current  doctrines  of  protective  tarilf 
are  as  un-Ainerican  as  they  are  inhuman. 


820  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

2.  But  the  Jewish  dream  was  no  less  of  prosperity  than  of  home.  Amer- 
ica realizes  this  feature  of  the  dream  to  an  extent  never  seen  before.  Where 
should  one  seek  for  a  parallel  to  her  inexhaustible  resources  and  her  phe- 
nomenal material  development !  And  no  element  of  the  community  has 
understood  better  than  the  Jewish  to  reap  the  harvests  which  are  ever  tempt- 
ing the  sickles  of  industry.  Jewish  names  are  numerous  and  potent  in 
the  exchanges  and  in  all  great  commercial  enterprises.  The  spirit  that 
schooled  itself  by  hard  contact  with  Judaean  hills,  that  has  been  held  in 
check  by  adversity  for  twenty-five  centuries,  shows  in  this  free  land  the 
elasticity  of  the  uncaged  eagle.  Not  only  trade,  but  all  other  avenues  of 
advance,  are  here  open  to  men  of  endowments,  of  whatsoever  race  and 
climei  In  journalism,  in  education,  in  philanthropy,  the  Jews  will  average 
as  well  as  the  Gentiles,  perhaps  better,  while  many  individual  Jews  have 
risen  to  an  enviable  eminence. 

3.  A  third  feature  in  the  Jewish  dream,  an  era  of  brotherhood  and  good 
feeling,  is  attaining  here  a  beautiful  realization. 

Nowhere  have  we  finer  illustrations  of  this  than  in  the  attitude  toward 
the  Jews  of  the  great  seats  of  learning.  The  oldest  and  largest  American 
university  employs  its  instructors  without  applying  any  tests  of  race  or  relig- 
ion. In  its  faculty  Jews  are  always  found.  To  its  liberal  feast  of  learning 
there  is  a  constant  and  increasing  resort  of  ambitious  Jewish  youth.  Har- 
vard is,  of  course,  not  peculiar  in  this  regard.  There  are  other  seats  of 
learning  where  wisdom  invites  as  warmly  to  her  banquet  halls,  and  notably 
the  great  Chicago  University.  The  spectacle  at  Harvard  is,  however, 
specially  gratifying,  because  there  seems  to  be  prophetically  embodied  in  her 
seal,  "Christo  el  Ecclesia"  an  acknowledgment  of  her  obligations  to  the 
Jew,  and  a  dedication  of  her  powers  to  a  Jewish  carpenter  and  to  a  Jewish 
institution. 

4.  The  era  of  brotherhood  is  also  seen  in  the  cooperation  of  Jew  and 
Gentile  to  further  good  causes.  To  refer  again,  by  permission,  to  Harvard 
University,  one  of  its  unique  and  most  significant  collections  is  a  Semitic 
Museum,  fostered  by  many  friends,  but  chiefly  by  a  Jew.  And  it  is  a  pleas- 
ure to  add  here  that  one  of  the  great  departments  of  the  library  of  Chicago 
University  has  been  adopted  by  the  Jews.  Although  taxed  to  the  utmost 
to  care  for  their  destitute  brethren  who  seek  our  shores  to  escape  Old 
World  persecutions,  the  Jews  are  still  ever  ready  to  join  others  in  good 
works  for  the  relief  of  human  need.  If  Baron  Hirsch's  colossal  benefac- 
tions distributed  in  America  are  restricted  to  Jews,  it  is  because  this  philan- 
thropist sees  in  these  unfortunate  refugees  the  most  needy  subjects  of  bene- 
faction. 

5.  But  most  significant  of  all  is  the  fact  that  we  are  beginning  to 
understand  one  another  in  a  religious  sense.  When  Jewish  rabbis  are 
invited  to  deliver  religious  lectures  at  great  Universities,  and  when  Jewish 
congregations  welcome  Columbian  addresses  from  Christian  ministers,  we 


REV.  JULIAN  K.  SMVTH. 

RF.V.  S.J.  NICCOLLS. 

I'RES.  SV[,VF,STF.R  F.  SCilVKF.. 


I'kOi'.  I).  G.  LVON. 

PROF.  A.  B,  BRUCK. 

RKV.  MARIAN  MURDOCK. 


B22  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

seem  to  have  made  a  long  step  towards  acquaintance  with  one  another. 
The  discussion  now  going  on  among  Jews  regarding  the  adoption  of  Sun- 
day as  the  day  of  public  worship,  and  the  Jewish  recognition  of  the  great- 
ness of  Jesus,  which  finds  expression  in  synagogue  addresses — such  things 
are  prophecies  whose  significance  the  thoughtful  hearer  will  not  fail  to  per- 
ceive. 

Now  what  is  the  result  of  this  close  union,  of  which  I  have  instanced  a 
few  examples,  in  learning,  in  philanthropy,  and  in  affairs  religious  ?  Is  it 
not  the  removal  of  mutual  misunderstandings  ?  So  long  as  Judaism  and 
American  Christianity  stand  aloof,  each  will  continue  to  ascribe  to  the  other 
the.vices  of  its  most  unworthy  representatives.  But  when  they  meet  and 
learn  to  know  .one  another,  they  find  a  great  common  standing-ground. 
Judging  each  by  its  best,  each  can  have  for  the  other  only  respect  and  good 
will. 

The  one  great  exception  to  the  tenor  of  these  remarks  is  in  matters 
social.  There  does  not  exist  that  free  intercourse  between  Jews  and  non- 
Jews  which  one  might  reasonably  expect.  One  of  the  causes  is  religious 
prejudice  on  both  sides,  but  the  chief  cause  is  the  evil  already  mentioned,  of 
estimating  Jews  and  non-Jews  by  the  least  worthy  members  of  the  two  classes. 
The  Jew  who  is  forced  to  surrender  all  his  goods  and  flee  from  Russian 
oppression,  or  who  purchases  the  right  to  remain  in  the  Czar's  empire  by  a 
sacrifice  of  his  faith,  can  hardly  be  blamed  if  he  sees  only  the  bad  in  those 
who  call  themselves  Christians.  If  one  of  these  refugees  prospers  in  America 
and  carries  himself  in  a  lordly  manner,  and  makes  himself  distasteful  even 
to  the  cultivated  among  his  co-religionists,  can  it  be  wondered  at  that  others 
transfer  his  bad  manners  to  other  Jews  ?  But  let  Jew  and  non-Jew  come  to 
understand  one  another,  and  the  refinement  in  the  one  will  receive  its  full 
recognition  from  the  refinement  in  the  other.  Acquaintance  and  a  good 
heart  are  the  checks  against  the  unthinking  condemnation  by  classes. 

III.  A  third  and  main  reason  why  the  Jew  should  rejoice  in  this  Colum- 
bian year  is  that  American  society  is,  in  an  important  sense,  produced  and 
held  together  by  Jewish  thought. 

The  justification  of  this  assertion  forces  on  us  the  question.  What  has  the 
Jew  done  for  civilization  ? 

First  of  all  he  has  given  us  the  Bible,  the  Scriptures,  old  and  new.  It 
matters  not  for  this  discussion  that  the  Jews,  as  a  religious  sect,  have  never 
given  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  the  dignity  of  canonicity.  It  suf- 
fices that  those  books,  with  one,  or  possibly  two,  exceptions,  were  written  by 
men  of  Jewish  birth. 

I.  And  where  shall  one  go,  if  not  to  the  Bible,  to  find  the  noblest  liter- 
ature of  the  soul  ?  Where  shall  one  find  so  well  expressed  as  in  the  Psalms 
the  longing  for  God  and  the  deep  satisfaction  of  his  presence  ?  Where 
burning  indignation  against  wrong-doing  more  strongly  portrayed  than  in 
the  prophets  ?     Where  such  a  picture  as  the  Gospels  give  of  love  that  con- 


LYON:  JEWISH  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  CIVILIZATION.     823 

sumes  itself  in  sacrifice  ?  The  highest  hopes  and  moods  of  the  soul  reached 
such  attainment  among  the  Jews  two  thousand  years  ago  that  the  interven- 
ing ages  have  not  yet  shown  one  step  in  advance. 

2.  Viewed  as  a  hand-book  of  ethics  the  Bible  has  a  power  second  only 
to  its  exalted  position  as  a  classic  of  the  soul.  The  "  Ten  Words,"  though 
negatively  expressed,  are  in  their  second  half  an  admirable  statement  of  the 
fundamental  relations  of  man  to  man.  Paul's  eulogy  of  love  is  an  unmatched 
masterpiece  of  the  foundation  principle  of  right  living.  The  adoption  of  the 
Golden  Rule  by  all  men  would  banish  crime  and  convert  earth  into  a  paradise. 

3.  The  characters  depicted  in  the  Bible  are  in  their  way  no  less  effective 
than  the  teachings  regarding  ethics  and  religion.  Indeed,  that  which  is  so 
admirable  in  these  characters  is  the  rare  combination  of  ethics  and  religion 
which,  finds  in  them  expression.  In  Abraham  we  see  hospitality  and  faith 
attaining  to  adequate  expression.  Grant,  if  you  will,  the  claim  that  part  of 
the  picture  is  unhistorical.  Aye,  let  one  have  it  who  will,  that  such  a  person 
as  Abraham  never  existed  at  all.  The  character,  as  a  creation,  does  as  much 
honor  to  the  Jew  who  conceived  it  as  the  man,  if  real,  does  to  the  race  to 
which  he  belonged.  Moses  is  the  pattern  of  the  unselfish,  state-building 
patriot,  who  despised  hardships  because  "he  endured  as  seeing  Him  who  is 
invisible."  Jeremiah  will  forever  be  inspiration  to  reformers  whose  lot  is 
cast  in  degenerate  days.  Paul  is  the  sj-nonym  of  self-denying  zeal,  which 
can  be  content  with  nothing  less  than  a  gigantic  effort  to  carry  good  news  to 
the  entire  world. 

And  Jesus  was  a  Jew.  How  often  is  this  fact  forgotten,  so  completely 
is  he  identified  with  the  history  of  the  world  at  large  !  We  say  to  ourselves 
that  such  a  commanding  personality  is  too  universal  for  national  limitations. 
We  overlook  perchance  the  Judaean  birth  and  the  Galilean  training.  Far 
be  it  from  me  to  attempt  an  estimate  of  the  significance  of  the  character  and 
work  of  Jesus  for  human  progress.  Nothing  short  of  omniscience  could  per- 
form such  a  task.  My  purpose  is  attained  by  reminding  myself  and  others 
anew  of  the  nationality  of  him  whom  an  important  part  of  the  world  has 
agreed  to  consider  the  greatest  and  best  of  human  kind. 

I  do  not  forget  that  the  Jews  have  not  yet,  in  large  numbers,  admitted 
the  greatness  of  Jesus,  but  this  failure  may  be  largely  explained  as  the  effect 
of  certain  theological  teachings  concerning  his  person,  and  of  the  sufferings 
which  Jews  have  endured  at  the  hands  of  those  who  bear  his  name.  But 
in  that  name,  and  that  personality  rightly  conceived,  there  is  such  potency  to 
bless  and  to  elevate,  that  I  can  see  no  reason  why  Jesus  should  not  become 
to  the  Jews  the  greatest  and  most  beloved  of  all  their  illustrious  teachers. 

Viewing  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  as  a  library  of  ethics,  of  religion,  of  ethi- 
cal-religious character,  its  influence  on  language,  on  devotion,  on  growth  in 
a  hundred  directions  exceeds  all  human  computation. 

Along  with  the  Sacred  Writings  have  come  to  the  race,  through  the 
Jews,  certain  great  doctrines. 


824  PARLIAMKNT    PAPERS:    EIGII  IK    DAY. 

Foremost  of  these  is  the  belief  in  one  God.  Greek  philosophy,  it  is  true, 
was  also  able  to  formulate  a  doctrine  of  monotheism,  but  the  monotheism 
which  has  perpetuated  itself  is  that  announced  by  Hebrew  seer  and  not  by 
Greek  philosopher.  Something  was  wanting  to  make  the  doctrine  more  than 
a  cold  formula,  and  that  something  the  Jew  supplied.  It  is  the  phase  of 
monotheism  which  he  attained  that  has  commended  itself  to  the  peoples  of 
Europe  and  America,  to  the  teeming  millions  of  Islam,  and  whose  adoption 
by  the  remaining  nations  of  earth  is  more  than  a  pious  hope. 

This  God,  who  is  one,  is  not  a  blind  force,  working  on  lines  but  half 
defined,  coming  to  consciousness  only  as  he  attains  to  expression  in  his  uni- 
verse, but  he  is  a  wise  architect  whose  devising  all  things  are.  The 
heavens  declare  his  glory,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork. 

His  government  is  well  ordered  and  right.  Chance  and  fate  have  here 
lo  place.  No  sparrow  falls  without  him.  The  very  hairs  of  your  head  are 
numbered.  Righteousness  is  the  habitation  of  his  throne.  Shall  not  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right? 

This  one  God,  maker  and  governor  of  all  things,  is  more,  he  is  our 
Father.  Man  is  created  in  his  image,  man's  nostrils  set  vibrating  with  the 
divine  breath.  The  prayer  of  all  prayers  begins :  "  Our  Father."  What 
infinite  dignity  and  value  does  this  doctrine  place  upon  the  human  soul ! 
From  God  we  come  and  his  perpetual  care  we  are.  How  this  conviction 
lifts  men  above  all  pettiness  and  discouragement !  Am  I  his  co-worker 
with  him  on  lines  which  he  has  pre-ordained?  Then  mine  the  joyful  task  to 
work  with  zeal  in  the  good  cause  whose  sure  success  is  seen  by  him  though 
not  by  me. 

If  God  be  our  Father,  then  are  we  brothers?  The  convenient  distinctions 
among  men,  the  division  of  men  into  classes,  are  all  superficial,  all  based  on 
externals.  In  essence  men  are  one.  If  we  be  all  brothers,  then  brotherly 
duties  rest  upon  us  all.  Due  recognition  of  our  brotherhood  would  stay  the 
act  or  thought  of  wrong,  and  open  in  every  heart  a  fountain  of  love.  Broth- 
ers !  then  will  I  seek  the  Father's  features  in  every  face  and  try  to  arouse 
in  every  soul  the  consciousness  of  its  lofty  kinship. 

The  immortality  of  the  soul,  though  not  distinctively  a  Jewish  belief,  is 
implied  in  much  of  the  Old  Testament,  is  clearly  announced  in  Daniel,  is 
well  defined  in  the  centuries  preceding  our  era,  and  in  the  New  Testament 
is  often  stated  and  everywhere  esteemed.  This  doctrine  was  rescued  by  the 
monotheism  of  the  Jew  from  the  grotesque  features  and  ceremonies  which 
characterized  it  among  the  Babylonians,  the  Egyptians  and  the  Greeks.  The 
spiritual  genius  of  the  Jew,  while  asserting  unequivocally  the  fact,  and  empha- 
sizing the  moral  significance,  has  wisely  abstained  from  an  expression  of 
opinion  regarding  a  thousand  details. 

By  the  side  of  these  great  doctrines  concerning  God,  his  fatherhood, 
man's  brotherhood,  the  soul,  its  dignity  and  immortality,  we  must  place  yet 
another,  the  Jewish  conception  of  the  golden  age.     This  age  to  him  is  not 


LYON:   JEWISH  CONTRIBU'TIONS  TO  CIVILIZATION.      825 

past  but  future.  He  had,  it  is  true,  his  picture  of  Eden,  that  garden  of  God 
where  the  first  mm  held  free  converse  with  his  maker.  But  this  picture  is 
not  of  Jewish  origin.  It  came  from  Babylon,  and  never  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing a  strong  impression  on  the  national  thought.  The  Old  Testament 
scarcely  refers  to  it  outside  of  the  narrative  in  Genesis.  In  view  of  the 
emphasis  given  to  the  story  by  later  theologies,  the  reserve  in  the  New 
Testament  is  likewise  most  significant.  The  reason  is  clear.  The  age  of  gold 
is  yet  to  be.  Prophet  and  apostle  and  apocalyptic  seer  vie  with  one  another  ' 
in  describing  the  glory  of  renewed  humanity  in  the  coming  kingdom  of 
God.  The  Jew  cannot  fasten  his  thought  on  a  shattered  fortune.  Th; 
brilliant  castle  which  he  is  yet  to  build  is  too  entrancing  to  his  vision.  There 
is  here  no  place  for  tears  over  the  remote  past,  but  only  a  fond  looking  for- 
ward and  working  toward  the  dawn  of  the  day  of  righteousness  and  of 
peace. 

IV.  I  have  spoken  of  our  indebtedness  to  the  Jew  for  the  Bible  and  its 
great  doctrines.  We  are  under  no  less  obligations  for  certain  great  institu- 
tions. 

1.  Whence  comes  our  day  of  rest,  one  in  seven,  this  beneficent  provision 
for  recreation  of  man  and  beast,  this  day  consecrated  by  the  experience  of 
centuries  to  good  deeds  and  holy  thoughts  ?  We  meet  with  indications  of  a 
seven-day  division  of  time  in  an  Assjiian  calendar  tablet,  but  we  are  able 
to  assert  definitely  by  a  study  of  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  commercial 
records  that  these  people  had  nothing  which  corresponded  to  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath, the  very  name  of  which  means  rest.  The  origin  of  the  Sabbath  may 
well  have  to  do  with  the  moon's  phases.  But  the  Jew  viewed  the  day  with 
such  sacredness  that  he  makes  its  institution  coeval  wilh  the  work  of  cre- 
ation. From  him  it  has  become  the  possession  of  the  western  world,  and  its 
significance  for  our  well-being,  physical,  moral  ^nd  spiritual,  is  vaster  than 
can  be  computed. 

2.  I  have  spoken  already  of  Jesus  as  a  Jew.  Then  is  the  religion  which 
bears  his  name  a  Jewish  institution  ?  It  has  elements  which  are  not  Jewish  ; 
it  has  passed  into  the  keeping  of  those  who  are  not  Jews.  But  its  earliest 
advocates  and  disciples,  no  less  than  its  founder,  were  Jews.  Not  only  so, 
but  these  all  considered  Jesus,  his  teaching  and  the  teaching  concerning  him, 
as  the  culmination  of  the  Hebrew  development,  the  fulfillment  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets'  hope.'  Many  causes  have  wrought  together  to  ensure  the  victory 
which  Christianity  has  won  in  this  world.  But  those  who  are  filled  with  its 
true  spirit  and  who  are  thoughtful  can  never  forget  its  Judaean  origin. 

3.  To  the  same  source  we  must  likewise  trace  institutional  Christianity, 
the  church.  The  first  church  was  at  Jerusalem.  The  first  churches  were 
among  devout  Jews  dispersed  in  the  great  Gentile  centers  of  population. 
The  ordinances  of  the  church  have  an  intimate  connection  with  Jewish  relig- 

I  The  greatest  expounder  of  Christianity  writes  to  the  Romans  that  they  have  been 
grafted  into  the  olive  stock  of  which  the  Jews  were  branches  by  nature. 


826  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

ious  usages.  In  the  course  of  a.  long  development  other  elements  have  crept  in. 
But  in  her  main  features  the  churcii  bears  ever  tlie  stamp  of  her  origin. 
The  service  is  Jewish.  We  still  reail  from  the  Jewish  Psalter,  we  still  sing 
the  themes  of  Psalmist  and  apostle,  the  aim  of  the  sermon  is  still  to  rouse 
the  listener  to  the  adoption  of  Jewish  ideas  ;  we  pray  in  phraseology  taken 
from  Jewish  Scriptures.  Our  Sunday  schools  have  for  their  prime  object 
acquaintance  with  Jewish  writings.  Our  missions  are  designed  to  tell  men 
of  God's  love  as  revealed  to  them  through  a  Jew.  Our  church  and  Chris- 
tian charities  are  but  the  embodiment  of  the  Golden  Rule  as  uttered  by  a 
Jew. 

4.  It  may  furthermore  be  fairly  said  that  the  Jew,  through  these  writings, 
doctrines  and  institutions,  has  bequeathed  to  the  world  the  highest  ideals  of 
life.  On  the  binding  and  the  title-page  of  its  books  the  Jewish  Publication 
Society  of  America  has  pictured  the  lamb  and  the  lion  lying  down  together 
and  the  child  playing  with  the  asp,  while  underneath  the  picture  is  written 
the  words,  "  Israel's  mission  is  peace."  The  picture  tells  what  Israel's 
prophet  saw  more  than  twenty-five  centuries  ago.  The  subscription  tells 
less  than  the*  truth.  Israel's  mission  is  peace,  morality  and  religion  ;  or 
better  still,  Israel's  mission  is  peace  through  morality  and  religion.  This 
the  nation's  lesson  to  the  "world.  This  the  spirit  of  the  greatest  characters 
in  Israel's  history.  To  live  in  the  same  spirit,  in  a  word,  to  become  like 
the  foremost  of  all  Israelites — this  is  the  highest  that  any  jnan  has  yet 
ventured  to  hope. 

I  have  catalogued  with  some  detail,  though  by  no  means  with  fullness, 
Jewish  elements  in  our  civilization.  In  most  cases  I  have  passed  no  judg- 
ment on  these  elements.  If  one  were  disposed  to  inquire  into  their  value, 
he  might  answer  his  question  by  trying  to  conceive  what  we  should  be 
without  the  Bible,  its  characters,  doctrines,  ethics,  institutions,  hopes,  and 
ideals.  To  think  these  elements  absent  from  our  civilization  is  impossible, 
because  they  have  largely  made  us  what  we  are.  Not  more  closely  inter- 
locked are  the  warp  and  woof  of  a  fabric  than  are  these  elements  with  all 
that  is  best  and  highest  in  our  life  and  thought.  If  the  culture  of  our  day 
is  a  fairer  product  than  that  of  any  preceding  age,  we  cannot  fail  to  see 
how  far  we  are  indebted  for  this  to  the  Jew. 

My  purpose  has  not  been  to  inquire  by  what  means  the  little  nation  of 
Palestine  attained  to  its  unique  eminence.  Some  will  say  it  was  by  a  reve- 
lation made  to  them  alone,  others  that  they  were  fortunate  discoverers,  and 
yet  others  would  explain  it  all  by  the  spell,  "development."  Be  one  or  all 
these  answers  true,  the  Deity  can  reveal  himself  only  to  the  choice  souls 
who  have  understanding  for  the  higher  thought ;  discovery  is  made  only  by 
those  who  recognize  a  new  truth  when  it  floats  into  the  field  of  vision  ; 
development  is  only  growth  and  differentiation  from  germs  already  existing. 
Why  should  Israel  develop  unlike  any  other  people,  why  discover  truth  hid- 
den from  others,  why  become  receptacles  for  revelation  higher  than  any 


\    IKWl.-H   >\\.\i, 1/1,1   K.   lU-.kl.lN,  CI-.kMA.W 


828  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

attained  elsewhere  ?  This  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  history,  but  the  mys- 
tery can  in  no  wise  obscure  the  fact. 

However,  explained  or  unexplained,  the  Jewish  role  in  history  belongs 
to  the  most  splendid  achievements  of  the  human  race.  Alas,  that  these 
achievements  are  so  often  forgotten  !  Forgotten  by  the  Jew  himself,  when 
he  devotes  his  powers  to  the  problems  of  to-day  with  such  intensity  as  to  be 
indifferent  to  his  nation's  past.  Forgotten  by  those  among  whom  he  lives 
when  they  view  him  as  an  alien,  and  when  in  the  enjoyment  they  fail  to  rec- 
ognize the  source  of  some  of  their  greatest  blessings.  It  is  not  alone  the 
land  which  was  discovered  by  Columbus,  but  the  entire  world  owes  to  the 
Jew  a  debt  of  gratitude  which  never  can  be  paid. 

A  practical  closing  question  forces  itself  on  our  attention.  The  great 
r61e  in  history  was  played  by  this  people  while  it  had  a  national  or  semi- 
.  national  existence.  At  present  the  Jews  are  separated  from  the  rest  of  the 
community  mainly  by  certain  religious  observances.  Is  the  Jew  of  to-day 
worthy  of  the  glorious  past  of  his  people,  and  is  he  entitled  to  any  of  the 
consideration  which  impartial  history  must  accord  to  his  ancestors  ?  An 
affirmative  answer,  if  it  can  be  given,  ought  to  do  something  to  remove 
prejudices  which  yet  linger  among  us,  and  to  alleviate  the  fortunes  of  the 
Jew  in  lands  less  liberal  than  our  own. 

The  ancient  Jew  was  a  man  of  persistence  and  of  moral  and  spiritual 
genius.  His  modern  brother  is  hot  lacking  in  either  genius  or  persistence. 
His  persistence  and  power  to  recuperate  have  saved  him  from  annihilation. 
His  genius  shows  itself  chiefly  in  matters  of  finance,  in  the  ability  to  turn 
the  most  adverse  conditions  into  power.  In  literature,  art,  music,  philosophy, 
he  is  of  the  community  at  large,  averaging  high,  no  doubt,  but  with  nothing 
distinctive.  In  the  world's  markets,  in  commerce  and  trade,  he  distances 
competition. 

The  extent  to  which  he  educates  his  children,  and  helps  his  poor  to 
become  self-supporting,  and  the  very  small  percentage  which  he  furnishes  to 
the  annals  of  crime,  give  to  him  a  high  character  for  morality.  The  Monte- 
fiores,  Hirschs,  Emma  Lazaruses,  Jacob  Schiffs  and  Felix  Adlers  show  what 
power  and  spirit  of  benevolence  and  reform  still  belong  to  the  Jew.  It  would 
perhaps  be  too  much  to  demand  further  great  religious  contributions  from 
this  people.  But  it  can  hardly  be  that  a  people  of  such  glory  in  the  past  and 
of  such  present  power  shall  fail  to  attain  again  to  that  eminence  in  the 
highest  things  for  which  they  seem  to  be  marked  out  by  their  unique  history. 


THE  LAW  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT,  AS  TAUGHT  BY 

BUDDHA. 

By  Rt.  Rev.  Shaku  Soyen,  Japan. 

If  we  open  our  eyes  and  look  at  the  universe,  we  observe  the  sun  and 
moon,  and  the  stars  on  the  sky  ;  mountains,  rivers,  plants,  animals,  fishes 
and  birds  on  the  earth.  Cold  and  warmth  come  alternately;  shine  and  rain 
change  from  time  to  time  without  ever  reaching  an  end.  Again,  let  us 
close  our  eyes  and  calmly  reflect  upon  ourselves.  From  morning  to  even- 
ing, we  are  agitated  by  the  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain,  love  and  hate  ; 
sometimes  full  of  ambition  and  desire,  sometimes  called  to  the  utmost 
excitement  of  reason  and  will.  Thus  the  action  of  mind  is  like  an  endless 
issue  of  a  spring  of  water.  As  the  phenomena  of  the  external  world  are 
various  and  marvelous,  so  is  the  mtemal  attitude  of  human  mind.  Shall 
we  ask  for  the  explanation  of  these  marvelous  phenomena  ?  Why  is  the 
universe  in  a  constant  flux  ?  Why  do  things  change  ?  Why  is  the  mind 
subjected  to  constant  agitation  ?  For  these  Buddhism  offers  Qnly  one  expla- 
nation, namely,  the  law  of  cause  and  effect. 

Now  let  us  proceed  to  understand  the  nature  of  this  law,  as  taught  by 
Buddha  himself  : 

1.  The  complex  nature  of  cause. 

2.  An  endless  progression  of  the  causal  law. 

3.  The  causal  law,  in  terms  of  the  three  worlds. 

4.  Self-formation  of  cause  and  effect. 

5.  Cause  and  effect  as  the  law  of  nature. 
First,  the  complex  nature  of  cause. 

A  certain  phenomenon  cannot  arise  from  a  single  cause,  but  it  must  have 
several  conditions;  in  other  words,  no  effect  can  arise  unless  several  causes 
combine  together.  Take  for  example  the  case  of  a  fire.  You  may  say  its 
cause  is  oil  or  fuel ;  but  neither  oil  nor  fuel  alone  can  give  rise  to  a  flame. 
Atmosphere,  space  and  several  other  conditions,  physical  or  mechanical,  are 
necessary  for  the  rise  of  a  flame.  AH  these  necessary  conditions  combined 
together  can  be  called  the  cause  of  a  flame.  This  is  only  an  example  for  the 
explanation  of  the  complex  nature  of  cause  ;  but  the  rest  may  be  inferred. 

Secondly,  an  endless  progression  of  the  causal  law.  A  cause  must  be 
preceded  by  another  cause,  and  an  effect  must  be  followed  by  another 
effect.  Thus  if  we  investigate  the  cause  of  a  cause,  the  past  of  a  past,  by 
tracing  back  even  to  an  eternity  we  shall  never  reach  the  first  cause.  The 
assertion  that  there  is  a  first  cause,  is  contrary  to  the  fundamental  principle 
Coypright,  189J,  by  J.  H.  B. 

Sao 


830  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

of  nature,  since  a  certain  cause  must  have  an  origin  in  some  preceding  cause 
of  causes,  and  there  is  no  cause  which  is  not  an  effect.  From  the  assumf)- 
tion  that  a  cause  is  an  effect  of  a  preceding  cause  which  is  also  preceded  bv 
another,  thus,  ad  infinilum,  we  infer  that  there  is  no  beginning  in  the  uni- 
verse. As  there  is  no  effect  which  is  not  a  cause,  so  there  is  no  cause  which 
is  not  an  effect.  Buddhism  considers  the  universe  as  no  beginning,  no  end. 
Since,  even  if  we  trace  back  to  an  eternity,  absolute  cause  cannot  be  found, 
so  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  end  in  the  universe.  As 
the  waters  of  rivers  evaporate  and  form  clouds,  and  the  latter  changes  its 
form  into  rain,  thus  returning  once  more  into  the  original  form  of  waters,  the 
causal  law  is  in  a  logical  circle  changing  from  cause  to  effect,  effect  to 
cause. 

Thirdly,  the  causal  law,  in  terms  of  three  worlds,  namely,  past,  present 
and  future. 

All  the  religions  apply,  more  or  less,  the  causal  law  in  the  sphere  of 
human  conduct,  and  remark  that  the  pleasure  and  happiness  of  one's  future 
life  depend  upon  the  aurity  of  his  present  life.  But  what  is  peculiar  to 
Buddhism  is,  it  applies  the  law  not  only  to  the  relation  of  present  and  future 
life,  but  also  past  and  present.  As  the  facial  expressions  of  each  individ- 
ual are  different  from -those  of  others,  men  are  graded  by  the  different 
degrees  of  wisdom,  talent,  wealth  and  birth.  It  is  not  education,  nor 
experience  alone,  that  can  make  a  man  wise,  intelligent  and  wealthy,  but  it 
depends  upon  one's  past  life.  What  are  the  causes  or  conditions  which 
produce  such  a  difference  ?  To  explain  it  in  a  few  words,  I  say,  it  owes  its 
origin  to  the  different  quality  of  actions  which  we  have  done  in  our  past 
life,  namely,  we  are  here  enjoying  or  suffering  the  effect  of  what  we  have 
done  in  our  past  life.  If  you  closely  observe  the  conduct  of  your  fellow- 
beings,  you  will  notice  that  each  individual  acts  different  from  the  others. 
From  this  we  can  infer  that  in  future  life  each  one  will  also  enjoy  or  suffer 
the  result  of  his  own  actions  done  in  this  existence.  As  the  pleasure  and 
pain  of  one's  present  actions,  so  the  happiness  or  misery  of  our  future  world, 
will  be  the  result  of  our  present  action. 

Fourthly,  self-formation  of  cause  and  effect. 

We  enjoy  happiness  and  suffer  misery,  our  own  actions  being  causes ; 
in  other  words  there  is  no  other  cause  than  our  own  actions  which  make  us 
happy  or  unhappy. 

Now  let  us  observe  the  different  attitudes  of  human  life;  one  is  happv 
and  others  feel  unhappy.  Indeed,  even  among  the  members  of  the  same 
family  we  often  notice  a  great  diversity  in  wealth  and  fortune.  Thus  vari- 
ous attitudes  of  human  life  can  be  explained  by  the  self-formation  of  cause 
and  effect.  There  is  no  one  in  the  univer.se  but  one's  self  who  rewards  or 
punishes  him.  The  diversity  in  future  stages  will  be  explained  by  the  san>e 
doctrine.  This  is  termed  in  Huiidhisni  the  "self-deed  and  self-gain"  or 
"self-make  and   self-receive."     Heaven  and   hell  are  self-made.     God  did 


SOYEN:  BUDDHA'S  LAW  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT.     83  I 

not  provide  you  with  a  hell,  but  you  yourself.     The  glorious   happiness  of 
future  life  will  be  the  effect  of  present  virtuous  actions. 

Fifthly,  cause  and  effect  as  the  law  of  nature. 

According  to  the  different  sects  of  Buddhism  more  or  less  different 
views  are  entertained  in  regard  to  the  law  of  causality,  but  so  far  they  agree 
in  regarding  it  as  the  law  of  nature,  independent  of  the  will  of  Buddha,  and 
still  more  of  the  will  of  human  beings.  The  law  exists  for  a  eternity, 
without  beginning,  without  end.  Things  grow  and  decay,  and  this  is  caused 
not  by  an  external  power  but  by  an  internal  force  which  is  in  things  them- 
selves as  an  innate  attitude.  This  internal  law  acts  in  accordance  with  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  thus  appear  immense  phenomena  of  the 
universe.  Just  as  the  clock  moves  by  itself  without  any  intervention  of  any 
external  force,  so  is  the  progress  of  the  universe. 

We  are  born  in  the  world  of  variety ;  some  are  poor  and  unfortunate, 
others  are  wealthy  and  happy.  The  state  of  variety  will  be  repeated  again 
and  again  in  our  future  lives.  But  to  whom  shall  we  complain  of  our  misery  ? 
To  none  but  ourselves !  We  reward  ourselves ;  so  shall  we  do  in  our  future 
life.  If  you  ask  me  who  determined  the  length  of  our  life,  I  say,  the  law 
of  causality.  Who  made  him  happy  and  made  me  miserable  ?  The  law  of 
causality.  Bodily  health,  material  wealth,  wonderful  genius,  unnatural  suf-  - 
fering  are  the  infallible  expressions  of  the  law  of  causality  which  governs 
every  particle  of  the  universe,  every  portion  of  human  conduct.  Would  you 
ask  me  about  the  Buddhist  morality  ?  I  reply,  in  Buddhism  the  source  of 
moral  authority  is  the  causal  law.  Be  kind,  be  just,  be  humane,  be  honest, 
if  you  desire  to  crown  your  future  !  Dishonesty,  cruelty,  inhumanity,  will 
condemn  you  to  a  miserable  fall ! 

As  I  have  already  explained  to  you,  our  sacred  Buddha  is  not  the  cre- 
ator of  this  law  of  nature,  but  he  is  the  first  discoverer  of  the  law  who  led 
thus  his  followers  to  the  height  of  moral  perfection.  Who  shall  utter  a  word 
against  him  who  discovered  the  first  truth  of  the  universe,  who  has  saved  and 
will  save  by  his  noble  teaching,  the  millions  and  millions  of  the  falling  human, 
beings  ?  Indeed,  too  much  approbation  could  not  be  uttered  to  honor  his 
sacred  name  1 


CHRISTIANITY  AN  HISTORICAL  RELIGION. 
By  Rev.  George  Park  Fisher,  D.D.,  Yale  UNivERsiry. 

In  saying  that  Christianity  is  an  "historical  religion,"  more  is  meant  of 
course  than  that  it  appeared  at  a  certain  date  in  the  world's  history.  This 
is  true  of  all  the  religions  of  mankind,  except  those  which  grew  up  at  times 
prior  to  authentic  records,  and  sprang  up  through  a  spontaneous,  gradual 
process.  The  significance  of  the  title  of  this  paper  is  that,  in  distinction 
from  every  system  of  religious  thought  or  speculation,  like  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  or  of  Hegel,  and  from  every  religion  which  consists  exclusively,  or 
almost  ej^clusively,  like  Mohammedanism,  of  doctrines  and  precepts,  Chris- 
tianity incorporates  in  its  very  essence  facts  or  transactions  on  the  plane  of 
historical  fiction.  These  are  not  accidents,  but  are  fundamental  in  the 
religion  of  the  Gospel.  The  preparation  of  Christianity  is  indissolubly 
involved  in  the  history  of  ancient  Israel,  which  comprises  a  long  succession 
of  events.  The  Gospel  itself  is  in  its.  foundations  made  up  of  historical 
occurrences,  without  which,  if  it  does  not  dissolve  into  thin  air,  it  is  trans- 
formed into  something  quite  unlike  itself.  Moreover,  the  postulates  of  the 
Gospel,  or  the  conditions  which  make  its  function  in  the  world  of  mankind 
possible  and  rational,  are  likewise  in  the  realms  of  fact,  as  contrasted  with 
theoretic  conviction  or  opinion. 

We  can  best  illustrate  and  confirm  the  foregoing  remarks,  by  referring 
to  a  passage  in  one  of  the  writings  of  the  great  Christian  Apostle,  Saint  Paul. 
It  stands  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  his  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians. 

The  state  of  the  Corinthian  Church,  distracted  as  it  was  by  controver- 
sies upon  the  relative  merits  of  the  teachers  from  whom  they  had  received 
the  Gospel,  was  the  occasion  which  led  St.  Paul  to  bring  out  in  bold  relief 
the  essential  principles  of  Christianity.  These  would  put  to  flight  all  radical 
errors,  and  at  the  same  time  cast  into  the  shade  minor  topics  of  contention. 
A  due  regard  to  fundamental  truth  would  quell  dissension.  The  apostle 
begins  the  passage  with  announcing  his  intention  to  describe  the  Gospel 
which  he  had  preached  to  the  Corinthians,  which  they  had  embraced,  in 
which  they  stood,  and  with  which  all  their  hopes  were  connected ;  unless. 
Indeed,  to  believe  the  Gospel  was  a  vain  thing,  an  idea  that  none  would  for 
a  moment  admit.  After  this  preface,  he  proceeds  to  give  a  formal  statement 
of  that  which  constitutes  the  Gospel,  and  the  point  which  challenges  atten- 
tion is  this,  that  the  Gospel,  as  Paul  here  describes  it,  is  made  up  of  a  series 
of  facts.  It  is  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  his  death  and  resurrection.  And 
G)pyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B, 

832 


.■53 


834  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

all  the  proofs  to  which  he  makes  allusion  are  also  matters  of  fact.  These 
circumstances  in  the  Saviour's  life  were  "according  to  the  Scriptures" — that 
is,  in  agreement  with  the  predictions  of  the  Old  Testament.  They  are 
vouched  for  by  witnesses,  and  the  grounds  of  their  credibility  are  stated. 
Not  only  James  and  Peter  and  the  other  apostles  were  still  alive,  but  the 
greater  part  of  the  five  hundred  disciples  who  were  in  the  company  of  Jesus 
after  his  resurrection  were  also  living  and  could  be  appealed  to.  And, 
finally,  he  himself  had  been  suddenly  converted  from  bitter  enmity,  by  a 
specific  occurrence,  by  seeing  Jesus,  and  had  set  about  the  work  of  a  teacher 
not  of  his  own  motion  but  by  the  Saviour's  express  command — a  command 
to  which  he  was  not  disobedient.  Into  this  part  of  the  passage,  however, 
which  touches  on  the  evidence  that  satisfied  Paul  of  the  historical  reality  of 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus,  we  need  not  here  enter.  We  simply 
remark  that  the  nature  of  these  proofs  accords  with  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
passage.  It  is  more  the  contents  of  the  Gospel  as  here  given,  than  the 
peculiar  character  of  the  evidence  for  the  truth  of  it,  that  at  present  calls  for 
consideration.iXChristianity  is  distinctly  set  forth  as  a  religion  of  facts,  but 
be  it  observed  xhat  in  asserting  that  Christianity  is  composed  of  facts,  we  do 
not  mean  to  deny  it  to  be  a  doctrine  and  a  system  of  doctrine.  These  facts 
have  all  an  import,  a  significance,  which  can  be  more  or  less  perfectly 
defined.  That  Christ  was  sent  into  the  world  is  hot  a  bare  fact :  Hut  he  was 
sent  into  the  world  for  a  purpose,  and  the  ends  of  his  mission  can  be  stated. 
The  death  of  Jesus  has  certain  relations  to  the  divine  administration  and  to 
ourselves.  Thus,  in  the  passage  referred  to,  it  is  said,  "  He  died  for  pur 
sins,"  or  to  procure  for  us  forgiveness.  And  so  of  all  the  facts  of  the  Gospel 
— they  have  a  theological  meaning.  The  benefit  which  flows  from  them 
corresponds  to  the  character  and  situation  of  men,  and  this  condition  in 
which  we  are  placed  is  one  that  can  be  described  in  plain  propositions. 
"Sin"  is  not  some  unknown  thing,  we  cannot  tell  what;  but  is  "the  trans- 
gression of  the  law  ;"  and  the  meaning  of  law  and  the  meaning  of  transgres- 
sion can  be  explained. 

Nor  is  there  any  valid  objection  to  saying  that  the  Gospel  is  a  system 
of  doctrine.  These  truths  of  which  we  have  just  given  examples  are  not 
isolated  and  disconnected  from  each  other,  but  they  are  related  to  one 
another.  If  we  are  unable  in  all  cases  to  combine  them  and  adjust  their 
relations,  if  there  are  gaps  in  the  structure  not  filled  out,  parts  even  that 
appear  to  clash,  the  same  is  true  of  almost  every  branch  of  knowledge.  The 
physiologist,  the  chemist,  the  astronomer,  will  confess  just  this  imperfection 
in  their  respective  sciences.  For  who,  for  example,  will  pretend  that  he 
understands  the  human  body  so  thoroughly  that  he  has  nothing  to  learn  and 
no  difficulties  to  explain  ?  If  all  human  knowledge  is  defective,  and  if,  in 
every  department  of  research,  barriers  are  set  at  some  point  to  the  progress 
of  discovery,  how  unreasonable  to  cry  out  against  Christian  theology, 
because  the  Bible  does  not  reveal  everything,  and  because  everything  that 


FISHER:    HISTORICAL   CHRISTIANITY.  835 

the  Bible  does  reveal  is  not  yet  ascertained.  In  affirming,  then,  that  the 
Gospel  is  preeminently  a  religion  of  facts,  there  is  no  design  to  favor  in  the 
slightest  degree  the  sentimental  pietism  or  the  indifference  to  objective 
truth,  whatever  form  it  may  take,  which  would  ignore  theological  doctrine. 

But  there  is  a  sort  of  explanation  and  a  sort  of  science  which  men, 
especially  in  these  days,  are  prone  to  demand,  which,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  is  impossible  ;  and  the  state  of  mind  in  which  this  dema  id  origmates 
is  a  fatal  disqualification  for  receiving,  or  even  for  comprehending,  the 
Gospel.  There  is  a  disposition  to  overlook  this  grand  peculiarity  of  Chris- 
tianity, that  whatever  is  essential  and  most  precious  in  it  lies  in  the  sphere 
of  spirit — of  freedom.  We  are  taken  out  of  the  region  of  metaphysical 
necessity  and  placed  among  personal  beings  and  among  events  which  find 
their  solution,  and  all  the  solution  of  which  they  are  capable,  in  the  free 
movement  of  the  will  and  affections.  To  seek  for  an  ulterior  cause  can 
have  no  other  result  than  to  blind  us  to  the  real  nature  of  the  phenomena 
which  we  have  to  explain.  In  order  to  present  the  subject  in  a  clear  light,, 
let  me  ask  the  hearer  to  reflect  for  a  moment  on  the  nature  of  sin.  Look 
at  any  act,  whether  committed  by  yourself  or  another,  which  you  feel  to  be 
iniquitous.  This  verdict,  with  the  self-condemnation  and  shame  that  attend 
it,  implies  that  no  good  reason  can  be  given  foT  such  an  act.  Much  more  do 
they  imply  that  it  forms  no  part 'of  that  natural  development  and  exercise 
of  our  faculties  over  which  we  have  no  control.  It  is  an  act — a  free  act — 
a  breaking  away  from  reason  and  law,  having  no  cause  behind  the  sinner's 
will,  and  admitting  of  no  further  explication.  Do  you  ask  why  one  sins  ? 
The  only  answer  to  be  given  is  that  he  is  foolish  and  culpable.  You  strike 
upon  an  ultimate  fact,  and  if  you  will  not  stay  by  that  fact,  but  will 
endeavor  to  make  it  rational  or  inevitable,  you  must  deny  morality,  deny 
that  sin  is  sin  and  guilt  is  guilt,  and  pronounce  the  simple  belief  in  personal 
responsibility  a  delusion.  What  we  have  here  said  of  a  single  act  of 
wrong  doing  holds  good,  of  course,  of  morally  evil  habits  and  principles. 

Suppose,  again,  an  act  of  love  and  self-sacrifice,  A  man  re.solves  to 
give  up  his  life  for  a  righteous  cause,  or  a  woman  like  Florence  Nightingale 
forsakes  her  pleasant  home  for  the  discomforts  and  exposures  of  a  soldiers' 
hospital.  What  shall  be  said  of  these  actions  ?  Why,  plainly,  you  have 
done  with  the  explanation  when  you  come  back  to  that  principle  of  free 
benevolence — to  the  noble  and  loving  heart — from  which  they  spring.  To 
make  them  links  in  some  necessary  process  by  which  they  no  longer 
originate,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  in  a  free  preference  lying  in  a  sphere 
apart  from  natural  development  and  inevitable  causation,  would  be  an  insult 
to  the  soul  itself. 

Or,  take  a  benevolent  act  of  another  kind,  the  forgiveness  of  an  injury. 
A  man  whom  you  have  grievously  injured  magnanimously  foregoes  his 
right  to  exact  the  penalty,  though  if  he  were  to  exact  it  you  would  have  no 
right  to  complain.     His  forgiveness  is  an  act,  the  beauty  of  which  is  due  to 


836  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

its  being  a  free  resolve  on  his  part,  a  willing  gift,  a  voluntary  love.  The 
supposition  of  an  exterior  cause  which  reduces  this  act  to  a  mere  effect  of 
organization  or  mental  constitution,  or  anything  else,  destroys  the  very 
thing  which  you  take  in  hand  to  explain.  And  the  same  consequence 
would  follow  if  the  injury  which  calls  forth  pardon  were  resolved  into  some- 
thing besides  an  unconstrained,  inexcusable,  unreasonable,  and  in  this  case, 
unaccountable  act. 

So  that,  in  the  sphere  of  spirit,  we  come  to  facts  in  which  we  have  to 
rest,  there  being  no  further  science  conceivable.  Here  the  bands  of  neces- 
sity which  we  find  in  the  material  world,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  in  the 
operations  of  the  human  mind,  have  no  place.  We  do  not  account  for 
events  here  as  in  the  material  woHd  by  going  back  to  forces  which  evolve 
them  and  laws  which  necessitated  them.  Enough  that  here  has  been  a 
choice  to  sin,  there  has  been  a  holy  will,  and  there  a  love  that  flinches  from 
no  sacrifice.  Our  solutions  are,  to  use  technical  language,  moral,  not  iheta- 
phvsical.  We  have  to  do,  not  with  puppets  moving  about  under  the  pres- 
sure of  a  blind  compulsion,  bat  with  personal  beings,  endued  with  a  free, 
spiritual  nature.  ' 

The  preceding  remarks  will  suggest  our  meaning  when  we  affirm  that 
Christianity  is  a  religion  of  facts.  We  may  even  go  back  of  the  method  of 
solution  to  the  first  truth  of  religion  —  that  of  God,  the  Creator.  To  give 
existence  to  the  world  was  the  act  of  a  personal  being,  who  was  not  con- 
strained to  create,  but  freely  put  forth  his  power,  being  influenced  by  motives, 
such  as  his  desire  to  communicate  good  and  increase  the  sum  of  blessedness. 
The  existence  of  the  world  is  a  fact  which  admits  of  no  further  explication, 
and  he  who  seeks  to  go  behind  the  free  will  of  God  in  quest  of  some  ante- 
rior force  out  of  which  he  fancies  the  world  to  have  been  derived,  lands  in 
a  dreary  pantheism,  satisfying  neither  his  reason  nor  his  heart. 

But  let  us  come  to  the  Gospel  itself.  The  starting-point  is  in  a  fact 
concerning  our  character  and  condition  —  the  great  fact  of  sin,  or 
alienation  from  fellowship  with  God.  Refuse  to  look  upon  sin  in  this  light, 
just  as  the  unperverted  conscience  looks  upon  it^  and  the  Gospel  has  no 
longer  any  intelligible  purpose.  Unless  sin  brings  a  separation  from  God 
with  whom  we  ought  to  be  in  fellowship  and  in  union  with  whom  is  our 
true  life,  there  is  no  significance  in  the  Gospel.  Here,  then,  we  begin  not 
with  an  abstract  theory  or  first  truth  of  philosophy,  but  with  a  naked  fact, 
which  memory  and  consciousness  testify  to.  Sin  is  something  done.  It  is 
a  hard  fact  to  be  compared  to  the  existence  of  a  disease  in  the  human  frame, 
whose  pains  are  felt  in  every  nerve.  And  sin,  be  it  observed,  is  not  a  part 
of  the  healthy  process  of  life,  but  of  the  process  of  death.  To  presume  to 
think  of  it  as  a  necessary,  normal  transition-point  to  the  true  life  of  the 
soul  is  to  annihilate  moral  distinctions  at  a  single  stroke. 

And  what  is  salvation,  regarded  as  the  work  of  God  ?  It  is  a  work.  It 
is  not  a  form  of  knowledge,  but  is  a  deed  emanating  from  the  love  of  God. 


FISHER:    HISTORICAL   CHRISTIANITY.  837 

It  is  an  act  of  his  love.  "God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only- 
begotten  Son."  Christ  is  a  gift  to  the  world.  He  teaches,  to  be  sure,  but 
he  also  goes  about  doing  good,  and  rises  from  the  dead,  opening  by  what 
he  does  a  way  of  reconciliation  with  God.  The  method  of  salvation  is  not 
by  a  philosophical  theorem,  but  in  a  living  friend  of  sinners,  suffering  in 
their  behalf  and  inviting  them  to  a  fellowship  with  himself.  It  is  the 
reconciliation  of  an  offender  with  the  government  whose  laws  he  has  broken, 
and  with  the  Father  whose  house  he  has  deserted. 

In  like  manner  the  reception  of  the  Gospel  is  not  by  the  knowing  fac- 
ulty, moving  through  a  process  of  thought.  It  is  rather  an  act  of  the  will 
and  heart.  It  is  the  acceptance  of  the  gift.  Repentance  toward  God  and 
faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  are  each  an  act ;  as  much  so  as  repentance 
for  a  wrong  done  to  an  earthly  friend  and  trust  in  his  forgiveness.  What  is 
repentance  ?  To  cease  to  do  evil  and  begin  to  do  well  ;  to  cease  to  live  to 
ourselves,  and  to  begin  to  live  to  God,  And  what  is  faith  ?  It  is  an  act  of 
confidence  by  which  we  commit  ourselves  to  another  to  be  saved  by  him. 

When  you  witness  the  rescue  of  a  drowning  man  who  is  struggling  in 
the  waves  by  some  one  who  goes  to  his  assistance,  you  do  not  call  this*  a 
philosophy.  Here  is  not  a  series  of  conceptions  evolved  one  from  another 
and  resting  on  some  ultimate  abstraction  ;  but  here  are  life  and  action.  -There 
was  distress  and  extreme  peril  and  fear  on  the  one  side,  with  no  means  of 
self-help ;  there  was  compassion,  courage,  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  him 
who  did  the  good  deed.  And  the  metaphysics  of  the  matter  ends  when  you 
see  this.  So  it  is  with  Christianity,  though  the  knowledge  of  it  is  preserved 
in  a  book.  It  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  philosophy.  On  the  contrary,  it 
:s  made  up  of  the  actions  of  personal  beings,  and  of  the  effect  of  these  upon 
their  relations  to  each  other.  There  is  ill-desert,  there  is  love,  there  is  sac- 
rifice, there  is  trust  and  sorrow  for  sin.  The  story  of  the  alienation  of  a  son 
from  an  earthly  parent,  of  his  penitence  and  return,  of  his  forgiveness  and 
restoration  to  favor,  is  a  parallel  to  the  realities  which  make  up  Christianity. 

The  Gospel  being  thus  the  very  opposite  of  a  speculation,  being  histor- 
ical in  its  very  foundations,  being  simply,  as  the  term  imports,  the  good 
news  of  a  fact,  everything  depends  on  our  regarding  it  from  the  right  point 
of  view.  For  if  we  exp>ect  to  find  in  the  Bible  that  which  the  Bible  does 
not  profess  to  furnish,  and  to  get  from  Christianity  that  which  Christianity 
does  not  undertake  to  provide,  we  shall  almost  infallibly  be  misled.  Let  us 
suppose,  for  example,  that  a  person  comes  to  the  Bible,  having  previously 
persuaded  himself  that  the  verdict  of  conscience  and  the  general  voice  of 
mankind,  respecting  moral  evil,  are  mistaken.  There  has  been  no  such  jar 
in  the  original  creation  as  the  doctrine  of  sin  implies.  There  is  no  such 
perversion  of  the  soul  from  its  true  destination  and  true  life,  no  such  viola- 
tion of  law,  as  is  assumed.  But  there  is  nothing  save  the  regular  unfold- 
ing of  human  nature  passing  through  various  stages  of  progress  according 
to  the  primordial  design.     It  seems  strange  that  any  one  who  has  looked 


838  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

into  his  own  heart  and  looked  out  for  a  moment  upon  the  world,  can  hold 
such  a  notion  as  this.  Yet  the  disbelief  which  presents  itself  in  the  garb 
of  philosophy  at  the  present  day,  plants  itself  on  this  theory,  that  the  system 
of  things,  or  the  cause  of  things,  as  we  experience  it  and  behold  it,  is  the 
ideal  system.  There  has  been  no  trangresslon  in  the  proper  sense,  but  only 
an  upward  movement  from  a  half-brute  existence  to  civilization  and 
enlightenment,  the  last  step  of  advancement  being  the  discovery  that  sin  is 
not  guilt,  but  a  point  of  development,  and  that  evil  really  is  good.  And  the 
forms  of  unbelief  which  do  not  bring  forward  distinct  theories  generally 
approximate  more  or  less  nearly  to  the  view  just  mentioned.  The  effect 
upon  the  mind  of  denying  the  simple  reality  of  sin,  as  it  is  felt  in  the  con- 
science, is  decisive.  One  who  embraces  such  a  speculation  can  make  noth- 
ing of  Christianity,  but  must  either  reject  it  altogether,  or  lose  its  rfcal 
contents  in  the  effort  to  translate  them  into  metaphysical  notions  of  B}s  own. 
A  living  God,  a  living  Christ,  with  a  heart  full  of  compassion,  offering;  for- 
giveness, calling  to  repentance  and  his  redemption,  can,  have  no  signifi- 
cance. What  call  for  divine  interposition  in  a  system  already  ideally 
p'erfect,  with  all  its  harmonies  undisturbed  ?  Why  break  in  upon  a  strain  of 
perfect  music?  Why  give  medicine  to  them  who  are  not  ill?.  They  that 
are  whole  need  not  a  physician.  How  evident  that  the  failure  to  recognize 
sin  as  a  perverse  act  proceeding  from  the  will  of  the  creature,  incapacitates 
one  from  receiving  Christianity  I 

Now  suppose  the  case  of  a  person  who  abides  by  the  plain  and  well- 
nigh  inevitable  declarations  of  his  conscience  respecting  good  and  evil,  and 
the  utter  hostility  of  one  to  the  other.  He  has  committed  sin.  His  raem- 
orj'  recurs  in  part  to  the  occasions.  Every  day  adds  to  the  number  of  his 
transgressions.  His  motives  have  not  been  what  they  ought  to  be.  A 
sense  of  unworthiness  weighs  him  down,  and  separates  him,  as  he  feels, 
from  fellowship  with  every  holy  being.  He  is  not  suffering  so  much  from 
lack  of  knowledge.  He  needs  light,  it  may  be,  but  he  has  a  profounder 
want,  a  far  deeper  source  of  distress.  He  desires  something  to  be  done  for 
him  to  restore  his  spiritual  integrity  and  take  him  up  to  another  plane  where 
he  can  find  inward  peace.  It  is  just  like  the  case  of  a  child  who  has  fallen 
under  the  displeasure  of  a  parent  and  under  the  stings  of  conscience.  The 
want  of  the  soul  in  this  situation  is  life.  The  cry  is  :  "O  wretched  man 
that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  !"  We  will  not  stop  to  inquire  whether 
this  state  of  feeling  represents  the  truth  or  not ;  but  suppose  it  to  exist, 
how  will  a  sinner,  thus  feeling,  come  to  the  Bible  or  to  the  Gospel  ?  He  is 
not  concerned  to  explain  the  universe  and  enlarge  the  bounds  of  his  knowl- 
edge by  exploring  the  mysteries  of  being.  He  feels  that  no  intellectua 
acquisition  would  give  him  much  comfort,  that  none  could  be  of  much 
value,  as  long  as  this  canker  of  sin  and  guilt  is  within.  He  craves  no  illu- 
mination of  the  intellect.  At  least,  this  desire  is  subordinate.  But  how 
shall  this  burden  be  taken  from  the  spirit  ?     How  shall  he  come  to  peace 


^,^ — w-^--.. svnfc-  "'■^  A  -«■  ■**  *'  *X 


LA  lili:.l>UAL    Al    i  *.-)  i  A.\  KU.  W,    .NL.aK    AU  JsCU  U  ,   KLsalA- 


840  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS  :    EIGHTH    DAV. 

with  God  and  with  himself  ?  It  is  a  bread  of  life  that  he  longs  for. 
Nothing  can  satisfy  him  in  the  least  that  does  not  correspond  to  his  neces- 
sities as  a  moral  being.  He  needs  no  argument  to  prove  to  him  that  he  is 
not  what  he  was  made  to  be,  and  that  his  misery  is  his  fault.  To  him 
Christianity,  announcing  redemption  through  Jesus  Christ,  God's  love  to 
sinners  and  his  method  of  justifying  the  ungodly,  is  adapted,  and  is,  there- 
fore, likely  to  be  welcome.  4^510'. is. ^  deed,  so  it  is  natural,  that  redemp^^ 
tion  should^.  As  sin  breaks  the  original  order,  so  it  is  natural  to  expect 
that  the  system  will  be  restored  from  without.  A  penitent  sinner  is  pre- 
pared to  meet  God  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  to  himself ;  and  this  fact 
is  sweeter  and  grander  in  his  views  than  all  philosophies  which  profess, 
whether  truly  or  falsely,  to  gratify  a  speculative  curiosity.  Wf '"''  't.Jl^  ^^'^ji 
desire  to  be  si  knowing  man  he  would  feel  differently,  but  his  intense  and 
absorbmg  desire  is  to  be  2^  good  ma.n. 

It  is  not  strange  that  among  Protestants  there  should  imperceptibly 
spring  up  the  false  view  concerning  the  Gospel,  on  which  I  have  commented. 
We  say  truly  that  the  Bible,  the  Bible,  is  the  religion  of  Protestants.  Our 
attention  is  directed  to  the  study  of  a  book.  A  one-sided  intellectual  bent 
leads  to  the  idea  that  the  sole  or  the  principal  office  of  Christ  is  that  of  a 
teacher.  He  does  not  come  to  live  and  die  and  rise  again,  and  unite  us  to 
himself  and  to  God,  imparting  a  new  principle  of  moral  and  spiritual  life  to 
loving,  trusting  souls-,  but  he  comes  to  teach  and  explain.  If  this  be  so,  the 
next  step  is  to  drop  him  from  consideration  as  a  person  and  to  fasten  the 
attention  on  the  contents  of  his  doctrine  ;  and  who  shall  say  that  this  step  is 
not  logically  taken  ?  As  the  intellectual  element  obtains  a  still  stronger 
sway,  the  interest  in  his  doctrine  is  merely  on  the  speculative  side.  Histori- 
cal Christianity,  with  its  great  and  moving  events,  and  the  august  Personage 
who  stands  in  the  center,  disappear  from  view  and  naught  is  left  but  a  resi- 
duum of  abstractions  —  a  perversion  and  caricature  of  Gospel  ideas.  This 
proceeding  may  be  compared  to  the  course  of  one  who  should  endeavor  to 
resolve  the  American  Revolution  into  an  intellectual  process.  Redemption 
is  made  up  of  events  as  real  as  the  '  attles  by  which  independence  was 
achieved.  We  need  some  explanation  of  the  purport  of  those  battles  and 
their  bearing  on  the  end  which  they  secure.  And  so  in  the  Bible,  together 
with  the  record  of  what  was  done  by  God,  there  is  given  an  inspired  interpre- 
tation from  the  Redeemer  himself,  and  from  those  who  stood  near  him  on 
whom  the  events  that  secured  salvation  made  a  fresh  and  lively  impression. 
The  import  of  these  events  is  set  forth.  And  the  conditions  of  attaining  cit- 
izenship in  this  new  state  or  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  provided  through 
Christ,  are  defined. 

From  the  views  which  have  been  presented,  perhaps  it  is  possible  to  see 
the  foundations  on  which  Christians  hereafter  may  unite,  and  also  how  the  Gos- 
pel will  finally  prevail  over  mankind.  If  redemption,  looked  at  as  the  work  of 
God,  is  thus  historical,  consisting  in  a  series  of  events  which  culminates  in  our 


flSHER:   HIStORiCAL  CHRISTIANITY.  ^4! 

Lord's  resurrection  and  the  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  first  thing  is  that 
these  events  should  be  believed.  Now  Christianity  does  not  profess  to  be  a 
demonstration,  but  taking  all  things  into  consideration,  the  evangelical  his- 
tory, in  its  leading  essential  points,  is  established  by  proofs  as  near  to  a 
demonstration  as  we  can  reasonably  expect,  or  as  actually  exists  in  respect 
to  the  most  important  occurrences  of  that  time.  There  is  no  defect  of  proof 
and  no  room  for  disbelief,  unless  there  is  a  settled  prepossession  against 
the  supernatural  and  against  any  near  contact  of  God  with  the  affairs  of  this 
world.  May  we  not  expect,  then,  leaving  out  of  view  the  special  providence 
of  God  in  connection  with  the  progress  of  the  Gospel,  that  the  facts  of  the 
Christian  religion  will  become  not  only  a  part  of  universally  acknowledged 
truth,  but  also  that  they  will  enter,  so  to  speak,  into  the  historical  conscious- 
ness of  mankind,  exerting  their  proper  influence  and  speaking  forth  their 
proper  lesson,  in  the  mind  and  habitual  recollection  of  the  race.  And 
as  to  the  second  part  of  the  Gospel,  the  inspired  interpretation  of  these 
events,  or  the  doctrinal  part  of  the  Bible,  this  interpretation  is  not  an  arbi- 
trary or  forced  one.  Though  given  by  inspiration  to  guard  against  human 
blindness  and  error,  it  is  nevertheless  perfectly  rational.  It  is,  and  will  one 
day  be  seen  to  be,  the  natural,  nay,  the  only  possible  meaning  of  God's  work  of 
redemption.  And  this  interpretation,  as  the  sacred  writers  give  it,  will  be 
spontaneously  associated  with  the  historic  events  to  which  it  is  attached.  So 
that  Christianity,  in  both  fact  and  doctrine,  will  become  a  thing  perfectly 
established,  as  much  so,  in  our  mind  and  feeling,  as  are  now  the  transactions 
of  the  American  Revolution,  with  the  import  and  results  that  belong  to  them. 
It  is  every  day  becoming  more  evident  that  the  facts  of  Christianity  cannot 
be  dissevered  from  the  Christian  system  of  doctrine ;  that  the  one  cannot  be 
held  while  the  other  is  renounced  ;  that  if  the  doctrine  is  abandoned  the 
facts  will  be  denied.  So  that  the  time  approaches  when  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  evangelical  history,  carrying  with  it,  as  it  will,  a  faith  in  the 
scriptural  exposition  of  it,  will  be  a  sufficient  bond  of  union  among  Chris- 
tians, and  the  church  will  return  to  the  apostolic  creed  of  its  early  days,  which 
recounts  in  epitome  the /acts  of  religion. 


THE  NEED  OF  A  WIDER  CONCEPTION  OF  REVELA- 
TION, OR  LESSONS  FROM  THE  SACRED 
BOOKS  OF  THE  WORLD. 

By  Prof.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  Manchester  New  College,  Oxford, 

England. 

The  Congress  which  I  have  the  honor  to  address  in  this  paper  is  a 
unique  assemblage.  It  could  not  have  met  before  the  nineteenth  century ; 
and  no  country  in  the  world  possesses  the  needful  boldness  of  conception 
and  organizing  energy  save  the  United  States  of  America.  History  does 
indeed  record  other  endeavors  to  bring  the  religions  of  the  world  into  line. 
The  Christian  Fathers  of  the  fourth  century  credited  Demetrius  Phalereus, 
the  large-minded  librarian  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  about  250  B.  C,  with 
the  attempt  to  procure  the  sacred  books  not  only  of  the  Jews,  but  also  of  the 
Ethiopians,  Indians,  Persians,  Elamites,  Babylonians,  Assyrians,  Chaldeans, 
Romans,  Phoenicians,  Syrians,  and  Greeks.' 

The  great  Emperor  Akbar  (the  contemporary  of  Queen  Elizabeth), 
invited  to  his  court  Jews,  Christians,  Mohammedans,  Brahmans,  and  Zoroas- 
trians.  He  listened  to  their  discussions,  he  weighed  their  arguments,  until 
(says  one  of  the  native  historians)  there  grew  gradually,  as  the  outline  on  a 
stone,  the  conviction  in  his  heart  that  there  were  sensible  men  in  all  relig- 
ions. Different,  indeed,  is  this  from  the  curt  condemnation  by  the  English 
lexicographer,  Samuel  Johnson,  a  hundred  years  ago'  in  which  he  said : 
"There  are  two  objects  of  curiosity,  the  Christian  world  and  the  Moham- 
medan world.     All  the  rest  may  be  considered  barbarous." 

This  Congress  meets,  I  trust,  in  the  spirit  of  that  wise  old  Sute  who 
wrote,  "One  is  born  a  Pagan,  another  a  Jew,  a  third  a  Mussulman.  The 
true  philosopher  sees  in  each  a  fellow-seeker  after  God."  With  this  con- 
viction of  the  sympathy  of  religions,  I  offer  some  remarks  founded  on  the 
study  of  the  world's  sacred  books. 

I  will  not  stop  to  define  a  sacred  book,  or  distinguish  it  from  those 
which,  like  the  Imitatio  Chrisii,  the  Theologia  Gertnanica,  or  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  have  deeply  influenced  Christian  thought  or  feeling.  It  is  enough 
to  observe  that  the  significance  of  great  collections  of  religious  literature 
cannot  be  overestimated.  As  soon  as  a  faith  produces  a  scripture,  i,  e.,  a 
book  invested  with  legal  or  other  authority,  no  matter  on  how  lowly  a  scale, 
it  at  once  acquires  an  element  of  permanence.     Such  permanence  has  both 

»  Euseb.  Chron.,  ed  Scaliger,  p.  66,  a ;  Epiphan.  De  Pond,  et  Mciuura,  9. 
'  Marg.  note,  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  ed.  Dr.  Birkbcck  Hill,  IV,  p.  199. 

Coypright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

849 


CARPENTER:    WIDER  VIEWS  OF  REVELATION.        843 

advantages  and  dangers.  First  of  all,  it  provides  the  great  sustenance  for 
religious  affection ;  it  protects  a  young  and  growing  religion  from  too  rapid 
change  through  contact  with  foreign  influences :  it  settles  a  base  for  future 
internal  development ;  it  secures  a  certain  stability  ;  it  fixes  a  scandard  of 
belief ;  consolidates  the  moral  type.  It  has  been  sometimes  argued  that  if 
the  Gospels  had  never  been  written,  the  Christian  Church,  which  existed  for 
a  generation  ere  they  were  composed,  would  still  have  transmitted  its  orders 
and  administered  its  sacraments,  and  lived  on  by  its  great  traditions.  But 
where  would  have  been  the  image  of  Jesus  enshrined  in  these  brief  records? 
How  could  it  have  sunk  into  the  heart  of  nations  and  served  as  the  impulse 
and  goal  of  endeavor,  unexhausted  in  Christendom  after  eighteen  centuries? 
The  diversity  of  the  religions  of  Greece,  their  tendency  to  pass  into  one 
another,  the  ease  with  which  new  cults  obtained  a  footing  in  Rome,  the  decline 
of  any  vital  faith  during  the  last  days  of  the  Republic,  supply  abundant  illus- 
trations of  the  religious  weakness  of  a  nation  without  scriptures.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  dangers  are  obvious.  The  letter  takes  the  place  of  the 
spirit,  the  transitory  is  confused  with  the  permanent,  the  occasional  is  made 
universal,  the  local  and  temporal  is  erected  into  the  everlasting  and  abso- 
lute. 

Second. — The  sacred  book  is  indispensable  for  the  missionary  religion. 
Even  Judaism,  imperfect  as  was  its  development  in  this  direction,  discovered 
this,  as  the  Greek  version  of  the  Seventy  made  its  way  along  the  Mediter- 
ranean. 

Take  the  Koran  from  Islam,  and  where  would  have  been  its  conquering 
power  ?  Read  the  records  of  the  heroic  labors  of  the  Buddhist  mission- 
aries, and  of  the  devoted  toil  of  the  Chinese  pilgrims  to  India  in  search  of 
copies  of  the  holy  books  ;  you  may  be  at  loss  to  understand  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  they  gave  their  lives  to  the  reproduction  of  the  disciples  of  the 
great  vehicle  ;  but  you  will  see  how  clear  and  immediate  was  the  perception 
that  the  diffusion  of  the  new  religion  depended  on  the  translation  of  its 
scriptures. 

And  now,  one  after  another,  our  age  has  witnessed  the  resurrection  of 
ancient  literatures.  Philology  has  put  the  key  of  language  into  our  hands. 
Shrine  after  shrine  in  the  world's  great  temple  has  been  entered ;  the  songs 
of  praise,  the  commands  of  law,  the  litanies  of  penitence,  have  been  fetched 
from  the  tombs  of  the  Nile,  or  the  mounds  of  Mesopotamia,  or  the  sanctuaries 
of  the  Ganges.  The  Bible  of  humanity  has  been  recorded.  What  will  it 
teach  us  ?  I  desire  to  suggest  to  this  Congress  that  it  brings  home  the  need 
of  a  conception  of  revelation  unconfined  to  any  particular  religion,  but 
capable  of  application  in  diverse  modes  to  all.  Suffer  me  to  illustrate  this 
very  briefly  under  three  heads  : 
I.  Ideas  of  Ethics. 
II.  Ideas  of  Inspiration. 

III.  Ideas  of  Incarnation. 


^44  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH   DAY. 

I.  Ideas  of  Ethics. — The  sacred  books  of  the  world  are  necessarily 
varied  in  character  and  contents.  They  spring  from  very  different  grades  of 
development.  Race,  climate,  social  circumstances,  the  conflict  of  offending 
religious  tendencies,  forced  into  action  and  reaction  by  historic  relations, 
these,  and  a  thousand  other  conditions,  contribute  to  mold  these  differences. 
Hence  the  stress  falls  with  shifting  emphasis  on  elements  of  ritual,  of 
mythology,  and  of  religion  proper.  Yet  no  group  of  scriptures  fails  to  recog- 
nize in  the  long  run  the  supreme  importance  of  conduct.  Here  is  that  which 
in  the  control  of  action,  speech,  and  thought,  is  of  the  highest  significance 
for  life.  This  consciousness  sometimes  lights  up  even  the  most  arid  wastes 
of  sacrificial  detail.  "  Attendance  on  that  sacred  fire,"  it  is  said  in  the  Brah- 
mana  of  a  Hundred  Paths ^  "means  (speaking)  truth;  whosoever  speaks  the 
truth,  acts  as  if  he  sprinkled  that  lighted  fire  with  ghee." 

When  it  is  remembered  that  "  the  true  "  is  the  Vedic  category  for  "  the 
good,"  that  truth  in  fact  implies  righteousness,  the  aphorism  of  the  Brahman 
teacher  AruQa  Aupavesi,  "  Worship  above  all  is  truthfulness,"'  receives  a 
fuller  meaning.  Real  devotion  demands  first  of  all  right  living.  When 
the  conditions  of  right  living  are  examined  in  the  light  of  different  faiths,  a 
growing  harmony  is  discovered  among  them.  All  nations  do  not  pass 
through  the  same  stages  of  moral  evolution  within  the  same  periods,  or 
mark  them  by  the  same  crises.  The  development  of  one  is  slower,  of  another 
more  swift.  One  jjeople  seems  to  remain  stationary  for  millenniums,  another 
advances  with  each  century.  But  in  so  far  as  they  have  both  consciously 
reached  the  same  moral  relations,  and  attained  the  same  insight,  the  ethical 
truth  which  they  have  gained  has  the  same  validity.-  Enter  an  Egyptian 
tomb  of  the  century  of  Moses'  birth,  and  you  will  find  that  the  soul  as  it 
came  before  the  judges  in  the  other  world  was  summoned  to  declare  its 
innocence  in  such  words  as  these:  "  I  am  not  a  doer  of  what  is  wrong,  I  am 
not  a  robber,  I  am  not  a  murderer,  I  am  not  a  liar,  I  am  not  unchaste,  I  am 
not  the  causer  of  others'  tears."  (Margin,  Book  of  the  Dead,  cxx.)  Is  the 
standard  of  duty  here  implied  less  noble  than  that  of  the  Decalogue  ?  Are 
we  to  depress  the  one  as  human,  and  exalt  the  other  as  divine  ?  More 
than  five  hundred  years  before  Christ  the  Chinese  sage,  Lao-tsze,  bade  his 
disciples  "  Recompense  injury  with  kindness  ;  "  and  at  the  same  great  era, 
faithful  in  noble  utterance,  Gotama,  the  Buddha  said,  "  Let  man  overcome 
anger  by  liberality,  and  the  liar  by  truth."    (Marginal  note  : — Dhammapada, 

223.) 

Is  this  less  a  revelation  of  a  higher  ideal  than  the  injunction  of  Jesus, 
"  Resist  not  evil,  but  whosoever  smiteth  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him 
the  other  also  ? "  The  fact  surely  is  that  we  cannot  draw  any  partition 
line  through  the  phenomena  of  the  moral  life,  and  affirm  that  on  one  side  lie 
the  generalizations  of  earthly  reason,  and  on  the  other  the  declarations  of 

I I.  iU  af  i9>  . 
9  Ibid.,  10. 


CARPENTER:   WIDER  VIEWS  OF  REVELATION.        845 

heavenly  truth.  The  utterances  in  which  the  heart  of  man  has  embodied 
its  glimpses  of  the  higher  vision,  are  not  all  of  equal  merit,  but  they  must 
be  explained  in  the  same  way.  The  moralists  of  the  Flowery  Land  even 
before  Confucius,  were  not  slow  to  perceive  this,  though  they  could  not 
apply  it  over  so  wide  a  range  as  that  now  open  to  us  :  "  Heaven  in  giving 
birth  to  the  multitudes  of  the  people,  to  every  faculty  and  relationship 
affixed  its  law.  The  people  possess  this  normal  virtue."  (Marginal  note, 
.S/zjA'm^,  III.  iii  6.) 

In  the  ancient  records  gathered  up  in  the  Shu  King,  the  Duke  of  Chow 
related  (V.  xviii.  4)  how  Hea  would  not  follow  "  the  leading  of  Shang  Ti " 
(Supreme  Ruler  or  God).  "  In  the  (}aily  business  of  life  and  the  mosf  com- 
mon actions,"  wrote  the  commentator,  "  we  feel  as  it  were  air  influence 
exerted  on  the  intelligence,  the  emotions  and  the  heart.  Even  the  most 
stupid  are  not  without  their  gleams  of  light." 

This  is  the  leading  of  Ti  and  there  is  no  place  where  it  is  not  felt. 
(Marginal  note  :  Legge,  Notions  of  the  Chinese,  etc.  p.  loi.)  The  modern 
ethical  theory,  in  the  forms  which  it  has  assumed  at  the  hands  of  Butler, 
Kent  and  Martineau,  recognizes  this  element. 

Its  relation  to  the  whole  philosophy  of  religion  will  no  doubt  be  dis- 
cussed by  other  speakers  at  this  Congress. 

Suffer  me  in  brief  to  state  my  conviction  that  the  authority  of  conscience 
only  receives  its  full  explanation  when  it  is  admitted  that  the  difference 
which  we  designate  in  forms  of  "  higher "  and  "  lower,"  is  not  of  our  own 
making.  It  issues  forth  from  our  nature  because  it  has  been  first  implanted 
within  it.  It  is  a  speech  to  our  souls  of  a  loftier  voice,  growing  clearer  and 
more  articulate  as  thought  grows  wider  and  feeling  more  pure.  It  is  in  fact 
the  witness  of  God  within  us;  it  is  the  self-manifestation  of  his  rfghteous- 
ness ;  so  that  in  the  common  terms  of  universal  moral  experience  lies 
the  first  and  broadest  element  of  Revelation. 

But  may  we  not  apply  the  same  tests,  the  worth  of  belief,  the  genuine- 
ness of  feeling,  to  more  special  cases  ?  If  the  divine  life  shows  itself  forth 
in  the  development  of  conscience,  may  it  not  be  traced  also  in  the  slow  rise 
of  a  nation's  thought  of  God,  or  in  the  swifter  response  of  nobler  minds  to 
the  appeal  of  heaven  ?  The  fact  is  that  man  is  so  conscious  of  his  weakness, 
that  in  his  earlier  days  all  higher  knowledge,  the  gifts  of  language  and  let- 
ters, the  discoverers  of  the  crafts,  the  inventions  of  civilization,  poetry  and 
song,  art,  law,  philosophy,  bear  about  them  the  stamp  of  the  superhuman. 
"  From  thee,"  sang  Pindar  (nearest  of  Greeks  to  Hebrew  prophecy),  "  cometh 
all  high  excellence  to  mortals.  "  (Marginal  note,  Isthm.  ii.  6.)  Such  love 
is  in  fact  the  teaching  of  the  unseen,  the  manifestation  of  the  infinite  in  our 
mortal  ken. 

II.  Ideas  of  Inspiration. — If  this  conception  of  Providential  guid- 
ance be  true  in  the. broad  sphere  of  human  intelligence,  does  it  cease  to  be 
true  in  the  realm  of  religious  thought  .'     Read  one  of  the  Egyptian  hymns 


846  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

laid  in  the  believer's  coffin  ere  Moses  was  born  :  "  Praise  to  Amen-Ra, 
the  good  God  beloved,  the  ancient  of  heavens,  the  oldest  of  the  earth,  lord 
of  eternity,  Maker  Everlasting.  He  is  the  causer  of  pleasure  and  light, 
maker  of  grass  for  the  cattle  and  of  fruitful  trees  for  man,  causing  the  fish 
to  live  in  the  river,  and  the  birds  to  fill  the  air,  lying  awake  when  all  men 
sleep  to  seek  out  the  good  of  his  creatures.  We  worship  thy  spirit  who 
alone  hast  made  us :  we  whom  thou  hast  made  thank  thee  that  thou  hast 
given  us  birth,  we  give  thee  praises  for  thy  mercy  to  us."  (Marginal  note, 
Records  of  the  Past,  ii.,  pp.  I2g-I33,  condensed.) 

Is  this  less  inspired  than  a  Hebrew  Psalm  ?  Study  that  antique  record 
of  Zarathustra  in  the  Gathas  which  all  scholars  receive  as  the  oldest 
part  of  the  Zend  Avesta  ;  (Marginal  note.  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  xxxi.. 
p.  100)  does  it  not  rest  on  a  religious  experience  similar  in  kind  to  that  o^ 
Isaiah  ?  Theologies  may  be  many,  yet  religion  is  but  one.  It  was  after 
this  truth  that  the  Vedic  seers  were  groping  when  they  looked  at  the  varied 
worship  around  them,  and  cried,  "  They  call  himlndra,  Mitra,Varuna,  Agni, 
sages  name  variously  him  who  is  but  one  ;"  (Marginal  note,  Rig  Veda,  i., 
164,  46)  or  again,  "The  sages  in  their  hymns  give  many  forms  to  him  who  is 
but  one."  It  was  this  essential  fact  with  which  the  early  Christians  were 
confronted  as  they  saw  that  the  Greek  poets  and  philosophers  had  reached 
truths  about  the  being  of  God  not  all  unlike  those  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets.  Their  solution  was  worthy  of  the  freedom  and  universality  of  the 
spirit  of  Jesus.  They  were  for  recognizing  and  welcoming  truth  wherever 
they  found  it,  and  they  referred  it  without  hesitation  to  the  ultimate  source 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  the  Logos,  at  once  the  minor  thought  and  the 
uttered  Word  of  God.  The  martyr  Justin  affirmed  that  the  Logos  had 
worked  'through  Socrates,  as  it  had  been  present  in  Jesus  ;  (Margin,  First 
Apology,  5)  nay,  with  a  wider  outlook  he  spoke  of  the  seed  of  the  Logos 
implanted  in  every  race  of  man.  (Margin,  Second  Apology,  8.)  In  vir- 
tue of  this  fellowship,  therefore,  all  truth  was  revelation  and  akin  to  Christ 
himself.  He  said,  "  Whatsoever  things  were  said  among  all  men,  are  the 
property  of  us  Christians."  (Marginal  note.  Second  Apology,  13.)  The 
Alexandrian  teachers  shared  the  same  conception.  The  divine  intelligence 
pervaded  human  life  and  history,  and  showed  itself  in  all  that  was  best  in 
beauty,  goodness,  truth.  "The  way  of  truth  was  like  a  mighty  river,  ever 
flowing,  and  as  it  passed  it  was  ever  receiving  fresh  streams  on  this  side  and 
that."  (Marginal  note,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Strom,  i.,  5).  Nay,  so  clear 
in  Clement's  view,  was  the  work  of  Greek  philosophy,  that  he  not  only 
regarded  it  like  Law  and  Gospel  as  a  gift  of  God,  but  it  was  an  actual  cove- 
nant as  much  as  that  of  Sinai,"  (Marginal  note,  Strom,  vi.,  8),  possessed  of 
its  own  justifying  power  ;  or  following  the  great  generalization  of  St.  Paul. 

"  The  law  was  a  tutor  to  bring  the  Jews  to  Christ."  Clement  added 
that  philosophy  wrought  the  same  heaven-appointed  service  for  the  Greeks. 
(Marginal  note  :  Strom,  i.  5.) 


STONE  CARVED  CAR,  HUMPEY,  INDIA. 


S48  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAV. 

May  we  not  use  the  same  great  conception  over  other  fields  of  the  his- 
tory of  religion  ?  In  all  ages,"  affirmed  the  author  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solo- 
mon, "wisdom  entering  into  holy  souls  maketh  them  friends  of  God  and 
prophets."  So  we  may  claim  in  its  widest  application  the  saying  of  Moham- 
med :  "Every  nation  has  a  quarter  of  the  heavens  (to  which  they  turn  in 
prayer),  it  is  God  who  tumeth  them  towards  it.  Hasten  then  emulously 
after  good  wheresoever  ye  bs,  God  will  one  day  bring  you  all  together." 
(Marginal  note,  Koran  (Rodwell)  ii.  144.) 

We  shall  no  longer,  then,  speak,  like  a  distinguished  Oxford  professor, 
of  the  "  three  chief  false  religions,  Brahmanism,  Buddhism,  Islim."  (Mar- 
ginal note.  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Indian  Wisdom,  introd.  p.  xxxvi.,  3d 
ed.)  In  so  far  as  the  soul  discerns  God,  the  reverence,  adoration,  trust, 
which  constitute  the  moral  and  spiritual  elements  of  its  faith,  are  in  fact 
identical  through  every  variety  of  creed.  They  may  be  more  or  less  clearly 
articulate,  less  or  more  crude  and  confused  or  pure  and  elevated,  but  they 
are  in  substance  the  same. 

"In  the  adoration  and  benedictions  of  righteous  men,"  said  the  poet  of 
the  Masnavi-i-Ma'navi,  "  the  praises  are  mingled  into  one  stream  ;  all  the 
vessels  are  emptied  into  one  river,  because  he  that  is  praised  is  in  fact  only 
one.  In  this  respect  all  religions  art  only  one  religion."  (Marginal  note, 
Winfield's  translation,  p.  139.) 

III.  Ideas  of  Incarnation. — Can  the  same  thought  be  carried  one 
step  farther?  If  inspiration  be  a  world-wide  process,  unconfined  by  specific 
limits  of  one  people  or  one  book,  may  the  same  be  said  of  the  idea  of  incar- 
nation ?  The  conception  of  incarnation  has  many  forms,  and  in  different 
theologies  serves  various  ends.  But  they  all  possess  one  feature  in  common. 
Among  the  functions  of  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  man  is  instruction ; 
his  life  is  in  some  sense  or  other  a  mode  of  revelation.  Study  the  various 
legends  belonging  to  Central  America,  of  which  the  beautiful  story  of  the 
Mexican  Quetzalcoatl  may  be  taken  as  a  type — the  virgin-born  one,  who 
inaugurates  a  reign  of  peace,  who  establishes  arts,  institutes  beneficent 
laws,  abolishes  all  human  and  animal  sacrifices,  and  suppresses  war — they 
all  revolve  around  the  idea  of  disclosing  among  men  a  higher  life  of  wisdom 
and  righteousness  and  love,  which  is  in  truth  an  unveiling  of  heaven.  Or 
consider  a  much  more  highly  developed  type,  that  of  the  Buddhas  in  Theis- 
tic  Buddhism,  as  the  manifestation  of  the  self-Existent  Everlasting  God. 
Not  once  only  did  he  leave  his  heavenly  home  to  become  incarnate  in  his 
mother's  womb.  "  Repeatedly  am  I  born  in  the  land  of  the  living.  .  .  . 
And  what  /eason  should  I  have  to  manifest  myself  ?  When  men  have 
become  unwise,  unbelieving,  ignorant,  careless,  then  I,  who  know  the  course 
of  the  world,  declare  '  I  am  So-and-So,'  and  consider  how  I  can  incline 
them  to  enlightenment,  how  they  can  become  partakers  of  the  Buddha 
nature."     (.Marginal  note,  Lotus  of  the  Good  Law,  xv.  7,  22-3).     To  become 


CARPENTER:    WIDER  VIEWS  OF  REVELATION.        849 

partakers  of  the  divine  nature  is  the  Roal  also  of  the  Christian  believer,  (2 
Peter  i.,  4). 

But  may  it  not  be  stated  as  already  implicitly  a  present  fact  ?  When 
St.  Paul  quoted  the  words  of  Aratus  on  Mars  Hill,  "For  we  also  are  his 
offspring,"  did  he  not  recognize  the  sonship  of  man  to  God  as  a  universal 
truth  ?  Was  not  this  the  meaning  of  Jesus  when  he  bade  his  followers  pray, 
"Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven"?  Once  more  Greek  wisdom  may  supply 
us  with  a  form  for  our  thought.  That  Logos  of  God,  which  became  f1esh*and 
dwelt  in  Christ,  dwelt,  so  Justin  tells  us,  in  Socrates  as,  well.  Was  its  purpose 
or  effect  limited  to  those  two  ?  Is  there  not  a  sense  in  which  jt  appears  in  all 
man  ?  If  there  is  a  "  tnte  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into' 
the  world,"  will  not  every  man  as  he  livfis'by  the  light,  himself  also  show 
forth  God  ?  The  word  of  God  is  not  of  single  application.-  It  is  boundless, 
unlimited.  For  each  man  as  he  enters  intb  being,  there  is  an  idea  in  the 
divine  mind  (may  we  not  say  in  our  poor  hiunan  fashion  ?)  of  what  God 
means  him  to  be.  That  dwells  in  every  soul,  and  realizing  itself  not  in 
conduct  only  but  in  each  several,  highest  forms  of  Jiuman  endeavor,  it  is 
the  fountain  of  all  lofty  thought,  it  utters  itself  through  the  creatures  of 
beauty  in  poetry  and  art,  it  prompts  the  investigation  of  science,  it  guides  the 
inquiries  of  philosophy.  There  are  so  many  kinds  of  voices  in  the  world, 
and  no  kind  is  without  signification.  So  many  voices !  So  many  words  ! 
each  soul  a  fresh  word,  with  a  new  destiny  conceived  for  it  by  God,  to  be 
something  which  none  that  has  preceded  has  ever  been  before  ;  to  show 
forth  some  purpose  of  the  Divine  being  just  then  and  there  which  none  else 
could  make  known. 

Thus  conceived,  the  history  of  religion  gathers  up  into  itself  the  history 
of  human  thought  and  life.  It  becomes  the  story  of  God's  continual  revel- 
ation to  our  race.  However  much  we  mar  and  frustrate  it,  in  this  revela- 
tion each  one  of  us  may  have  part.  Its  forms  may  change  from  age  to  age  ; 
its  institutions  may  rise  and  fall  ;  its  rites  and  usages  may  grow  and  decline. 
These  are  the  temporary,  the  local,  the  accidental ;  they  are  not  the  essence 
which  abides.  To  realize  the  sympathy  of  religions  is  the  first  step  towards 
grasping  this  great.thought."  May  this  Congress,  with  its  noble  representa- 
tives of  so  many  faiths,  hasten  the  day  of  mutual  understanding,  when  God 
by  whatever  name  we  hallow  him,  shall  be  all  in  all  I 


CHRIST  THE  REASON  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 

By  Rev.  James  W.  Lee,  D.D. 

The  haman  mind  uses  three  words  to  shelter  and  house  all  its  ideas 
These.are  nature,  man,  and  God.  ^11  ideas  of  the  material  universe  are  put 
into  the  word  nature.  All  ideas  of  humanity  are  lodged  in  the  word  man. 
All  ideas  of  the  unseen,  the  infinite,  the  eternal,  are  domiciled  in  the  word 

'God.  ~     '■  '  ..:•■■•.■:■.■■.■-     -  ■: 

'  '  The  realms  for  which  these  terms  stand  are  so  vast  and  so  difficult  of 
access,  that  the  human  race,  after  thousands  of  years  of  thought  and  effort. 
■  has  been  able  only  partially  to  Explore  and  settle  them. 

So  deep  and  abiding,  however,  has  been  the  conviction  that  the  differ- 
ent orders  of  existence  denominated  by  these  words,  are  real,  that  ideas  of 
them,  as  Kant  has  well  said,  have  been  the  presuppositions  of  all  thinking. 

Ideas  of  the  self,  the  not-self,  and  of  the  unity  that  transcends  and  includes 
the  two  are  the  necessary  and  fundamental  preconditions  of  all  thought. 
These  ideas  entered  as  strands  into  the  thread  of  the  first  thought  man  ever 
had,  and  are  found  to  be  the  constituent  elements  of  the  last  thought  of  the 
most  advanced  philosopher  Without  a  self,  of  course  no  thought  is  possible. 
A  self  without  a  not-self  finds  nothing  to  think  about.  With  a  self  some- 
where and  a  not-self  somewhere  else,  bound  by  no  unity  of  which  the  two  are 
expressions,  held  together  by  no  unity  of  which  the  two  are  correlatives, 
there  could  be  no  thought  again.  A  self  utterly  foreign  to  a  not-self,  a  self 
with  no  origin  common  to  a  not-self,  a  self  with  absolutely  nothing  in  it  con- 
responding  to  anything  in  a  not-self  —  could  have  no  possible  commerce  the 
one  with  the  other. 

Relation  between  two  things  is  the  fundamental  condition  of  commerce 
between  them.  Two  dependent  relatives  are  themselves  the  indisputable 
proof  of  an  independent  unity  of  origin  and  source.  Man  the  self  is  depend- 
ent, and  nature  the  "not-self  is  dependent.  History  witnesses  to  constant  and 
permanent  relations  between  the  two;  hence,  by  the  very  necessities  of 
thought  we  are  driven  to  assume  the  reality  of  God,  the  unity  upon  which  the 
two  depend,  and  of  whose  thought  the  two  are  expressions.  A  chicken  could 
make  no  scratches  on  the  ground  with  its  foot  that  man  could  read.  A 
chicken  puts  no  mind  ip  the  prints  of  its  feet  for  the  mind  of  man  to  inter- 
pret. Man  can  decipher  the  strange  letters  on  an  Egyptian  obelisk  because 
the  letters  embody  mind,  and  mind  common  to  all  men.  Man  can  read  nature 
because  it  contains  mind,  and  mind  common  to  his  own  mind.  Therefore 
the  mind  embodied  in  nature  and  the  mind  active  in  man  can  come  together, 
because  they  both  are  expressions  of  one  infinite  mind. 

850 


LEE:  CHRIST  THE  REASON  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.       85  I 

As  all  thinking  begins  with  ideas  which  presuppose  the  existence  of 
nature,  man  and  God,  so  all  thinking  continues,  and  will  ever  continue  to 
carry  in  solution  the  same  ideas,  Mr.  Spencer  himself  maintains  that  the 
infinite  is  the  ultimate  unity  to  which  all  things  must  be  referred,  and  that 
the  consciousness  of  it  underlies  all  our  knowledge,  and  of  course  he  would 
admit  that  there  could  be  no  thought  without  the  ideas  of  the  objective  world 
and  of  our  own  subjective  life  being  presupposed.  Hence  it  will  be  found 
that  all  problems  which  have  come  before  the  mind  for  solution  have  clus- 
tered about  the  ideas  of  nature,  man  and  God. 

Religion  and  philosophy  in  all  ages  have  busied  themselves  about  solv- 
ing and  explaining  the  mysteries  which  hang  about  the  self,  the  not-self  and 
the  unity  which  includes  the  two.     •■,>'%>.-.•-       '  .,      . 

The  value  of  any  religion  or  philosophy  will  be  determined  in  the  future 
by  the  solution  which  it  gives  to  the  problems  which  surround  these  funda- 
mental ideas  of  human  thought  and  experience.  The  philosophy  or  the  relig- 
ion that  claims  the  problems  which  surround  these  realms  to  be  insoluble  will 
have  no  lasting  place  in  the  growing  thought  of  the  human  race.  The  sure 
and  steady  progress  made  by  ages  of  painstaking  thought  and  consecrated 
living,  toward  clearing  tl)ings  up,  have  constantfy  deepened  and  widened  the 
conviction  among  men,  that  the  problems  brought  before  the  mind  by  the 
words,  nature,  man,  and  God,  are  not  insoluble.  As  long'as  the  search  for 
gold  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  is  rewarded  by  some  grains  in  the  ore,  the 
search  will  be  kept  up  till  all  the  mountains  are  explored.  Of  nothing  is 
there  more  settled  and  abiding  conviction,  among  the  people  who  live  on  the 
earth  to-day,  than  of  the  fact  that  the  search  for  truth  in  the  past  has  been 
sufficiently  rewarded  to  warrant  men  in  keeping  up  the  search.  Thus,- as 
never  before,  students  are  digging  into  the  heart  of  the  earth,  observing  its 
dips  and  upheavals ;  they  are  gazing  into  the  heavens,  counting  its  stars, 
photographing  their  faces,  and  analyzing  their  contents  ;  they  are  traveling 
over  the  earth,  observing  man -as  the  facts  of  him  come  to  light  in  his  com- 
merce, his  law,  his  crime,  his  insanity,  and  his  enterprise  ;  they  are  investi- 
gating the  religious  element  in  human  nature,  classifying  its  manifestations, 
its  age-long  search  for  the  unseen,  its  craving  for  the  infinite  ;  and  knowledge 
is  increasing  as  never  before.  The  boundaries  of  the  known  are  being 
enlarged,  and  nothing  is  necessary  tb  the  enlargement  of  those  boundaries 
forever  but  industry  in  the  search  for  truth  and  loyalty  to  its  increasing 
light. 

While  ideas  of  nature,  man,  and  God  ;  ideas  of  the  not-self,  the  self,  and 
of  the  unity  that  includes  the  two  are  presupposed  in  the  first  thought  of  the 
primitive  man,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  these  ideas  are  consciously  held, 
or  held  in  any  articulate  or  developed  sense.  At  first  they  are  inchoate, 
merely  float  in  the  mind  in  a  mixed  and  undifferentiated  way.     • 

As  long  as  the  ideas  of  nature,  man  and  God,  which,  according  to  Kant, 
are  the  presuppositions  of  all  thinking  are  mixed  in  the  mind  without  definition 


852  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

and  without  distinction,  civilization  is  impossible.     Confusion  within  will 
reappear  as  confusion  without. 

Not  only  must  these  factors  of  thought  be  defined  and  separated  the  one 
from  the  other,  but  each  must  receive  its  proper  emphasis  and  hold  the  place 
in  the  mind  to  which  its  objective  existence  entitles  it. 

In  the  philosophy  of  India  too  much  is  made  of  God.     The  idea  of  him 
.  is  pressed  to  such  illimitable  and  attenuated  transcendence,  that  with  equal 
truth  anything  or  nothing  can  be  predicated  of  him. 

"in  the  system  of  Confucius  too  much  is  made  of  man.  -  Ideas  of  the 
infinite  above  him  %nd  of  the  finite  world  below  him  are  not  clearly  grasped 
or  defined,  and  because  of  tnis  man  fails  to  find  his  proper  place,  and  lives 
on  in  the  world  without  the  help  that  belongs  to  him  from  above  or  below. 
.  :  In  the  thought  of  Henry  Thomas  Buckle  the  boundaries  of  nature  are 
widened  till  hut  little  room  is  left  for  man  and  God. 

In  the  theory  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  man  is  emphasized  to  a  point  of 
independence  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  dependeiH  and  relative  nature. 

In  the  English  deism  of  the  eighteenth  century  God  was  represented  as 
what  Carlyle  calls  an  almighty  clockmaker,  the  world  as  a  machine,  and 
men  as  so  many  atoms  related  to  one  another  mechanically,  like  the  grains 
of  wheat  in  the  same  heap.  •  In  this  system,  none  of  the  factors  of  thought 
was  suppressed.  It  failed  because  it  did  not  correspond  to  the  real  nature 
of  the  facts.  No  such  a  God  and  no  such  a  world  and  no  such  men  existed 
as  English  deism  talked  about.  ;. 

In  one  respect,  then,  all  religions  and  all  philosophies  are  on  a  level. 
They  all  seek  a  solution  to  the  problems  which  hang  around  the  same  facts. 
•  They  are  all  faced  by  the  same  nature,  with'  its  matter  and  its  force ;  by 
the  same  man,  with  his  weakness,  his  sorrow,  his  fear,  his  ignorance,  his 
death ;  by  the  same  great  Being  who  surrounds  and  includes  all  things  and 
who  receives  names  from  all  peoples  corresponding  to  their  conceptions  of 
h:m.  What  man  seeks  and  has  always  sought  is  such  a  philosophy  or  syn- 
thesis of  the  facts  of  nature,  of  man  and  of  God,  as  harmonizes  him  with 
himself,  with  his  world,  and  with  the  being  he  calls  God.  The  conviction 
haunts  him  like  the  pulse-beats  of  his  own  heart  that  such  a  synthesis  is  for 
him.  All  history,  all  philosophy,  and  all  religion  witness  to  his  age-long 
attempts  to  find  such  a  synthesis,  and  to  rest  and  work  in  it  and  through  it. 

We  call  Christ  the  reason  of  the  universe  because  he  brings  to  thought 
such  a  synthesis  of  nature,  man  and  God,  as  harmonizes  human  life  with 
itself  and  with  the  facts  of  nature  and  God.  Christianity  is  not  a  religion 
constructed  by  the  human  reason,  but  is  such  a  religion  as  reason  sees  to  be 
in  line  with  the  facts  of  existence.  Man  is  a  thinker  and  needs  truth;  he  is 
under  the  necessity  of  acting  and  needs  law ;  he  has  a  heart  and  needs  some- 
thing to  love;  he  is  weak  and  needs  strength.  But  Christianity  does  not  sim- 
ply bring  to  man  a  system  of  truth,  for  he  is  more  than  a  thinker ;  or  a  sys- 
tem of  ethics,  for  he  needs  more  than  something  to  do ;  or  a  wealth  of  emotion, 


854  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

for  he  needs  more  than  satisfaction  for  his  heart;  or  inexhaustible  sup- 
plies of  strength,  for  he  needs  more  than  help  in  his  weakness;  these  are 
brought,  combined  and  harmonized  in  the  unity  of  a  perfect  life.  A  separate 
system  of  truth,  or  a  separate  theory  of  ethics,  or  a  separate  supply  of 
strength  is  not  what  man  needs.  His  want  can  only  be  matched  when  these 
come  together,  arranged  in  the  harmony  of  a  complete  life.  Cosmology  is 
not  enough,  anthropology  is  not  enough,  theology  is  not  enough.  What  man 
needs  is  to  find  cosmology,  anthropology  and  theology  flowing  in  the  blood 
and  beating  in  the  heart,  and  thinking  in  the  mind,  and  acting  in  the  will  of 
a  life  like  his  own.  He  needs  to  see  once  the  germs  of  hope  and  strengthand 
aspiration  which  he  feels  in  his  own  nature  realized  in  a  life  lived  under  the 
same  conditions  with  which  he  stands  face  tc^  face.  Theories  he  has  found 
abounding  in  all  poetry,  philosophy  and  theology,  his  cry  has  been  for  the 
sight  of  one  demonstration,  not  only  thought  out,  but  suffered  out,  willed  out, 
lived  out.  Such  a  demonstration  men  believed  they  saw  nearly  two  thousand 
years  ago. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  as  to  their  probably  being  mistaken,  one  thing 
is  conceded  :  the  facts  of  Christ's  life  and  death  and  resurrection  and  ascension 
underlie  western  civilization,  and  have  been  the  potent  factors  in  its  creation. 
If  the  men  made  a  mistake  who  supposed  they  saw  in  Christ  the  fulfillment 
of  all  prophecy,  the  harmony  of  all  truth,  the  perfection  of  all  righteousness, 
■  the  solution  of  all  problems,  and  the  sum  of  all  beauty,  then  we  think  with 
perfect  truth  it  may  be  said,  this  is  the  most  marvelous  mistake  in  all  his- 
tory, for  following  the  light  of  this  mistake  men  have  come  to  the  most 
enlightened  and  rational  civilization  of  ancient  or  modem  times. 

Christ  owes  the  unrivaled  place  he  holds  to-day  among  the  sons  of  men 
to  the  fact  that  he  did  not  come  simply  explaining,  or  teaching  or  philoso- 
phizing, or  theorizing,  or  poetizing,  but  came  solving  the  problems  man  saw 
in  nature,  in  himself,  and  in  God,  by  living  them  out. 

"ft^g  rmygforit^g  ■^v|^jf-h  men  hat;!  sought  to  clear  up  by  thinking,  he  cleared 
up  by  his  living,  and  when  the  contradiction  of  sinners  became  so  great  he 
could  proceed  along  the  ordinary  methods  of  living  no  further,  he  submitted 
himself  to  death,  and  arising  from  the  grave  gave  to  men  the  essence  of  all 
truth,  the  results  of  all  righteousness,  the  fruits  of  all  love,  and  the  secret  of 
all  time  and  eternity. 

The  antithesis  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite  which  underlies  all  thought 
and  life  has,  by  the  incarnation,  its  two  terms  united  in  the  fact  of  a  won- 
drous personality.  By  the  incarnation  the  ideas  which,  according  to  Kant, 
are  presupposed  in  all  thinking,  come  together  and  are  harmonized  in  the 
concrete  unity  of  an  individual  life.  This  lifts  human  knowledge  from  the 
poverty-stricken  level  to  which  the  mechanical  philosophers  placed  it  to  the 
permanence,  and  dignity  of  an  organic  and  everlasting  reality.  By  the  cruci- 
fixion, men  are  taught  the  secret  of  reciprocity,  of  association,  and  of  universal 
brotherhood.     This  tragic  event  in  the  life  of  Christ  helps  men  to  see  that 


LEE:  CHRIST  THE  REASON  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.       855 

they  are  so  come  together  in  associations  and  states  l)y  the  death  of  the  local, 
provincial,  carnal,  isolated  self,  and  that  the  life  of  the  church  or  the  state  is 
not  made  up  of  the  aggregation  of  a  multitude  of  breathing,  animated  units, 
but  of  one  life  pulsating  through  all.  Not  of  one  life  that  swamps  and  swal- 
lows up  the  individual  life,  but  rather  that  returns  to  each  individual  for  the 
little  life  he  gives  up  the  great  life  of  the  whole,  'vf'his  meets  the  conditions 
of  man's  nature,  for  single,  isolated,  individual,  unrelated,  he  is  not  human 
at  all.  He  finds  his  own  life  only  when  he  dies  to  his  self-contained  and 
self-included  life.  Each  individual  in  a  great  city  gets  a  larger  life  by  con- 
ceding selfish,  individual,  local  rights  to  the  good  of  the  whole,  than  he  would 
if  each  had  his  own  way  and  his  own  street.  Life  in  a  city  would  not  be 
pcssible  if  each  person  did  not  concede  some  of  the  kind  of  rights  a  savage 
in  the  woods  is  supposed  to  have,  for  the  common  good  and  order  of  all.  To 
undertake  to  live  in  a  city  with  each  man  having  his  so-called  rights,  as  a 
savage  has  in  the  woods,  would  not  result  in  freedom,  but  in  chaos  and  death. 
The  death  of  Jesus  Christ  teaches  that  the  life  of  each  man  is  to  be  conse- 
crated to  the  public  good.  Because  of  his  attempt  to  bring  men  into  the 
order  he  saw  as  necessary  to  their  well-being  he  was  crucified. 

/VBy  his  incarnation  Christ  united  the  two   terms  found  in  the  antithesis 
(«  an  infinite  past  and  a   finite  present.     By  his  resurrection  he  united  in  a 
historic  fact  the  two  terms  found  in  the  antithesis  of  an  infinite  future  and  a 
finite  present,  and  by  his  ascension  he  gave  triumph  and  undying  hope  to  life 
Let  us  now  approach  this  question  in  a  different  way.     When  we  look' 
carefully  into  the  matter  we  find  that  environments  mfluence  their  objects, 
and  objects  in  turn  affect  their  environments.     So  events  and  their  environ- 
ments mutually  influence  one  another.     In  this  way  we  arrive  at  the  concep- 
tion of  causality,  and  causality  is  a  deeper  fact  than  either  time  or  spare. 
In  order  that  a  cause  may  send  a  stream  of  influence  over  to  an  effect  there 
must  be  space,  and   there   must  be   time.     But  before   a  cause  can  express 
itself  in  an  effect,  it  must  separate  the  power  by   the  aid  of  which  it  makes 
the  expression  from  itself,  and  thus  we  are  led  to  the  insight  of  self-cause, 
self  separation  and   self-activity.     A  self-causative,  self-active  omnipotent 
energy  is  the  deepest  thing  and  the  first  thing  in  the  universe.     This  is  the 
principle  which   is  presupposed   in  all  causation,  all  time,  all  space  and  all 
experience.     Here  we  have  the  unity  that  includes  the  self  and  the  not-self. 
Nor  is  this  an  abstract,  barren,  empty,  sterile  unity,  corresponding  to  the 
transcendent,  pure  being  of  the   Hindus.     It   is  a  dynamic,  self-active,  self- 
relative  unity,  that  includes  within  itself  the  wealth  of  all  worlds,  of  all  intel- 
ligence, of  all  life,  and  of  all  love.     Being  self-causative,  it  is  the  subject 
that  causes  and  the  object  that  is  caused.     Being  self-active,  it  is  cause  and 
effect  in  a  living,  intelligent  unity.    The  complete  form  of  self-activity,  self- 
causation,  and  self-relation  is  self-consciousness.     Self-consciousness  con- 
tains within  itself  the  subject  that  thinks  and  the  object  that  is  thought  and 
also  the  identity  of  subject  and  object  in  a  living,  intelligent  personality. 


■4 


856  PAKLIAMKN'l-    PAFKRS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

But  it  has  been  in  accordance  witli  the  conviction  of  all  deep  philoso- 
phy and  theoloijv  that  what  an  absolutely  perfect  beinj^  thinks  must, 
because  it  is  Ihougiit,  exist.  That  is,  with  an  al)solutely  perfect  being 
thinking  and  willing  are  the  same.  If  what  an  absolutely  perfect  being 
thought  did  not  at  the  same  time  come  to  exist,  than  we  would  have  him 
thinking  one  thing  and  willing  another,  or  we  would  be  under  the  necessity 
of  supposing  that  he  had  thought  or  fancies  that  he  did  not  realize. 

It  is  also  in  accordance  with  the  insight  of  the  deepest  philosophy  and 
theology  that  the  thought  of  an  absolutely  perfect  being  must  be  as  ai)so- 
lute  and  perfect  as  the  being  who  thinks  it. 

This  is  why  the  Hindus  say  that  the  world  is  an  illusion.  They  say 
that  an  absolutely  perfect  being  could  not  produce  an  imperfect  world.  A 
world  seems  to  be  before  them.  It  was  not  created  by  a  perfect  being. 
Hence  its  existence  is  not  real,  and  life  is  not  real.  So  their  conception 
leads  them  to  seek  Nirvana,  which  as  a  state  or  condition  is  as  near  uncon- 
sciousness as  it  can  be,  not  to  be  absolute  annihilation.  Christian  philos- 
ophy and  theology  meet  this  necessity  of  thought  by  admitting  that  an 
absolutely  perfect  being  does  not  directly  create  an  imperfect  world.  In 
the  New  Testament  Scriptures  the  Son  or  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity 
is  represented  as  creating  the  world.  '"  The  worlds  were  framed  by  the 
Word  of  God,"  St.  John  say.s.  "In  the  beginning  was  the  Word."  "All 
things  were  made  by  him."  "  He  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world  was 
made  by  him,  and  the  world  knew  him  not."  In  the  first  verses  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  it  is  said  that  God  "hath  in  these  last  days  spoken 
to  us  by  his  Son  .  ,  .  bv  whom  also  he  made  the  worlds."  It  is  the 
Son  who  is  spcjken  of  as  "upholding  all  things  by  the  word  of  his  power." 

In  the  absolute  self-consciousness  of  God  there  arc  subject  and  object 
and  the  identity  of  subject  and  object  in  one  divine  personality.  Hut  it  is 
necessary  that  what  the  absolute  subject  thinks  must  be,  and  must  also  be 
as  perfect  as  the  absolute  subject.  It  is  necessary  also  that  the  absolute 
subject  and  the  absolute  object  must  be  one. 

So  in  the  divine  self-consciousness  the  absolute  subject  is  Father,  and 
the  thought  of  the  Father,  or  the  absolute  object,  is  the  Son.  But  as  the 
Son  is  as  perfect  as  the  Father,  it  is  necessary  that  what  he  thinks  must  be 
also. 

In  God  as  Fathe-  tiie  uloa  of  transcendence  is  met,  and  thus  we  have 
the  truth  of  monotheism  ;  in  God  the  Son,  the  idea  of  an  indwelling  God  is 
met,  and  we  have  the  truth  of  polvthcisni.  In  God  the  Spirit,  the  idea  of 
God  pervading  the  world  is  matched,  and  we  have  the  truth  of  |)antheism. 
Here  we  have  a  conception  that  enables  us  to  hold  on  to  the  oneness  of 
God  and  the  trinity  of  God,  without  an  abstract  and  barren  monotheism 
from  which  nothing  can  come,  or  a  polytheism  that  degrades  God,  or  a  pan- 
theism that  diffuses  God  to  the  obliteration  of  all  distinctions. 

Here  wc  have  a  Trinity,  not  such  as  would   be  constituted  by  three 


LEE  :  CHRIST  THE  REASON  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.       857 

judges  in  a  court,  or  by  three  things  imagined  under  sensible  forms.  The 
relations  between  three  such  judges  or  three  such  sensible  things  would  be 
mechanical  and  accidental,  not  absolute  and  essential.  The  Trinity  of 
the  Christian  Church  is  not  simply  the  aggregation  of  three  individuals,  or 
the  unity  of  three  mathematical  points.  The  Trinity  revealed  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures  is  such  as  makes  a  concrete  unity  through  and  by 
means  of  difference.  This  Trinity  makes  a  unity,  the  distinguishing  feat- 
ure of  which  is  "  fullness  "  and  not  emptiness.  It  is  a  Trinity  constitutive 
of  a  real,  experimental  and  knowable  unity.  God  is  revealed  in  the  Scrip- 
tures as  intelligence,  life  and  love,  and  the  living  process  of  each  is  triune. 
The  terms  of  a  self,  whose  living  function  is  intelligence,  are  three  :  subject,  _ 
object,  and  the  organic  identity  of  the  two.  The  terms  of  such  a  self  are: 
necessarily  three,  and  yet  its  nature  is  necessarily  one.  ^ 

If  God  is  intelligent  he  is  triune,  because  the  process  of  intelligence  is 
triune.  There  cannot  be  mind  without  self-conscioasness  and  the  object  of 
the  eternal  self-consciousness  is  the  eternal  Logos,  who  is  the  full  and  com- 
plete expression  of  the  eternal  mind.  But  the  eternal  mind  does  not  go  into 
his  own  object,  which  is  the  Logos,  without  a  return  to  himself  as  subject. 
It  is  only  in  the  going  out  and  the  coming  back  that  self-consciousness  is 
complete.  If  the  eternal  hiind  were  to  go  out  from  himself  as  subject  to 
himself  as  object,  and  never  return,  he  would  not  be  conscious  of  himself  as 
object  or  as  subject.  The  movement  of  mind,  whether  infinite  or  finite,  is  as  a 
process  described,  when  we  say,  it  constantly  goes  out  from  itself  and  as  con- 
stantly returns  to  itself.  In  this  way  continuity  and  identity  are  maintained. 
The  whole  act  of  self-consciousness  is  as  a  process  eternally  complete  in  a 
non-temporal  now. 

Time  or  space  is  not  necessary  to  the  complete  act  of  self-conscious- 
ness. 

If  time  or  space  were  to  comr  between  the  two  terms  of  self-conscious- 
ness, the  subject  and  the  object,  identity  and  personality  would  be  forever 
destroyed.  This  is  true  of  God  and  man.  In  so  far  as  a  finite  person  is 
self-conscious,  he  lives  in  eternity.  Time  and  space  condition  events  and 
objects,  but  not  self-consciousness.  Self-consciousness  is  the  living  function 
of  non-temporal  and  non-spatiall  spirit. 

According  to  Kant,  ideas  of  nature,  man  and  God  are  presupposed  in 
all  thinking.  A  deeper  truth  is  that  the  idea  of  a  triune  personal  God  is 
presupposed  in  all  thinking.  Herbert  Spencer  says  :  "  Amid  the  mysteries 
which  grow  the  more  mysterious  the  more  they  are  thought  about,  there  will 
remain  the  one  absolute  certainty,  that  man  stands  in  the  presence  of  an 
infinite  and  eternal  energy  from  which  all  things  proceed." 

In  Mr  Spencer's  view,  then,  an  infinite  and  eternal  and  inscrutable 
energy  is  the  presupposition  of  all  thinking.  The  view  held  by  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  that  puts  a  personal  and  intelligent  God  where  Mr.  Spencer 
puts  an  inscrutable  energy,  is  more  rational,  and  more  in  line  with  the  facts 


858.  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

of  existence.  In  this  view  we  can  get  the  world  out  of  God  without  panthe- 
ism, and  man  out  of  God,  without  polytheism,  and  man,  self-asserting  and 
fallen,  back  to  God,  in  accordance  with  monotheism.  This  gives  us  a  God 
of  love,  giving  himself  in  his  Son,  and  coming  back  to  himself  through  the 
Spirit,  with  a  redeemed  race  to  share  his  love.  This  gives  us  an  eternal 
procession  with  meaning  and  reason  and  purpose  in  it. 

This  furnishes  us  with  a  conception  of  God  that  accounts  for  the  relig- 
ious aspirations  of  the  human  race.     We  find  men  everywhere,  in  ail  ages 
,.  > ,       and  under  all  climes,  feeling  after  God.     Man  is  religious  to  the  bottom  of 
;■>-     '   him  and  to  the  top  ot  him  and  to  all  intents,  and  purposes  of  him.     The 
'^^y.     .■  religious  grooves  are  those  the  ijtiost  deeply  worn  in  his  nature,  and  this  is 
;\  .       because  he  is  more  tlioroughly  religious  than  he  is  anything  else.    Looking 
■  'L,^-  at  the  mind  of  God  passing  out  into  the  Son,  or  the  second  person  in  the 

v^5  »  •      Trinity,  and  then  through  the  Son  into  man  as  the  highest  and  last  finite 
''  expression  of  divine  thought,  we  are  able  to  understand  why  he  is  religious. 

. '",  ~.  We  see  that  the  fundamental  structure  of  him,  the  invisible  framework  of 
'v.    . ,  him,  the  ideal  plan  and  pattern  of  him  is  Christian.     We  see  in  him  a  divine 

?^---.  potency,  and  the  nature  of  the  eternal  Christ  capsulate  in  his  heart.     Being 

f-^i.'  "  .    the  ultimate  finite  expression  of  the  Son's  thought,  and  being  endowed  with 
'/'  the  universal  nature  of  the  Son,  man  is  the  highest  thing  under  heaven  next 

''•"    .        to  God.  Thus  he  is  religious  to  the  very  roots  and  core  of  him.  And  the  real 
.    function  of  man  in  all  time,  and  through  all  eternity,  is  the  realization  and 
out-filling  of  the  universal  nature  which  he.  receives  as  the  highest  creation 
'    of  the  Triune  God. 

This  view  accounts  for  the  irrepressible  conviction  which  man  has  Had 
in  all  his  history  that  he  is  immortal,  or  capable  of  eternal  growth.  For 
immortality  is  nothing  but  everlasting  growth  and  living  progress.  How 
can  we  account  for  the  permanent,  if  sometimes  vague,  belief  of  his  immor- 
tality, unless  we  suppose  he  possesses  an  infinite  depth  of  root  and  resource? 
Did  he  not  somehow  feel  himself  in  connection  with  vital  and  infinite  spirit- 
ual resources,  the  idea  and  hope  of  immortality  would  have  perished  out  of  his 
mind  ages  ago.  As  the  highest  expression  of  the  thought  of  the  Son  of 
God,  and  as  the  recipient  of  the  nature  and  spirit  of  the  Son  of  God,  we  see 
that  he  has  an  infinite  depth  of  derivation  and  an  affluence  of  resource  com- 
mensurate with  the  illimitable  nature  of  God  himself.  This  fact  of  man's 
derivation  is  the  only  one  large  enough  to  account  for  the  fact  of  his  relig- 
ious consciousness.  St.  Paul  had  a  view  of  this  truth  when,  in  speaking  of 
believers,  he.  called  them,  "  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ,"  and 
when,  in  writing  to  the  Ephesians,  he  said  again,  "  Till  we  all  come  .... 
unto  a  perfect  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of 
Christ."  How  could  one  ever  come  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  full- 
ness of  Christ,  if  he  did  not  have  the  nature  of  Christ?  A  nature  lower  or 
inferior  would  not  be  susceptible  of  such  measure  of  fullness. 

This  doctrine  helps  us  again  to  account  for  the  two  poles  of  man's 


LEE:  CHRIST  THE  REASON  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.     859 

moral  and  intellectual  consciousness.  Human  nature  has  a  dual  constitu- 
tion.  It  is  the  unity  of  two  principles,  a  principle  of  thought  and  will, 
and  a  principle  of  tnith  and  right.  As  a  physical  being  he  is  dual.  The 
subjective  side  of  his  physical  self  is  hunger,  the  objective  side  of  his  physi- 
cal nature  is  food.  Now  before  he  can  live  as  a  physical  being  the  hunger 
and  the  food  must  come  together. 

As  an  intellectual  being  he  is' dual  ;  as  a  subject  he  is  intellect,  as  an 
object  he  is  truth.  Before  there  can  be  intelligence  and  knowledge  the 
intellect  and  truth  must  come  together.  As  moral  he  is  dual.  As  abstract 
will  he  is  subject,  and  as  abstract  law  he  is  object.  Now,  before  he  becomes 
a  moral  person  the  will  and  the  law  must,  come  together.  The  objective 
side  of  man's  physical  nature  is  provided  for  him  outside  of  himself  in  the 
food  he  eats.  The  objective  side  of  man's  intellectual  nature  is  provided 
for  h'lm  outside  of  himself  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  is  to  guide  into  all  truth. 

The  objective  side  of  man's  mora)  nature  is  provided  for  him  outside 
of  himself  in  the  Holy  'Spirit,  also,  who  discloses  the  law  that  is  to  fulfill 
all  righteousness.  .  .         "  ,  - 

Now  on  his  subjective  side,  man  feels  he  is  free,  but  on  his  objective 
side  he  feels  he  must  obey.  How  is  he  to  be  free  and  obedient  at  the  same 
time  ?  When  we  remember  that  the  nature  of  man  is  a  reproduction  of  the 
nature  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeding  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  flows  out  into  humanity  to  enlighten,  to  quicken,  to 
convince  of  sin,  and  then  to  renew,  to  regenerate  and  to  organize  into  the 
Christian  Church,  we  shall  see  that  the  truth  the  Spirit  presents  to  man's 
intellect  is  adapted  to  it  as  food  is  to  his  hunger,  and  that  the  law,  which  the 
Spirit  stimulates  and  urges  man  to  obey,  is  the  law  of  his  own  nature.  So 
that  in  thinking  the  truth  into  which  the  Spirit  guides  him,  and  in  willing 
the  right  to  which  the  Spirit  urges  him,  man  is  thinking  his  own  truth  and 
willing  his  own  law — that  is,  he  is  thinking  and  willing  in  accordance  with 
his  own  nature.  Thus  only  in  speaking  truth  and  willing  right  is  he  free. 
Thinking  other  than  what  is  true,  he  gets  into  contradiction  with  himself 
and  his  environment.  Willing  other  than  what  is  right,  he  brings  himself 
into  subjection  and  finally  into  chaos. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  personality  who  pervades  and  directs  the  desti- 
nies of  the  Christian  Church.  Hence  man  finds  his  universal,  immortal, 
essential,  spiritual  and- objective  self  represented  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  In 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  high,  universal,  corporate  life  of  man.  In  living  the 
life  of  the  Spirit  he  lives  the  life  of  his  nobler  self. 

This  doctrine  accounts  for  the  order  and  gradual  ascent  from  lower  to 
higher  we  note  in  nature.  We  see  atoms,  minerals,  plants,  animals  and 
men,  going  by  regular  steps  from  bottom  to  top.  Forces  are  found  on 
these  separate  planes  adapted  to  the  manipulation  of  the  objects  found  on 
each.  All  this  seems  to  be  according  to  an  order  of  thought.  And  so  it  is. 
The  Son  in  thinking  of  himself  as  eternally  derived  from  the  Father  thought 


860  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

of  himself  at  first  as  pure  passivity,  as  purely  in  his  relation  to  the  first 
person  of  the  Trinity,  and  not  as  active  and  absolute  at  all.  The  move- 
ment of  his  thought  was  thus  through  all  stages  of  imperfection,  or  finite- 
ness,  up  to  man,  where  his  universal  and  active  nature  asserts  itself  in  the 
creation  of  a  being  with  a  nature  like  his  own,  and  thus  in  the  image  of 
God.  On  the  lower  planes  of  nature,  among  atoms  and  minerals  and  plants 
and  animals  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  recognized,  because  atoms, 
minerals,  etc.,  are  not  conscious.  The  operation  of  the  Spirit  here  is 
defined  by  such  terms  as  gravity,  chemical  affinity,  electricity,  etc.  When 
the  plane  of  manhood  is  reached  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  is  recognized  as 
that  of  a  perspnal  an<}  conscious  presence,  It  is  because  of  the  presence  of 
this  all-pervading  personal  Spirit  that  each  man  recognizes  the  thoughts 
and  deeds  which  go  from  his  own  life  as  right  or  wrong.     '   ,       • 

And  in  the  last  place  this  doctrine  gives  us  the  meaning  of  the  struggle, 
conflict,  pain,  which  are  apparent  everywhere  throughout  the  realm  of 
nature  and  human  life.  The  optimism  of  Leibnitz  and  the  pessimism 
of  Schopenhauer  had  no  foundation  in  the  deep  truth  of  things.  When  we 
consider  the  mind  of  God  moving  out  into  the  Son  and  from  the  Son  into 
the  finite  world  and  into  the  Holy  Spirit  who  fills  and  animates  the  finite 
world,  and  above  the  world  organizes  the  Christian  Church,  we  see  the 
whole  movement  as  a  procession.  This  view  of  it  makes  it  dynamic  and 
living,  not  static  and  dead.  While  such  a  procession  involves  action, 
struggle,  conflict,  pain  and  anguish,  it  is  all  for  a  purpose.  The  groans 
of  nature  become  birth  pangs,  and  the  conflict  in  the  human  world  is 
incidental  to  the  effort  of  nobler  forms  of  life  to  get  born.  March  winds 
are  borne  with  more  patience  and  resignation  when  ,it  is  remembered  that 
they  are  incidental  to  the  birth  of  summer. 

The  entrance  of  the  divine  proces.sion  into  the  limitations  of  time  and 
space  is  advertised  by  the  storm  and  stress,  the  ceaseless  clash  and  strife 
which  begins  among  the  atoms.  This  stniggle  is  kept  up  through  all 
stages  of  organization,  until  when  we  reach  the  plane  of  human  life  it  is 
expressed  in  cries  and  wails,  in  tragedies,  epics,  litanies,  which  become  the 
most  interesting  part  of  human  literature. 

Into  this  struggle  comes  the  Son  of  Man  and  "Son  of  God.  He 
meets  it,  endures  it,  and  conquers  it,  and  is  crucified,  and  his  crucifixion  is 
the  culmination  of  the  process  of  trial  and  storm  and  strife,  which  began 
with  the  atoms  and  continued  through  the  whole  course  of  nature.  Wlien 
Christ  comes  up  from  the  dead,  then  the  truth  of  the  ages  gets  defined, 
that  through  suffering  and  denial  and  crucifixion  is  the  way  to  holiness  and 
everlasting  life.  From  thenceforth  a  redeemed  .humanity  becomes  the 
working  hypothesis  and  the  ideal  of  the  race.  Then  it  comes  to  be  seen 
that  the  whole  movement  of  God  looks  to  the  organization  of  the  human 
race  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  reason,  the  Logos,  the  plan,,and  the  ideal  frame- 
work of  the  universe. 


'^ 


If.    DH. \KMA1'  \1..\,  ChVI.OV. 


■'  THE  I'AKLIAMENT  OK  KliLKJIONS  HAS  ACHIEVED  A  SI  Ul'ENDOUS  WORK  IN  liKINCWNi;  UEI-OKE 
VOU  I  ME  KEPKESENTATIVES  OK  THE  KELICIONS  AND  I'lliLOSOFHIES  OK  THE  EAST.  THE 
CO.M\HTTEE  ON  RELIGIOUS  CONGRESSES  HAS  REALIZED  THE  UTOPIAN  IDEA  OK  THE  I'OKT  AND 
IHE  VISIONARY  ;  A  BEACON  LIGHT  HAS  liEEN  ERECTED  ON  THE  I'LVTIOKM  (iK  IHK  CHICAGO 
I'AKLIAMENT  TO  GUIDE  VEAKNING  SOILS  AI-TEK   TRUTH.  " 


THE  WORLD'S  DEBT  TO  BUDDHA. 

By  H.  Dharmapala,  of  Ceylon. 

Ancient  India,  twenty-five  centuries  ago,  was  the  scene  of  a  religious 
revolution,  the  greatest  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Indian  society  at  this  time 
had  two  large  and  distinguished  religious  foundations — the  Sramanas  and 
the  Brahmanas.  Famous  teachers  arose  and  with  their  disciples  went  among 
the  people  preaching  and  converting  them  to  their  respective  views.  The 
air  was  full  of  a  coming  spiritual  struggle,  hundreds  of  the  most  scholarly 
young  men  of  noble  families  (Kulaputta)  leaving  their  homes  in  quest  of 
truth,  ascetics  undergoing  the  severest  mortifications  to  discover  a  panacea 
for  the  evils  of  suffering,  young  dialecticians  wandering  from  place  to  place 
engaged  in  disputations,  some  advocating  scepticism  as  the  best  weapon  to 
fight  against  the  realistic  doctrines  of  the  day,  some  a  life  of  pessimism  as 
th,e  nearest  way  to  get  rid  of  existence,  some  denying  a  future  life.  It  was 
a  time  of  deep  and  many-sided  intellectual  movements,  which  extended 
from  the  circles  of  Brahmanical  thinkers  far  into  the  people  at  large.  The 
sacrificial  priest  was  powerful  then  as  he  is  now.  He  was  the  mediator 
between  God  and  man.  Monotheism  of  the  most  crude  type,  from  fetich- 
ism  and  animism  andanthropomorphic  deism  to  transcendental  dualism,  was 
rampant.  So  was  materialism,  from  sexual  Epicureanism  to  transcendental 
Nihilism.  In  the  words  of  Dr.  Oldenberg,  "  When  dialectic  scepticism  began 
to  attack  moral  ideas,  when  a  painful  longing  for  deliverance  from  the 
burden   of    being    was    met    by   the    first   signs    of    moral    decay,  Buddha 

appeared." 

".     .     .     The  Saviour  of  the  World, 
Prince  Siddhdrtha  styled  on  Earth, 
In  Earth  and  Heavens  and  Hells  incomparable, 
All-honored,  Wisest,  Best,  most  Pitiful 
The  Teacher  of  Nirvana  and  the  Law." 

— Sir  Edwin  Arnold's  "Light  of  Asia ^ 

The  Dawn  of  a  New  Era. — Oriental  scholars,  who  had  begun  their 
researches  in  the  domain  of  Indian  literature,  in  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury, were  put  to  great  perplexity  of  thought  at  the  discovery  made  of  the 
existence  of  a  religion  called  after  Buddha,  in  the  Indian  philosophical 
books.  Sir  William  Jones,  H.  H.  Wilson,  and  Colebrooke  were  embar- 
rassed in  being  unable  to  identify  him.  Dr.  Marshman,  in  1824,  said 
that  Buddha  was  the  Egyptian  Apis,  and  Sir  William  Jones  solved  the  prob- 
lem by  saying  that  he  was  no  other  than  the  Scandinavian  Woden.  .  But  in 
June,  1837,  the  whole  of  the  obscure  history  of  India  and  Buddhism  was 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

862 


DHARMAPALA:   ON    BUDDHA.  863 

made  clear  by  the  deciphering  of  the  rock-cut  edicts  of  Asoka  the  Great, 
in  Girnar,  and  Kapur-da-giri  by  that  lamented  archaeologist,  James 
Prinsep;  by  the  translation  of  the  Pali  Ceylon  History  into  English,  by 
Turnour;  by  the  discovery  of  Buddhist  MSS.  in  the  temples  of  Nepal,  Cey- 
lon, and  other  Buddhist  countries.  In  1844,  the  "first  rational,  scientific 
and  comprehensive  account  of  the  Buddhist  religion  "  was  published  by  the 
eminent  scholar,  Eugene  Bumouf.  The  key  to  the  hidden  archives  of  this 
great  religion  was  presented  to  the  people  of  Eurojje  by  this  great  scholar, 
and  the  inquiry  since  begun  is  being  carried  on  by  the  most  thoughtful  men 
of  the  day. 

Infinite  is  the  wisdom  of  the  Buddha ;  boundless  is  the  love  of  Buddha 
to  all  that  lives,  say  the  Buddhist  scriptures.  Buddha  is  called  the  Maha- 
Karunika,  which  means  the  "All-Merciful  Lord  who  has  compassion  on  all 
that  lives."  To  the  human  mind  Buddha's  wisdom  and  mercy  is  incompre- 
hensible. The  foremost  and  greatest  of  his  disciples,  the  blessed  Saripulta, 
even  he  has  acknowledged  that  he  could  not  gauge  the  Buddha's  wisdom 
and  mercy.  Professor  Huxley, in  his  recent  memorable  lecture  on  "Evolu- 
tion and  Ethics,"  delivered  at  Oxford,  speaking  of  Buddha,  says :  "Gautama 
got  rid  of  even  that  shade  of  a  shadow  of  permanent  existence  by  a  metaphysical 
tour  de  force  of  great  interest  to  the  student  of  philosophy,  seeing  that  it  sup- 
plies the  wanting  half  of  Bishop  Berkeley's  well-known  idealist  argument. 
.  .  .  It  is  a  remarkable  indication  of  the  subtlety  of  Indian  speculation 
that  Gautama  should  have  seen  deeper  than  the  greatest  of  modern  ideal- 
ists." The  tendency  of  enlightened  thought  of  the  day  all  the  world  over  is 
not  towards  theology,  but  philosophy  and  psychology.  The  bark  of  the- 
ological dualism  is  drifting  into  danger.  The  fundamental  principles  of 
evolution  and  monism  are  being  accepted  by  the  thoughtful. 

History  is  repeating  itself.  Twenty-five  centuries  ago  India  witnessed 
an  intellectual  and  religious  revolution  which  culminated  in  the  overthrow 
of  monotheism,  priestly  selfishness,  and  the  establishment  of  a  synthetic 
religion,  a  system  of  life  and  thought  which  was  appropriately  called 
Dhamma — Philosophical  Religion.  All  that  was  good  was  collected  from 
every  source  and  embgdied  therein,  and  all  that  was  bad  discarded.  The 
grand  personality  who  promulgated  the  Synthetic  Religion  is  known  as 
Buddha.  For  forty  years  he  lived  a  life  of  absolute  purity,  and  taught  a 
system  of  life  and  thought,  practical,  simple,  yet  philosophical,  which  makes 
man — the  active,  intelligent,  compassionate,  and  unselfish  man — to  realize 
the  fruits  of  holiness  in  this  life  on  this  earth.  The  dream  of  the  visionary, 
the  hope  of  the  theologian,  was  brought  into  objective  reality.  Speculation 
in  the  domain  of  false  philosophy  and  theology  ceased,  and  active  altruism 
reigned  supreme. 

Five  Hundred  and  forty-three  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  great 
being  was  born  in  the  Royal  Lumbini  Gardens  in  the  City  of  Kapila- 
vastu.     His  mother  was  M4y4,  the  Queen  of  Raj4  Sudohodana  of  the  Solar 


864  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS  :   EIGHTH    DAY, 

Race  of  India.  The  story  of  his  conception  and  birth,  and  the  details  of 
his  life  up  to  the  twenty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  his  great  renunciation,  his 
ascetic  life,  and  his  enlightenment  under  the  great  Bo  tree  at  Buddha  Jayi, 
in  Middle  India,  are  embodied  in  that  incomparable-epic,  The  Light  of  Asia, 
by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold.  I  recommend  that  beautiful  poem  to  all  who  appre- 
ciate a  life  of  holiness  and  purity. 

Six  centuries  before  Jesus  of  Nazareth  walked  over  the  plains  of  Galilee 
preaching  a  life  of  holiness  and  purify,  the  TathAgata  Buddha,  the  enlight- 
ened Messiah  of  the  World,  with  his  retinue  of  Arhats,  or  holy  men, 
traversed  the  whole  peninsula  of  India  with  the  message  of  peace  and  holi- 
ness to  the  sin-burdened  world.  Heart -stirring  were  the  words  he  spoke  to 
the  first  five  disciples  at  the  Deer  Park,  the  hermitage  of  Saints  at  Benares. 

His  First  Message. — "  Open  ye  your  ears,  O  Bhikshus,  deliverance 
from  death  is  found.  I  teach  you,  I  preach  the  Law.  If  ye  walk  according 
to  my  teaching,  ye  shall  be  partakers  in  a  short  time  of  that  for  which  sons 
of  noble  families  leave  their  homes,  and  go  to  homelessness — the  highest 
end  of  religious  effort :  ye  shall  even  in  this  present  life  apprehend  the  truth 
itself  and  see  it  face  to  face."  And  then  the  exalted  Buddha  spoke  thus: 
"  There  are  two  extremes,  O  Bhikshus,  which  the  truth-seeker  ought  not  to 
follow:  the  one  a, life  of  sensualism,  which  is  low,  ignoble,  vulgar, 
unworthy  and  unprofitable  ;  the  other  the  pessimistic  lifeof  extreme  ascetic- 
ism, which  is  painful,  unworthy  and  unprofitable.  There  is  a  Middle  Path, 
discovered  by  the  Tathdgata — the  Messiah — a  path  which  opens  the  eyes 
and  bestows  understanding,  which  leads  to  peace  of  mind,  to  the  higher 
wisdom,  to  full  enlightenment,  to  eternal  peace.  This  Middle  Path,  which 
the  Tathdgata  has  discovered,  is  the  noble  Eight-fold  Path,  viz.:  Right 
Knowledge — the  perception  of  the  Law  of  Cause  and  Effect,  Right  Think- 
ing, Right  Speech,  Right  Action,  Right  Profession,  Right  Exertion,  Right 
Mindfulness,  Right  Contemplation.  This  is  the  Middle  Path  which  the 
TathAgata  has  discovereil,  and  it  is  the  path  which  opens  the  eyes,  bestows 
understanding,  which  leads  to  peace  of  mind,  to  the  higher  wisdom,  to  per- 
fect enlightenment,  to  eternal  peace." 

Continuing  his  discourse,  he  said  :  "  Birth  is  attended  with  pain,  old  age 
is  painful,  disease  is  painful,  death  is  painful,  association  with  the  unpleasant 
is  painful,  separation  from  the  pleasant  is  painful,  the  non-satisfaction  of 
one's  desires  is  painful,  in  short,  the  coming  into  existence  is  painful.  This 
is  the  Noble  Truth  of  suffering. 

"Verily  it  is  that  clinging  to  life  which  causes  the  renewal  of  existence, 
accompanied  by  several  delights,  seeking  satisfaction  now  here,  now  there — 
that  is  to  say,  the  craving  for  the  gratification  of  the  passions,  or  the  craving 
for  a  continuity  of  individual  existences,  or  the  craving  for  annihilation. 
This  is  the  Noble  Truth  of  the  origin  of  suffering.  And  the  Noble  Truth  of 
the  cessation  of  suffering  consists  in  the  destruction  of  passions,  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  desires,  the  laying  aside  of,  the  getting  rid  of,  the  being  free  from, 


DHARMAPALA:   ON    15UDDHA.  865 

the  harboring  no  longer  of  this  thirst.  And  the  Noble  Truth  which  points 
the  way  is  the  Noble  Eight-fold  Path."  This  is  the  foundation  of  the  King- 
dom of  Righteousness,  and  from  that  center  at  Benares,  this  message  of  peace 
and  love  was  sent  abroad  to  all  humanity:  "  Go  ye,  O  Bhikshus  and  wander 
forth  for  the  gain  of  the  many,  in  compassion  for  the  world  for  the  good,  for  the 
gain,  for  the  welfare  of  gods  and  men.  Proclaim,  O  Bhikshus,  the  dqctrine 
glorious.  Preachyealifeof  holiness,  perfect  and  pure.  Go  then  through  every 
country,  convert  those  not  converted.  Go  therefore,  each  one  traveling  alone 
filled  with  compassion.  Go,  rescue  and  receive.  Proclaim  that  a  blessed 
Buddha  has  appeared  m  the  world,  and  that  he  is  preaching  the  Law  of 
Holiness." 

The  essence  of  the  vast  teachings  of  the  Buddha  is : 

The  entire  obliteration  of  all  that  is  evil.  .       - 

The  perfect  consummation  of  all  that  is  good  and  pure. 

The  complete  purification  of  the  mind. 

The  wisdom  of  the  ages  embodied  in  the  Three  Pitakas — the  Sutta, 
Vinaya,  Abhidhamma,  comprising  84,000  discourses,  all  delivered  by  Buddha 
during  his  ministry  of  forty-five  years.  To  give  an  elaborate  account  of  this 
great  system  within  an  hour  Is  not  in  the  power  of  man. 

Buddha  in  a  discourse  called  the  "  Bramaj&la  Sutta ,"  enumerates  sixty- 
two  different  religious  views  hejd  by  the  sectarians. 

After  having  categorically  explained  these  different  systems  Buddha  con- 
tinues: "Brethren,  these  believers  hold  doctrines  respecting  tlie  past,  or 
respecting  the  future,  and  meditating  on  previous  events  or  those  on  which 
are  in  futurity,  declare  a  variety  of  opinions  respecting  the  pafet  and  future 
in  sixty-two  modes. 

"  These  doctrines  are  fully  understood  by  the  Tathigata  Buddha,  he  knows 
the  causes  of  their  being  held  and  the  experiences  upon  which  they  are 
founded.  He  also  knows  other  things  far  more  excellent  than  these;  but, 
that  knowledge  has  not  been  derived  from  sensual  impressions.  He  with 
knowledge,  not  derived  from  the  impressions  on  the  senses,  is  fully  acquainted 
with  that  by  which  both  the  impressions  and  their  causes  become  extinct, 
and  distinctly  perceiving  the  production,  the  cessation,  the  advantages,  the 
evils  and  the  extinctions  of  the  sensations,  he  is  perfectly  free,  having  no 
attachments.  Brethren,  these  doctrines  of  Buddha  are  profound,  difficult  to 
be  perceived,  hard  to  be  comprehended,  tranquilizing,  excellent,  not  attaina- 
ble by  reason,  subtle  and  worthy  of  being  known  by  the  wise.  These  the 
Tathdgata  (Buddha)  has  ascertained  by  his  own  wisdom  and  publicly  makes 
them  known.  But  the  teachings  of  the  other  believers  are  founded  on  ignor- 
ance, their  want  of  perception,  their  personal  experience,  and  on  the  fluctuat- 
ing emotions  of  those  who  are  under  the  influence  of  their  passions. 

"  Brethren,  all  these  modes  of  teaching  respecting  the  past  or  the  future, 
originate  in  the  sensations  experienced  by  repeated  impressions  made  on 
the  six   organs  of  sensitiveness,  on  account  of  these  sensations  desire  is 

55 


866  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY.     . 

produced,  in  consequence  of  desire  an  attachment  to  the  desired  objects,  on 
account  of  this  attachment  reproduction  in  an  existent  state,  in  consequence 
of  this  reproduction  of  existence,  birth  ;  in  consequence  of  birth  are  produced 
disease,  death,  sorrow,  weeping,  pain,  grief  and  discontent." 

A  systematic  study  of  Buddha's  doctrine  has  not  yet  been  made  by  the 
Western  scholars,  hence  the  conflicting  opinions  expressed  by  them  at  various 
times.  '  The  notion  once  held  by  the  scholars  that  it  is  a  system  of  material- 
ism has  been  exploded.  The  Positivists  of  France  found  it  a  positivism ;  . 
Buchner  and  his  school  of  materialists  thought  it  was  a  materialistic  system ; 
agnostics  found  in  Buddha  an  agnostic,  and  Dr.  Rhys  Davids,  the  emitlent 
Pali  scholar,  used  to  call  him  the  "agnostic  philosopher  of  India;"  some 
scholars  have  found  an  expressed  monotheism  therein ;  Arthur  Lillie," another 
student  of  Buddhism,  thinks  it  a  theistic  system ;  pessimists  identify  it  with 
Schopenhauer's  pessimism,  the  late  Mr.  Buckle  identified  it  with  pantheism 
of  Fichte ;  some  have  found  in  it  a  monism  ;  and  the  latest  dictum  of  Prof. 
Huxley  is  that  it  is  an  idealism  supplying  "the  wanting  half  of  Bishop 
Berkeley's  well-known  idealist  argument."  ;/ '^  "'.-*<'>.*  •• 

Id  the  religion  of  Buddha  is  found  a  comprehensive  system  of  ethics, 
and  a  transcendental  metaphysic  embracing  a  sublime  psychology'.  "To  the 
simple-minded  it  offers  a  code  of  morality,  to  the  earnest  student  a  system  of 
pure  thought.  But  the  basic  doctrine  is  the  self-purification  of  man.  Spirit- 
ual progress  is  impossible  for  him  who  does  not  lead  a  life  of  purity  and 
compassion.  The  rays  of  the  sunlight  of  truth  enter  the  mind  of  him  who  is 
fearless  to  examine  truth,  who  is  free  from  prejudice,  who  is  not  tied  by  the 
sensual  passions  and  who  has  reasoning  faculties  to  think.  One  has  to  be  an 
atheist  in  the  sense  employed  by  Max  Miiller :  "There  is  an  atheism  which 
is  unto  death,  there  is  another  which  is  the  very  life-blood  of  all  truth  and 
faith.  It  is  the  power  of  giving  up  what,  in  our  best,  our  most  honest 
moments,  we  know  to  be  no  longer  true ;  it  is  the  readiness  to  replace  the 
less  perfect,  however  dear,  however  sacred  it  may  have  been  to  us,  by  the 
more  perfect,  however  much  it  may  be  detested,  as  ytt,  by  the  world.  It  is 
the  true  self-surrender,  the  true  self-sacrifice,  the  truest  trust  in  truth,  the 
truest  faith.  Without  that  atheism,  ho  new  religion,  no  reform,  no  reforma- 
tion, no  resuscitation  would  ever  have  been  possible  ;  without  that  atheism, 
no  new  life  is  possible  for  any  one  of  us." 

The  strongest  emphasis  has  been  put  by  Buddha  on  the  supreme 
importance  of  having  an  unprejudiced  mind  before  we  start  on  the  road  of 
investigation  of  truth.  Prejudice,  passion,  fear  of  expression  of  one's  con- 
victions and  ignorance  are  the  four  biases  that  have  to  be  sacrificed  at  the 
threshold. 

To  be  bom  as  a  human  being  is  a  glorious  privilege.  Man's  dignity 
consists  in  his  capability  to  reason  and  think  and  to  live  up  to  the  highest 
ideal  of  pure  life,  of  calrrr  thought,  of  wisdom  without  extraneous  interven- 
tion. ,  In  the  Saimanna  phala  Sutta,  Buddha  says  that  man  can  enjoy  in 


■r. 

r. 


868  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

this  life  a  glorious  existence,  a  life  of  individual  freedom,  of  fearlessness  and 
compassionateness.  This  dignified  ideal  of  manhood  may  be  attained  by  the 
humblest,  and  this  consummation  raises  him  above  wealth  and  royalty. 
" He  that  is  compassionate  and  observes  the  law  is  my  disciple,"  says 
Buddha. 

Human  Brotherhood. — This  forms  the  fundamental  teaching  of  Bud- 
dha; universal  love  and  sympathy  with  all  mankind  and  with  animal 
life.  Everyone  is  enjomed  to  love  all  beings  as  a  mother  loves  her  only 
child  and  takes  care  of  it,  even  at  the  risk  of  her  life.  The  realization  of  the 
idea  of  brotherhood  is  obtained  when  the  first  stage  of  holiness  is  reached ; 
the  idea  of  separateness  is  destroyed,  and  the  oneness  of  life  is  recognized. 
There  is  no  pessimism  in  the  teachings  of  Buddha,  for  he  strictly  enjoins  on 
his  holy  disciples  not  even  to  suggest  to  others  that  life  is  not  worth  living. 
On  the  contrary,  the  usefulness  of  life  is  emphasized  for  the  sake  of  doing 
good  to  self  and  humanity. 

Religion  Characteristic  of  Hnvtanity. — From  the  first  worshiping  savage 
to  the  highest  type  of  humanity,  man  naturally  yearns  after  something  higher; 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  Buddha  inculcated  the  necessity  of  self-reliance 
and  independent  thought.  To  guide  humanity  in  the  right  path  a  TathAgata 
(Messiah)  appears  from  time  to  time. 

The  Theism  of  Buddhism. — Speaking  of  Deity  in  the  sense  of  a  Supreme 
Creator,  Buddha  says  that  there  is  no  such  being.  Accepting  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  as  the  only  true  one,  with  its  corollary,  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect,  he  condemns  the  idea  of  a  creator  and  strictly  forbids  inquiry  into  it 
as  being  useless.  But  a  supreme  god  of  the  Brahmans  and  minor  gods  are 
accepted ;  but  they  are  subject  to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  This  supreme 
god  is  all  love,  all  merciful,  all  gentle,  and  looks  upon  all  beings  with  equa- 
nimity, and  Buddha  teaches  men  to  practice  these  four  supreme  virtues. 
But  there  is  no  difference  between  the  perfect  man  and  this  supreme  god  of 
the  present  world-period. 

Evolution  as  Taught  by  Buddha. —  The  teachings  of  the  Buddha  on 
this  great  subject  are  clear  and  expansive.  We  are  asked  to  look  upon 
the  cosmos  "  as  a  continuous  process  unfolding  itself  in  regular  order  in 
obedience  to  natural  laws.  We  see  in  it  all,  not  a  warring  chaos  restrained 
by  the  constant  interference  from  without  of  a  wise  and  beneficent  external 
power,  but  a  vast  aggregate  of  original  elements,  perpetually  working  out 
their  own  fresh  redistribution  in  accordance  with  their  own  inherent  ener- 
gies. He  regards  the  cosmos  as  an  almost  infinite  collection  of  material 
atoms  animated  by  an  almost  infinite  sum-total  of  energy  " —  which  is  called 
Akdsa.  We  do  not  postulate  that  man's  evolution  began  from  the  proto- 
plasmic stage  ;  but  we  are  asked  not  to  speculate  on  the  origin  of  life,  on 
the  origin  of  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  etc.  So  far  as  this  great  law  is 
concerned  we  say  that  it  controls  the  phenomena  of  human  life  as  well 
as   those  of  external   nature.     The   whole  knowable  universe   fopns   one 


DHARMAPALA:   ON    BUDDHA.  869 

undivided   whole,  a  "monon."    (See  Hoeckel,  Evolution  of  Matt,  Vol.  ii., 

P-  4S5-) 

Importance  of  a  serious  study  of  all  systems  of  Religion.  —  Buddha 
promulgated  his  system  of  philosophy  after  having  studied  all  religions  ; 
and  in  the  Brakmajdla  Sutta  sixty-two  creeds  are  discussed.  In  the 
Kalama  Sutta,  Buddha  says,  "  Do  not  believe  in  what  ye  have  heard  ;  do 
not  believe  in  traditions,  because  they  have  been  handed  down  for  many 
generations ;  do  not  believe  in  anything  because  it  is  rumored  and  spoken 
of  by  many  ;  do  not  believe  merely  because  the  written  statement  of  some 
old  sage  is  produced  ;  do  not  believe  in  conjectures  ;  do  not  believe  in  that 
as  truth  to  which  you  have  become  attached  by  habit ;  do  not  believe  merely 
on  the  authority  of  your  teachers  and  elders  ;  after  observation  and  analysis, 
when  it  agrees  with  reason  and  is  conducive  to  the  good  and  gain  of  one 
and  all,  then  accept  it  and  live  up  to  it."     (Anguttara  A'ikdya.) 

Aloral  Teachings  of  Buddha. — To  the  ordinary  householder  whose 
highest  happiness  consists  in  being  wealthy  here  and  a  heaven  hereafter 
Buddha  inculcated  a  simple  code  of  morality.  The  student  of  Buddha's 
religion  abstains  from  destroying  life,  he  lays  aside  the  club  and  the  weapon, 
he  is  modest  and  full  of  pity,  he  is  compassionate  and  kind  to  all  creatures 
that  have  life.  He  abstains  from  theft,  and  he  passe.<;  his  life  in  honesty 
and  purity  of  heart.  He  lives  a  life  of  chastity  and  purity.  He  abstains 
from  falsehood  and  injures  not  his  fellow-man  by  deceit.  Putting  away 
slander  he  abstains  from  calumny.  He  is  a  peace-maker,  a  speaker  of 
words  that  make  for  peace.  Whatever  word  is  humane,  pleasant  to  the  ear, 
lovely,  reaching  to  the  heart — such  are  words  he  speaks.  He  abstains  from 
harsh  language.  He  abstains  from  foolish  talk.  He  abstains  from  intoxi- 
cants and  stupefying  drugs. 

The  Higher  Morality. — The  advanced  student  of  the  religion  of  Buddha 
when  he  has  faith  in  him  thinks  :  "  '  Full  of  hindrances  is  household  life,  a 
path  defiled  by  passion  :  free  as  the  air  is  the  life  of  him  who  has  renounced 
all  worldly  things.  How  difficult  is  it  for  the  man  who  dwells  at  home  to 
live  the  higher  life  in  all  its  fullness,  in  all  its  purity,  in  ail  its  perfection  ! 
Let  me  then  cut  off  my  hair  and  beard,  let  me  clothe  myself  in  orange-col- 
ored robes,  and  let  me  go  forth  from  a  household  life  into  the  homeless  state.' 

"Then  before  long,  forsaking  his  portion  of  wealth,  forsaking  his  circle 
of  relatives,  he  cuts  off  his  hair  and  beard,  he  clothes  himself  in  the  orange- 
colored  robes  and  he  goes  into  the  homeless  state.  Then  he  passes  a  life 
self-restrained  according  to  the  Rules  of  the  Order  of  the  Blessed  Ones  ; 
uprightness  is  his  delight,  and  he  sees  danger  in  the  least  of  those  things  he 
should  avoid,  he  encompasses  himself  with  holiness  in  word  and  deed,  he 
sustains  his  life  by  means  that  are  quite  pure  :  good  is  his  conduct, guarded 
the  door  of  his  senses,  mindful  and  self-possessed,  he  is  altogether  happy." 

The  Low  and  Lying  Arts. — The  student  of  pure  religion  abstains  from 
earning  a  livelihood  by  the  practice  of  low  and  lying  arts,  viz.:  all  divina- 


870  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH   DAY. 

tion,  interpretation  of  dreams,  palmistry,  astrology,  crystal-gazing,  prophe- 
sying, charms  of  all  sorts. 

Universal  Pity. — Buddha  says :  "Just  as  a  mighty  trumpeter  makes 
himself  heard  in  all  the  four  directions  without  difficulty ;  even  so  of  all 
things  that  have  life,  there  is  not  one  that  the  student  passes  by  or  leaves 
aside,  but  regards  them  all'  with  mind  set  free,  and  deep-felt  pity,  sympathy, 
and  equanimity.  He  lets  his  mind  pervade  the  whole  world  with  thoughts 
.  of  Love."  - 

The  ReaHtaticn  of  the  Unseen. — ^To  realize  the  unseen  is  the  goal  pf  the 
student  of  Buddha's  teachings,  and  Vuch  a  one  has  to  lead  an  absolutely 
V^         pure  life.     Buddha  says:  "Let  him  fulfill  all  righteousness,  let  him  be 
;-*%',>:"    devoted  to  that  quietude  of  heart  which  springs  from  within,  let  him  not 
J.-!:'.  ■-•:;;  drive  back  the  ecstasy  of .  contemplation,  let  him  look  through  things,  let 
-vVv!  '  ^'™  ^^  much  alone.    Fulfill  all  righteousness  for  the  sake  of  the  living  and 
•x;.  ;--;'■  ior  the  sake  of  the  beloved  ones  that  are  dead  and  gone."  ■ 
'• :  ■.'^"'■.         Psychic  Experiments. — Thought  transference,  thought   reading,  clair- 
audience,  clairvoyance,  projection  of  the  sub-conscious  self,  and  all  the 
higher  branches  of  psychical  science  that  just  now  engage  the  thoughtfuP 
^  attention  of  the  psychical  researchers,  are  within  the  reach  of  him  who  fulfills 
;.  .,■  -    .    an  righteousness,  who  is  devoted  to  solitude  and  contemplation.     " 
'^'■''-       '  ■'         The  Common  Appanage  of  all  Good  Men.— Ch&r'ity,  observance  of  moral 
rules,  purifying  the  mind,  making  others  participate  in  the  good  work  that 
one  is'  doing,  cooperating  with  others  in  doing  good,  nursing  the  sick,  giving 
:  .        gifts  to  the  deserving  ones,  hearing  all  that  is  good  and  beautiful,  making 
others  learn  the  rules  of  morality,  accepting  the  law  of  cause  and  effect. 

Prohibited  Employments. — Slave  dealing,  sale  of  weapons  of  warfare, 
sale  of  poisons,  sale  of  intoxicants,  sale  of  flesh — these  are  the  lowest  of  all 
low  professions. 

Five  Kinds  of  Wealth. — Faith,  pure  life,  receptivity  of  the  mind  to  all 
that  is  good  and  beautiful,  liberality,  wisdom — those  who  possessed  these 
five  kinds  or  wealth  in  their  past  incarnations  are  influenced  by  the  teach- 
ings of  Buddha. 

Universalism  of  Buddha^ s  Teachings. — Buddha  says  :  *'  He  who  is 
faithful  and  leads  the  life  of  a  house-holder,  and  possesses  the  following  four 
(Dhammas)  virtues  :  Truth,  justice,  firmness,  and  liberality — such  a.one  does 
not  grieve  when  passing  away.  Pray  ask  other  teachers  and  philosophers 
far  and  wide  whether  there  is  found  anything  greater  than  truth,  self- 
restraint,  liberality,  and  forbearance." 

The  Fupil  and  Teacher. — The  pupil  should  minister  to  his  teacher.  He 
should  rise  up  in  his  presence,  wait  upon  him,  listen  to  all  that  he  says 
with  respectful  attention,  peiform  the  duties  necessary  for  hi?  personal 
comfort,  and  carefully  attend  to  his  instruction. 

The  teacher  should  show  affection  to  his  pupil ;  he  trains  him  in  virtue 
and  good  manners,  carefully  instructs  him,  imparts  unto  him  a  knowledge 


DHARMAPALA:    ON    BUDDHA.  87 1 

of  the  sciences   and   wisdom  of  the  ancients,  speaks  well  of  him  to  friends 
and  relations  and  guards  him  from  danger. 

The  Honorable  Man. — The  honorable  man  ministers  to  his  friends  and 
relatives  by  presenting  gifts,  by  courteous  language,  by  promoting  them  as 
his  equals,  and  by  sharing  with  them  his  prosperity.  They  should  watch 
over  him  when  he  has  negligently  exposed  himself  and  guard  his  property 
when  he  is  careless,  assist  him  in  difficulties,  stand  by  him  and  help  to  pro- 
vide for  his  family. 

The  Master  and  ServatiL — The  master  shoald  minister  to  the  wants  of 
his  servants  and  dependents.  He  assigns  them  labor  suitable  to  their 
strength,  provides  for  their  comfortiible  support ;  he  attends  to  them  in  sick- 
ness ;  causes  them  to  partake  of  any  extraoFoinary.  delicacy  he  may  obtain, 
and  makes  them  occasional  presents.'  And  the^^e^vants  should  manifest 
their  attachment  to  the  master;  they  risf  liefore  him  in  the  morning  and 
retire  later  to  rest ;  they  do  not  purloin' his  property;  do  their  work  cheer- 
fully and  actively,  and  are  respectful  in  their  behavior  towards  him. 

Religums  Teachers  and  Laymen. — The  religious  teachers  should  mani- 
fest their  kind  feelings  toward  them;  they  should  dissuade  them. from  vice, 
excite  them  to  virtuous  acts ;  being  desirous  of  promoting  the  welfare  of  all, 
they  should  instruct  .them  in  the  things  they  tad'not  previously  learned ; 
confirm  them  in  the  truths  they  had  received  and  point  oat  to  them  the 
way  to  heaven. 

The  laymen  should  minister  to  the  teachers  by  respectful  attention 
manifej^d  in  their  words,  actions  and  thoughts ;  and  by  supplying  them 
their  temporal  wants  and  by  allowing  them  constant  access  to  themselves. 

In  this  world,  generosity,  mildness  of  speech,  public  spirit  and  court- 
eous behavior  are  worthy  of  respect  in  all  circumstances,  and  will  be  valuable 
in  all  places. 

If  these  be  not  possessed^  the  mother  will  receive  neither  honor  nor 
support  from  the  son,  neither  will  the  father  receive  respect  or  honor. 

The  Mission  of  the  Buddha.  —  BuDDHA  says :  "  Know  that  from  time  to 
time  a  Tathdgata  is  bom  into  the  world,  fully  enlightened,  blessed  and 
worthy,  abounding  in  wisdom  and  goodness,  happy,  with  knowledge  of  the 
world,  unsurpassed  as  a  guide  to  erring  mortals,  a  teacher  of  gods  and  men, 
a  blessed  Buddha.  He  by  himself  thoroughly  understands  and  sees,  as  it 
were,  face  to  face,  this  universe,  the  world  below  with  all  its  spirits,  and  the 
worlds  above  and  all  creatures,  all  religious  teachers,  gods  and  men,  and  he 
then  makes  his  knowledge  known  to  others.  The  truth  doth  he  proclaim 
both  in  its  letter  and  its  spirit,  lovely  in  its  origin,  lovely  in  its  progress, 
lovely  in  its  consummation  ;  the  higher  life  doth  he  proclaim,  in  all  its  purity 
and  in  all  its  perfectness." 

The  Attributes  of  Buddha. — I.  He  is  absolutely  free  from  all  passions, 
commits  no  evil,  even  in  secrecy,  and  is  the  embodiment  of  perfection;  he  i» 
above  doing  anything  wrong. 


8/2  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

2.  Without  a  teacher  by  self-introspection  he  has  reached  the  state  of 
supreme  enlightenment. 

3.  By  means  of  his  divine  eye  he  looks  back  to  the  remotest  past  and 
future,  knows  the  way  of  emancipation,  is  ncot^mplished  in  the  three  great 
branches  of  divine  knowledge  and  has  gainctl  perfect  wisdom.  He  is  in 
possession  of  all  psychic  powers,  is  always  willing  to  listen,  full  of  energy, 
wisdom  andDhyana. 

4.  He  has  realized  eternal  peace  of  Nirvina  and  walks  in  the  perfect 
path  of  virtue. 

5.  He  knows  the  three  states  of  existences, 

6.  He  is  inconlparable  in  purity  and  holiness.  - 

7.  He  is'teacher  of  gods  and.  men.  * 

8.  He  exhorts  gods  and  men  at  the  proper  time  according  to  their  indi- 
vidual temperaments.'       /   . 

9.  He  is  the  supremely  enlightened  teacher  and  the  perfect  embodi- 
ment of  all  the' virtiies  he  preaches. 

The  two  characteristics  of  the  Buddha  are  wisdom' and  compassion.  . 

Budd?ia^s  Disciples. —  Buddha  says  :     "He  who  is  not  generous, "who  is 

■fond  of  sensuality,  who  is  distressed  at  heart,  who  is  of  uneven  mind,  who fs 

not  reflective,  who  is'  not  of  calm  mind,  wholt  discontented  at  heart,' who  has 

no  control  over  his  senses — sudh  a  disciple  is  far  from  me  though  he  is  in 

body  near  me." 

The  Conipas'sionateness  Shown  by  Buddhist  Missionaries. — Actuated  by 
the  spirit  of  compassion,  the  disciples  of  Buddha  have  ever  been  in  the  fore- 
front of  missionary  propaganda.  The  whole  of  Asia  was  brought  under  the 
influence  of  the  Buddha's  law.  Never  was  the  religion  propagated  by  force, 
not  a  drop  of  blood  has  ever  been  split  in  the  name  'of  Buddha.  The 
shrines  of  Sakya  Muni  are  stainless.  The  following  story  is  interesting  as 
it  shows  the  nature  of  the  Buddhist  missionaries.  Punna,  the  Bhikshu, 
before  he  was  sent  on  his  mission  to  preach  to  the  people  of  Sunaparanta 
was  warned  by  Buddha  in  the  following  manner :  "  The  people  of  Sunapa- 
ranta are  exceedingly  violent.     If  they  revile,  what  will  you  do  ?" 

"  I  will  make  no  reply." 

"And  if  they  strike  you  ?  " 

"  I  will  not  strike  in  return." 

"  And  if  they  try  to  kill  you  ?  " 

•'  Death  is  no  evil  in  itself,  many  even  desire  it,  to  escape  from  the  van- 
ities of  life ;  but  I  shall  take  no  steps  either  to  hasten  or  to  delay  the  time  of 
my  departure." 

The  Ultimate  Goal  of  Man. — The  ultimate  goal  of  the  perfected  man  is 
eternal  peace.  To  show  humanity  the  path  on  which  to  realize  this  state  of 
eternal  peace,  Buddha  promulgated  the  noble  eight-fold  path.  The  NirvAna 
of  Buddha  is  beyond  the  conception  of  the  ordinary  mind.  Only  the  per- 
fected man  realizes  it.    It  transcends  all  human  thought.    Caught  in  the 


DHARMAPALA:   ON   BUDDHA.  873 

vortex  of  evolution -man  undergoes  change  and  is  constantly  subject  to  birth 
and  death.  The  happiness  in  the  highest  heaven  comes  some  day  to  an  end. 
This  change,  Buddha  declared,  is  sorrowful.  And  until  you  realize  NirvAna 
you  are  subject  to  birth  and  death.  Eternal  changefulness  in  evolution 
becomes  eternal  rest.  The  constantly  dissipating  energy  is  concentrated  in 
Nirvanic  life.  There  is  no  more  birth,  Tio  more  death.  It  is  eternal  peace. 
On  earth  the  purified,  perfected  man  enjoys  NirvAna,  and  after  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  physical  body  there  is  no  birth  in  an  objective  world.  The  gods 
see  him  not,  nor  does  man. 

The  Attainment  of  Salvation. — It  is  by  the  perfection  of  self  through 
charity,  purity,  self-sacrifice,  self-knowledge,  dauntless  energy,  patienc^,  truth, 
resolution,  love  and  equanimity}  that  the  goal  is  realized^  The  final  consum- 
mation is  Nirvana.  .      -  -  .    '  .; 

The  Glorious  Freedom  of  Self— the  last  words  of  Buddha. — "  Be  ye  lamps 
unto  yourselves.  Be  ye  a  refuge  to  yourselves.  Betake -yourself  to  no  exter- 
nal refuge.  Hold  fast  to  the  truth  as  a  lamp.  Hold  fast  as  a  refuge  to  the 
the  truth.  Look  not  for  refuge  to  any  one  besides  yoiirselves.  Learn  ye 
then,  O  Bhikshus,  that  knowledge  have  I  attained  and  have  declared  unto 
you,  and  walk  ye  in  it,  practice  and  increase,  in  order  that  this  ptith  of  holi- 
ness may  last  and  long  endure,  for  the  blessing  of  many  people  to' the  relief 
of  the  world,  to  the  welfare,  the  blessing,  the  joy  of  gods  and  men.  O 
Bhikshus,  everything  that  cometh  into  being  changeth.  Strive  on  unceas- 
ingly for  the  consummation  of  the  highest  ideal."  ,  -v.      '•' 

The  Spread  of  the  Religion  of  Humanity. — Two  thousand  one  hundred 
years  ago  the  whole  of  Asia  came  under  the  influences  of  the  scepter  of  one 
emperor  and  he  was  truly  called  Asoka,  the  delight  of  the  gods.  His  glory 
was  to  spread  the  teachings  of  the  Buddha  throughout  the  world  by  the  force 
of  love,  and  indeed  nobody  could  say  that  he  had  failed.  His  only  son  and 
daughter  were  made  apostles  of  the  gentle  creed;  and,  clad  in  the  orange- 
colored  robes,  they  went  to  Ceylon,  converted  the  king  and  established 
Buddhism  there.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  civilization  the  brother- 
hood of  Humanity  is  recognized,  different  nations  accept  one  living 
truth,  virtue  is  enthroned.  It  was  a  proud  achievement,  unprecedented 
in  history  since  the  dawn  of  civilization,  Pure  religion  recognizing  no  Deity 
finds  welcome  everywhere.  There  is  a  grandeur  inherent  in  it,  for  it  does  not 
want  to  appeal  to  the  selfishness  of  man.  When  the  human  mind  reaches  a 
higher  stage  of  development,  the  conception  of  a  Deity  becomes  less  grand. 
Nearly  three  hundred  millions  of  people  of  the  great  empire  of  Asoka  embrace 
a  system  of  pure  ethics  ;  a  social  polity  is  for  the  first  time  enunciated.  The 
king  sees  much  that  is  sinful  in  the  destruction  of  animals,  and  therefore  "  one 
must  not  kill  any  living  animal."  He  declares  that  at  the  time  when  the 
edict  is  engraved  "three  animals  only  are  killed  for  the  royal  table,  two  pea 
fowls  and  a  gazelle.  Even  these  three  animals  will  not  be  killed  in  future. 
Everywhere  in  his  empire,  and  in  the  neighboring  kingdoms,  such  as  Greece, 


874  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH   DAY. 

etc.,  the  king  has  provided  medicines  of  two  sorts,  medicines  for  men  and  medi- 
cines for  animals.  Whenever  useful  plants,  either  for  men  or  for  animals, 
were  wanting  they  have  been  imported  and  planted.  And  along  public  roads 
wells  have  been  dug  for  the  use  of  animals  and  men.  It  is  good  and  pioper 
to  render  dutiful  service  to  one's  father  and  mother,  to  friends,  to  acquaint- 
ances and  relations ;  it  is  good  and  proper  to  bestow  alms  on  religious 
teachers  and  students  of  religion,  to  respect  the  life  of  living  beings,  to  avoid 
prodigality  and  violent  language." 

"  Thanks  to  the  instructions  of  the  religion  spread  by  the  king,  there 
exist  to-day  a  respect  for  living  creatures,  a  tenderness  towards  them,  a 
regard  for  relations  and  for  teachers,  a  dutiful  obedience  to.  father  and 
mother,  and  obeisance  to  aged  meiv,  such  as  have  not  existed  for  centuries. 
The  teaching  of  religion  is  the  most  meritorious  of  acts,  and  there  is  no 
practice  of  religion  without  virtue.",  ^  '':f"''^'''^f'C^^'^-^'-'i''^'-^^ 

-"  The  practice  of  virtue  is  difficult,  and  those  who  practice  virtue  per- 
form what  is  difficult. '  Thus  in  the  past  there  were  no  ministers  of  religion; 
but  I  have  created*  ministers  of  religion.    They  mix  with  all  sects.     They 


.:jti^r. 


.J-^ 


bring  comfort  to  him  who  is  in  fetters."-  ■••■..*?'  ■; 

"The  king  ardently  desires  that  all  sects ' may  live  in  all  places.  ''All 
of  them  equally  purpose  the  subjection  of  the  senses  and  the  purificatioii  of 
the  soul ;  but  man  is  fickle  in  his  attachments.  Those  who  do  not  bestow 
ample  gifts  may  yet  possess  a  control  over  the  senses,  purity  9f  soul  and 
gratitude  and  fidelity  in  their  affections  ;  and  this  is  commendable." 

"  In  past  times  the  kings  went  out  for  pastimes.  These  are  my 
pastimes, — visits  and  gifts  to  teachers,  visits  to  aged  men,  the  distribution 
of  money,  visits  to  the  people  of  the  empire,  etc." 

"  There  is  no  gift  comparable  with  the  gift  of  religion." 

"The  king  honors  all  sects,  he  propitiates  them  by  alms.  But  the 
beloved  of  the  gods  attaches  less  importance  to  such  gifts  and  honors  than 
to  the  endeavor  to  promote  their  essential  moral  virtues.  It  is  true  the 
prevalence  of  essential  virtues  differs  in  different  sects.  But  there  is  a 
common  basis,  and  that  is  gentleness  and  moderation  in  language.  Thus 
one  should  not  exalt  one's  own  sect  and  decry  the  others  ;  one  should  not 
deprecate  them  without  cause  but  should  render  them  on  every  occasion  the 
honor  which  they  deserve.  Striving  thus,  one  promotes  the  welfare  of  his 
own  sect  while  serving  the  others.  Whoever  from  attachment  to  his  own 
sect,  and  with  a  view  to  promote  it,  exalts  it  and  decries  others,  only  deals 
rude  blows  to  his  own  sect.  I^ence  concord  alone  is  meritorious,  so  that  all 
bear  and  love  to  bear  the  beliefs  of  each  other.  All  people,  whatever  their 
faith  may  be,  should  say  that  the  beloved  of  the  gods  attaches  less  import- 
ance to  gifts  and  external  observances  than  to  the  desire  to  promote  essen- 
tial moral  doctrines  and  mutual  respect  for  all  sects.  The  result  of  this  is 
the  promotion  of  my  own  faith  and  its  advancement  in  the  light  of  religion." 

"  The  beloved  of  the  gods  ardently  desires  security  for  all  creatures, 


'"'vgy  -o^  -s^  '^--*  'y.^   1^ — i^ 


-^i^ 


=3  <^  I  .f^  ■^T-j^ri 


^^M/s^}-i)}}}i}if-!:;:n}-njJi^ 


-j_.a:;^::j-j^La^-j;.iKj:5i"Lj-U'-.^^^-Lj-Li; 


""^  '  *"  '■!  ' 


j)^Li}-jiJi,j:^ 


.-^.-■^^.-IW.  S.'.e^ 


A  BUDDHiSl  bHRINE, 


)0'  r» 


876  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

respect  for  life,  peace  and  kindliness  in  behavior.  This  is  what  the  beloved 
of  the  gods  considers  as  the  conquest  of  religion.  ...  I  have  felt  an 
intense  joy — such  is  the  happiness  which  the  conquests  of  religion  procure. 
It  is  with  this  object  that  this  religious  inscription  has  been  engraved,  in 
order  that  our  sons  and  grandsons  may  not  think  that  a  new  conquest  is 
necessary ;  that  they  may  not  think  that  conquest  by  the  sword  deserves  the 
name  of  conquest;  that  they  may  see  in  it  nothing  but  destruction  and' 
violence ;  that  they  may  consider  nothing  as  true  conquest  as  the  conquest  of 
religion."  .  n 

In  the  eighth  edict  the  great  emperor  says :     "  I  have  also  appointed 

ministers  of  religion  in  order  that  they  may  exert   themselves  among  all 

sects,  monks  as  well  as  worldly  men.     I  have  also  had  in  view  the  interest 

v;.-.;    of  the  clergy,  of  Brahmans,  of  religious  mendicants,  of  religious  Nirgantbas 

iO^'f^'    and  of  various  sects  among  whom  my  officers,  work.     The  ministers  exert 

themselves,  each  in  his  corporation,  and  the  ministers  of  religion  work  gen- 

'■^  erally  among  ail  sects.     In  this  way  acts  of  religion  are  promoted  in  the 

'world  as  well  as  the  practice  of  religion,  viz.,  mercy  and  charity,  truth  and 

purity,  kindness   and  goodness.     The  progress  of  religion  among  men  is 

secured  in  two  ways,  by  positive  rules  and  by  religious  sentiments.    Of  these 

•    two  methods  that  of  positive  rules  is  of  poor  value,  it  is  the  inspiration  in 

.',  the  heart  which  best  prevails.     It  is  solely  by  a  change  in  the.  sentiments  of 

the  heart  that  religion  makes  a  real  advance  in  inspiring  a  respect  for  life," 

■  and  in  the  anxiety  not  to  kill  living  beings."     Who  shall  say  that  the  relig- 

'  ion  of  this  humane  emperor  has  not  endured,  and  within  the  two  thousand 

years  which  have  succeeded,  mankind  has  discovered  no  nobler  religion  than 

to  promote  in  this  earth  "mercy  and  charity,  truth  and  purity,  kindness 

and  goodness." 

To  what  degree  has  each  religion  helped  the  historic  evolution  of  the 
Race? — When  Buddhism  flourished  in  India,  the  arts,  sciences  and  civiliza- 
tion reached  their  zenith,  as  witnessed  in  the  edicts  and  monuments  of 
Asok^'s  reign.  Hospitals  were  first  founded  for  man  and  beast.  Mission- 
aries were  sent  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  Literature  was  encouraged. 
Wherever  Buddhism  has  gone,  the  nations  have  imbibed  its  spirit,  and  the 
people  have  become  gentler  and  milder.  The  slaughter  of  animals  and 
drunkenness  ceased,  and  wars  were  almost  abolished. 

What  the  Buddhist  Literature  has  wrought  for  mankind. — With  the 
advent  of  Buddhism  into  Ceylon,  and  other  Buddhist  countries,  literature 
flourished,  and  wherever  it  went  it  helped  the  development  of  arts  and  let- 
ters. The  monasteries  became  the  seats  of  learning,  and  the  monks  in  obed- 
ience to  their  Master's  will,  disseminated  knowledge  among  the  people. 

Religion  and  the  Family .  The  Domestic  Education  of  Children.  The 
Marriage  Bond. — The  Sigalowdda  Sutta  lays  down  the  relations  of  the 
members  bf  the  household  to  one  another : 

Parents  should:    (i)  Restrain  their  children  from  vice ;  (2)  Train  them 


DHARMAPALA  :   ON    BUDDHA.    '  877 

in  virtue;  (3)  Have  them  taught  arts   and  sciences;  (4)    Provide  them  with 
suitable  wives  and  husbands;  (5)  Endow  them  with  an  inheritance. 

Children  should :  (l)  Support  their  parents;  (2)  Perform  the  proper 
family  duties;  (3)  Guard  their  property;  (4)  Make  themselves  worthy  to  be 
the  heir;  (5)  Honor  their  memory.  The  gift  of  the  whole  world  with  all 
its  wealth  would  be  no  adequate  return  to  parents  for  all  that  they  have 
done. 

The  Husband  should:  (l)  Treat  his  wife  with  respect;  (2)  Treat  his 
wife  with  kindness ;  (3)  Be  faithful  to  her ;  (4)  Cause  her  to  be  honored  by 
others;  (5)  Give  her  suitable  ornaments  and  clothes. 

The  Wife  should:     (l)  Order  her  household  aright;  (2)  Be  hospitable, 
to  kinsmen  and  friends;  (3)  Be  chaste;  (4)  Be  a  thrifty  housekeeper;  (5) 
Show  diligence  and  skill.  *  v^"':/v    *"{' 

Buddhist  Brotherhood. — Buddha  w"as  the'first'  fo  iesfablish  the  brother- 
hood without  distinction  of  caste  and  race.-  '  Twenty-four  centuries  ago  he " 
declared,  "  As  the  great  streams,  O  discipler,  however  many  they  may  be, 
the  Ganges,  Jumna,  Achiravati,Sarabhu,  when  they  reach  the  great  ocean  lose 
their  old  name  and  their  old  descent,  and  bjtar  only' one  name — the  great 
ocean,  so  also  do  the  Brahmans,  Kshatriyfts,  Vaishyas,  and  Sudras,  lose 
their  distinctions  when  they  join  the  brotherhood."  The  outcast  as  well  as 
the  prince  was  admitted  to  this  order.  Virtue  was  the  passport,  not  wealth 
and  rank. 

Buddha's  Exalted  ToUranee. — "  Bhikshns,  if  others  speak  against  me, 
or  speak  against  my  doctrine,  or  speak  against  the  order,  that  is  no  reason 
why  you  should  be  angry,  discontented  or  displeased  with  them  .  .  .  If  you, 
in  consequence  thereof,  become  angry  and  dissatisfied,  you  bring  yourself 
into  danger  ...  If  you  become  angry  and  dissatisfied  will  you  be  able  to 
judge  whether  they  speak  correctly  or  incorrectly  ?  '  We  shall  not.  O  Lord, 
be  able.  ...  If  others  speak  against  me  you  should  repudiate  the  false- 
hood as  being  a  falsehood,  saying,  'These  things  are  not  so,  they  arc  not 
true,  these  things  are  not  existing  amongst  us,  they  are  not  in  us.' " 

"Bhikshus,  if  others  speak  in  praise  of  me,  speak  in  praise  of  my  doc- 
trine, or  speak  in  praise  of  the  order,  that  is  no  reason  why  you  should  be 
pleased,  gratified,  or  elated  in  mind  ...  If  you,  in  consequence  thereof,  be 
pleased,  gratified,  or  elated  in  mind,  you  bring  yourselves  thereby  into  danger. 
The  truth  should  be  received  by  you  as  being  the  truth,  knowing  that  these 
things  exist,  that  they  are  true,  that  they  exist  among  you  and  are  seen  in 
you  ..." 

Buddhism  and  Modem  Science. — Sir  Edwin  Arnold  says  :  "  I  have  often 
said,  and  I  shall  say  again  and  again,  that  between  Buddhism  and  modern 
science  there  exists  a  close  intellectual  bond.  When  Tyndall  tells  us  of 
sounds  we  cannot  hear,  and  Norman  Lockyer  of  colors  we  cannot  see,  when 
Sir  William  Thompson  and  Prof.  Sylvester  push  mathematical  investigation 
to  regions  almost  beyond  the  calculus,  and  others,  still  bolder,  imagine  and 


878  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

try  to  grapple  a  space  of  four  dimensions,  what  is  all  this  except  the  Bud- 
dhist-Maya ?     And  when  Darwin  shows  us  life  passing  onward  and  upward 
through  a  series  of  constantly  improving  forms  toward  the  Better  and  the 
Best,  each  individual  starting  in  new  existence  with  the  records  of  bygone 
good  and  evil  stamped  deep  and  ine£faceably  from  the  old  ones,  what  is  this 
again  but  the  Buddhist  doctrine  of  Karma  and  Dharma  ? "     Finally,  if  we 
gather  up  all  the  results  of  modern  research,  and  look  away  from  the  best. 
.  literature  to  the  largest  discovery  in  physi«s  and  the  latest  word  in  biology, 
what  is  the  conclusion -^  the  high  and  joyous  conclusion  ^- forced  upon  the 
mind,  if  not  that  which  renders  true  Buddhism  so  glad  and  so.  hdpsful  ? .  -. ; 
'  '.^.Cafi  jhe .  JCnowUJgf  of  Religion  bt  Scientifit  /-^Buddhism  is  a  scientific .  • 
religion,  inastbuch  as  it  earnestly,  enjoins  that  nothing  whatever  be  accepted  - 
.6n  faith.    Buddha. has  said:that  nothing  should  be  jselieved  merely ;because^' 
it  is  said.  .  Buddhishi  is  tantamount  to  a  knowledge  of  other  scienc^.!;,£-^:;.'-> 
-'•-■..•  Religum  in  its  Relation  to  Morals. — ^The  highest  inorality  is  inculcated 
in  the  system  of  Buddha,  sipce  it  permits  freedom  of  thought  and  opinion, . 
sets  its  face  against  persecution  and  cruelty,  and  recognizes  the  rights  of  ani-  ' 
mals.    Drink,  opium,  and  all  that  tend  to  destroy  the  composure  of  the  mind  .. 
are- discountenanced.      :  ■    -.r-v     .:       '      '^-      ',.;•■■•,'.•_•  .'••.;,'.-''i''.'^i  •;' 
-  -  Different  .Schemes  for  the  Restoration  of  Fallen  Man.— It  is  the  duty  of  - 
the  Bhiksbus  and  of  the  religious  men  (Upasakas)  not  only  to  be  an  example 
of  holy  life,  bat  coptinually  to  ^hort  their  weaker  brethren  by  pointing  out 
the  pernicious  effects  of  an  evil  life,  and  the  gloriousness  of  a  virtuous  life, 
and  urge  them  to  a  life  of  purity.     The  fallen  should  on  no  accoimt  be  neg- 
lected ;  they  are  to  be  treated  with  sympathy. 

Religion  and  Social  Problems. — ^The  basic  doctrine  of  Buddhism  is  to 
.relieve  human  suffering.  A  life  of  sensual  pleasures  is  condemned,  and  the 
conflicts  of  labor  and  capital  and  other  problems  which  confront  Europe  are 
not  to  be  met  with  in  Buddhistic  countries.  In  the  Vasaia  Sutta  be  who  does' 
not  look  after  the  poor  is  called  a  Vasaia  or  low-born  man.  In  the  Sigatowada 
Sutta,  Buddha  enjoins  on  men  to  devote  one-fourth  of  their  wealth  in  the 
cause  of  the  relief  of  the  needy.  In  the  Mahadhamma  Samadana  Sutta  Bud- 
dha says  the  poverty  of  a  man  is  no  excuse  for  his  neglect  of  religion.  As  • 
the  dropsy  patient  must  take  bitter  medicine,  so  the  poor,  notwithstanding 
their  poverty,  must  lead  the  religious  life  which  is  hard. 

Religion  and  Temperance. — Buddha  said  :  "  Man  already  drunk  with 
ignorance  should  not  add  thereto  by  the  imbibition  of  alcoholic  drinks."  One 
of  the  vpws  taken  by  the  Buddhist  monks  and  by  the  laity  runs  thus :  "  I 
take  the  vow  to  abstain  from  intoxicating  drinks  because  they  hinder  progress- 
and  virtue."  The  Dhammika  Sutta  says :  "  The  householder  that  delights 
in  the  law  should  not  indulge  in  intoxicating  drinks,  should  not  cause  others 
to  drink,  and  should  not  sanction  the  acts  of  those  who  drink,  knowing  that 
it  results  in  insanity.  The  ignorant  commit  sins  in  consequence  of  drunken- 
ness and  also  make  others  drink.  You  should  avoid  this.  It  is  the  cause  of 
demerit,  insanity  and  ignorance — though  itbe  pleasing  to  the  ignoiant." 


DHARMAPALA:   ON    BUDDHA.  8/9 

The  dangers  of  modern  life  originate  chiefly  from  drink  and  brutality, 
and  in  Buddhist  countries  the  law,  based  upon  teachings  of  Buddhism,  pro- 
hibits the  manufacture,  sale  and  use  of  liquor,  and  prevents  the  slaughter  of 
animals  for  food.  The  inscriptions  of  Asoka  and  the  histories  of  Ceylon,  Bur- 
mah  and  other  Buddhist  countries  prove  this. 

Benefits  Conferred  on  Woman  bv  Buddhism. — The  same  rights  are  given 
to  woman  as  to  man.  Not  the  least  difference  is  shown,  and  perfect  equal- 
ity has  been  proclaimed.  "  Woman,"  Buddha  says  in  the  Chalavedala  SuUa 
and  in  the  Mahavagga,  "  may  attain  the  highest  path  of  holiness,  Rahat- 
ship,  which  is  open  to  man."       -   • 

Love  of  Country  and  Observance  *of  Law, — In  the  Mahaparinibhana 
Suttd  Buddha  enjoined  love  for  one's  country.  "So  long  as  a  people  nieet 
together  in  concord  and  rise  in  concord,  and  carry  out  their  ail£rertakings  in 
concord,  so  long  as  they  enact  nothing  not  already  established,  abrogate 
nothing  that  has  been  already  enacted,  and  act  in  accordance  with  the 
ancient  institutions  as  established  in  former  days,  so  long  as  they  esteem  and 
honor  and  revere  the  elders,  so  long  as  no  women  or  girls  are  detained 
among  them  by  force  or  abduction,  so  long  as  they  honor  and  revere  the 
shrines  in  town  and  country,  so  long  will  they  be  expected  not  to  decline, 
but  to  prosper."  .   . 

The  Fraternity  of  People. — As  Buddhism  acknowledges  no  caste  system, 
and  admits  the  perfect  equality  of  all  men,  it  proclaims  universal  brother- 
hood. But  peoples  should  agree  in  the  acceptance  of  the  universal  virtues. 
Buddhism  advocates  universal  peace  amongst  nations,  and  deplores  war  and 
bloodshed.  The  rights  of  smaller  tribes  and  nations  for  a  separate  exist- 
ence should  be  protected  from  aggressive  warfare.  In  the  Anguttara 
iVikaya,  Tika  Nipata,  Brahmanavagga,  Buddha  advocates  arbitration, 
instead  of  war.  Buddhism  strongly  condemns  war  on  the  ground  of  the 
great  losses  it  brings  on  humanity.  It  says  that  devastation,  famine  and 
other  such  evils  have  been  brought  on  by  war. 

Works  treating  on  Bijddhism.— The  Idea  of  Rebirth,  by  F.  Arun- 
dale  ;  The  Wheel  of  the  Law,  by  Alabaster  ;  The  Light  of  Asia,  by  Sir 
Kdwin  Arnold  ;  Religions  of  India,  by  A.  Barth  ;  Imitation  of  Buddha,  by 
Ernst  M.  Bowden  ;  Catena  of  Buddhist  Scriptures,  by  S.  Bea!  ;  Buddhism 
in  China,  by  S.  Beal ;  Chinese  Buddhist  Literature,  by  S.  Beal  ;  Romantic 
Legend  of  Sakya  Muni,  by  S.  Beal  ;  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western 
World,  by  S.  Beal,  2  vols  ;  Life  of  Hiouen  Thsang,  by  S.  Beal  ;  Dhamma- 
pada,  by  S.  Beal  ;  Sutta  Nipata,  by  Sir  M.  Coomaraswamy  ;  Sarva  Darsana 
Sanghra,  by  Cowell  ;  Pali  Dictionary,  by  R.  C.  Childers  ;  History  of  .\ncient 
Civilization  in  India,  by  Romesh  Chandra  Dutt ;  Indian  Empire,  by  Sir  W. 
W.  Hunter;  Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  Buddhism,  Ilibbert  Lectures,  by  Prof. 
T.  W.  Rhys  Davids;  Buddhism,  by  Dr.  Eitel ;  Hand-book  for  the  Student 
of  Chinese  Buddhism,  by  Dr.  Eitel ;  Legend  of  Gautama,  by  Bishop  Bigan- 
det,  2  vols ;  The   Unknown   God,  by  Loring   Brace  ;    Chinese   Buddhism, 


880  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

Religions  in  China,  by  Dr.  Ch.  Hdkins  ;  Philosophy  of  the  Upanishads,  by 
Gough  ;  Oriental  Religions,  by  S.  Johnson,  2  vols  ;  Manual  of  Hindu  Pan- 
theism, by  Col.  Jacob  ;  Vicissitudes  of  Aryan  Civilization,  by  M.  M.  Kunte  ; 
His  Life  and. Works,  by  Korosi ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vols.,  viii.,  x., 
xi.,  xiii.,  xvii.,  xix.,  xx.,  xxi.,  xxii.,  xxxv.,  by  Max  Miiller ;  Buddhist  Cate- 
chism, by  H.  S.  Olcott ;  Golden  Rules  of  Buddhism,  by  H.  S.  Olcott ; 
Theosophy,  Religion  and  .Occult  Science,  by  H.  S.  Olcott  :  Buddha ;  his 
Life,  Law  and  Order,  by  Dr.  Hermann  Oldenberg  ;'  Udana  Varga,  Life  of 
Buddha,  by  W.  W.  Rockhill;  Tibetan  Tales,  by  Ralston ;  Buddha  Gho- 
sha's  Parables,  by  Captain  Rogers  ;  Manual  of  Buddhism,  Eastern  Mona- 
chism,  by  R.-Spehce  Hardy ;  Buddhi&t  Catechism,  by  Subhadra  Bhikshu  ; 
"Buddhism  in  China,  by  Schlagintweit ;  Ceylon  Mahavansa,  by  Wijesinha. 


RICH  I'  RKV.  JOHN'  J.  KKAXE,  D.D.,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

"  SWEET  ISDEEP  HAS  IT  BEEN  FOK  COu's  LONG  SEPARATED  CHILDREN  TO  MEET  AT  LAST, 
SWEET  TO  SEE  AND  KEEL  THAT  IT  IS  AN  AWKIL  WRONG  KOR  RELI(;iOS,  WHICH  IS  OF  THE  LORD 
OF  LOVE.  TO  INSl-lRE  HATRED,  WHICH  IS  OF  THE  EVIL  ONE  I  SWEET  TO  TIE  AGAIN  THE  UONDS  OK 
\FI--ECTION  BROKEN  SINCE  THE  DAYS  OF  nAREL,  AND  TO  1ASTE  '  HOW  GOOD  AND  HOW  SWEET  A 
THING  IT  IS  FOR  BRETHREN  TO  LIVE  IN  LNITV.' " 


56 


THE    INCARNATION    IDEA    IN    HISTORY    AND    IN 

JESUS    CHRIST. 

By  Right  Rev.  John  J.  Keane,  D.D.,  of  Washington. 

The  subject  assigned  to  me  is  so  vast  that  an  hour  would  not  suffice  to 
do  it  justice.  Hence,  in  the  space  of  thirty  minutes  I  can  only  point  out 
certain  lines  of  thought,  trusting,  however,  that  their  truth  will  be  so  manifest 
and  their  significance  so  evident  that  the  conclusion  to  which  they  lead  may 
be  clearly  recognized  as  a  demonstrated  fact. 

Cicero  has  truly  said  that  there  never  was  a  race  of  atheists.  Cesare 
Balbo  has  noted  with  equal  truth  that  there  never  has  been  a  race  of  deists. 
Individual  atheists  and  individual  deists  there  have  always  been,  but  they 
haye  always  been  recognized  as  abnormal  beings.  Humanity  listens  to 
them,  weighs  their  utterances  in  the  scales  of  reason,  smiles  sadly  at  their 
vagaries,  and  holds  fast  the  two-fold  conviction  that  there  is  a  Supreme 
being,  the  Author  of  all  else  that  is,  and  that  man  is  not  left  to  the  mercy  of 
ignorance  or  of  guess-work  in  regard  to  the  purpose  of  his  being,  hut  has 
knowledge  of  it  from  the  great  Father. 

This  sublime  conception  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  the  existence  of 
revelation  is  not  a  spontaneous  generation  from  the  brain  of  man.  Tyndall 
and  Pasteur  have  demonstrated  that  there  is  no  spontaneous  generation 
from  the  inorganic  to  the  organic.  Just  as  little  is  there  or  could  there  be,  a 
spontaneous  generation  of  the  idea  of  the  Infinite  from  the  brain  of  the 
finite.  The  fact,  in  each  case,  is  the  result  of  a  touch  from  above.  All 
humanity  points  back  to  a  golden  age,  when  man  was  taught  of  the  Divine 
by  the  Divine,  that  in  that  knowledge  he  might  know  why  he  himself  existed, 
and  how  his  life  was  to  be  shaped. 

Curiously,  strangely,  sadly  as  that  primitive  teaching  of  man  by  his 
Creator  has  been  transformed  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  dis- 
tant wanderings,  of  varying  fortunes  and  of  changing  culture,  still  the  com- 
parative study  of  ancient  religions  shows  that  in  them  all  there  has  existed 
one  central,  pivotal  concept,  dressed,  indeed,  in  various  garbs  of  myth  and 
legend  and  philosophy,  yet  ever  recognizably  the  same — the  concept  of  the 
fallen  race  of  man  and  of  a  future  restorer,  deliverer,  redeemer,  who,  being 
human,  should  yet  be  different  from  and  above  the  merely  human. 

Again  we  ask,  whence  this  concept  ?  And  again  the  sifting  of  serious 
and  honest  criticism  demonstrates  that  it  is  not  a  spontaneous  generation  of 
the  human  brain,  that  it  is  not  the  outgrowth  of  man's  contemplation  of 
nature  around  him  and  of  the  sun  and  stars  above  him,  although,  once  hav- 
ing the  concept,  he  could  easily  find  in  all  nature  symbols  and  analogies  of 

88a 


KEANE:    INCARNATION    AND    CHRIST.  883 

it.  It  is  part,  ami  the  central  part,  of  the  ancient  memory  of  the  human 
race,  telling  n\an  what  he  is  and  why  he  is  such  and  how  he  is  to  attain 
something  better  as  his  heart  yearns  to  do. 

Glancing  now.  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  religions,  at  that  stream  of 
tradition  as  it  comes  down  the  ages,  we  see  it  divide  into  two  clearly  dis- 
tinct branches,  one  shaping  thought,  or  shaped  by  thought,  in  the  eastern 
half  of  .\sia,  the  other  in  the  western  half.  And  these  two  separate  streams 
receive  their  distinctive  character  from  the  idea  prevalent  in  the  east  and 
west  of  Asia  concerning  the  nature  of  man,  and,  consequently,  concerning 
his  relation  to  God. 

In  the  west  of  Asia,  the  Semitic  branch  of  the  human  family,  together 
with  its  Aryan  neighbors  of  Persia,  coi.sidered  man  as  a  substantial  indi- 
viduality, produced  by  the  Infinite  Being,  and  produced  as  a  distinct  entity, 
distinct  from  his  Infinite  Author  in  his  own  finite  personality,  and,  through 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  preserving  that  distinct  individuality  forever. 

Eastern  Asia,  on  the  contrary,  held  that  man  had  not  a  substantial 
individuality,  but  only  a  phenomenal  individuality.  There  is,  they  said, 
only  one  substance — the  Infinite  ;  all  things  are  but  phenomena,  emanations 
of  the  Infinite.  "Behold,"  say  the  Laws  of  Manu,  "how  the  sparks  leap 
from  the  flame  and  fall  back  into  it  ;  so  all  things  emanate  from  Brahma 
and  again  lose  themselves  in  him."  "Behold,"  says  Buddhism,  "how  the 
dewdrop  lies  on  the  lotus  leaf,  a  tiny  particle  of  the  stream,  lifted  from  it  by 
evaporation  and  slipping  off  the  lotus  leaf  to  lose  itself  in  the  stream  again." 
Thus  they  distinguished  between  being  and  existence  ;  between  persisting 
substance,  the  Infinite,  and  the  evanescent  phenomena  emanating  from  it 
for  awhile,  namely,  man  and  all  existent  things. 

From  these  opposite  concepts  of  man  sprang  opposite  concepts  of  the 
nature  of  good  and  evil.  In  western  Asia,  good  was  the  conformity  of  the 
finite  will  with  the  will  of  the  Infinite,  which  is  wisdom  and  love ;  evil  was 
the  deviation  of  the  finite  will  from  the  eternal  norm  of  wisdom  and  love. 
Hence  individual  accountabilitv  and  guilt,  as  long  as  the  deviation  lasted  ; 
hence  the  cure  of  evil  when  the  finite  will  is  brought  back  into  comformity 
with  the  Infinite  ;  hence  the  happiness  of  virtue  and  the  bliss  of  immortal- 
ity and  the  value  of  existence. 

Eastern  Asia,  on  the  contrary,  considered  existence  as  simply  and  solely 
an  evil,  in  fact  the  sole  and  all-pervading  evil,  and  the  only  good  was  deliver- 
ance from  existence,  the  extinction  of  all  individuality  in  the  oblivion  of  the 
Infinite.  Although  existence  was  conceived  as  the  work  of  the  Infinite — 
nay,  as  an  emanation  coming  forth  from  the  Infinite — yet  it  was  considered 
simply  a  curse,  and  all  human  duty  had  this  for  its  meaning  and  its  purpose, 
to  break  loose  from  the  fetters  of  existence  and  to  help  others  with  ourselves 
to  reach  non-existence. 

Hence  again,  in  western  Asia,  the  future  redeemer  was  conceived  as 
one  masterful  individuality,  human,  indeed,  type  and  head  of  the  race,  but 


/ 


884  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

also  pervaded  by  the  divinity  in  ways  and  degrees  more  or  less  obscurely 
conceived,  and  used  by  the  divinity  to  break  the  chains  of  moral  evil  and 
guilt — nay,  often  they  supposed,  of  physical  and  national  evils  as  well — and 
to  bring  man  back  to  happiness,  to  holiness,  to  God.  Thus,  vaguely  or  more 
clearly,  they  held  an  idea  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Deity  for  man's  good; 
and  his  incarnation  was  naturally  looked  forward  to  as  the  crowning  bless- 
ing and  glory  of  humanity. 

In  eastern  Asia,  on  the  contrary,  as  man  and  all  things  were  regarded 
as  phenomenal  emanations  of  the  Infinite,  it  followed  that  every  man  was  an 
incarnation.  And  since  this  phenomenal  existence  was  considered  a  curse, 
which  metempsychosis  dragged  out  pitifully ;  and  if  there  was  room  for  the 
notion  of  a  Redeemer,  he  was  to  be  one  recognizing  more  clearly  than  others 
what  a  curse  existence  is,  struggling  more  resolutely  than  others  to  get  out 
of  it,  and  exhorting  and  guiding  others  to  escape  from  it  with  him. 

We  pause  to  estimate  these  two  systems.  We  easily  recognize  that  their 
fundamental  difference  is  a  difference  of  philosophy.  The  touchstone  of 
philosophy  is  human  reason,  and  we  have  a  right  to  apply  it  to  all  forms  of 
philosophy.  With  no  irreverence,  therefore,  but  in  all  reverence  and  tender- 
ness of  religious  sympathy,  we  apply  to  the  philosophies  underlying  those 
two  systems,  the  touchstone  of  reason. 

We  ask  eastern  Asia :  How  can  the  phenomena  of  the  Infinite  Being  be  ' 
finite  ?  For  phenomena  are  not  entities  in  themselves,  but  phases  of  being.' 
We  have  only  to  look  calmly  in  order  to  see  here  a  contradiction  in  terms,  j 
an  incompatibility  in  ideas,  an  impossibility. 

We  ask  again  :  How  can  the  emanations  of  the  Infinite  Being  be  evil  ? 
For  the  Infinite  Being  must  be  essentially  good.  Zoroaster  declared  that 
Ahriman,  the  evil  one,  had  had  a  beginning  and  would  have  an  end,  and 
was,  therefore,  not  eternal  or  infinite.  And  if  there  is  but  one  substance, 
then  the  emanations,  the  phenomena,  of  the  Infinite  Being  are  himself;  how 
can  they  be  evil  ?  How  can  his  incarnation  be  the  one  great  curse  to  get 
free  from  ? 

Again  we  ask  :  How  can  this  human  individuality  of  ours,  so  strong,  so 
persistent  in  its  self-consciousness  and  self-assertion,  be  a  phenomenon  with- 
out a  substance  ?  Or,  if  it  have  as  its  substance  the  Infinite  Being  himself, 
then  how  can  it  be,  as  it  too  often  is,  so  ignorant  and  erring,  so  weak  and 
changeful,  so  lying,  so  dishonest,  so  mean,  so  vile  ?  For  let  us  remember 
that  acts  are  predicated  not  of  phenomena,  but  of  substance,  of  being. 

Once  more  we  ask :  If  human  existence  is  but  a  curse,  and  if  the  only 
blessing  is  to  restrain,  to  resist,  to  thwart  and  get  rid  of  all  that  constitutes 
it,  then  what  a  mockery  and  a  lie  is  that  aspiration  after  human  progress 
which  spurs  noble  men  to  their  noblest  achievements  ! 

To  these  questions  pantheism,  emanationism,  has  no  answer  that  reason 
can  accept.  It  can  never  constitute  a  philosophy,  because  its  bases  are  con- 
tradictions.    Shall  we  say  that  a  thing  may  be  false  in  philosophy  and  yet 


KEANE:    INCARNATION    AND    CHRIST.  885 

true  in  religion  ?  Tiiat  was  said  once  by  an  inventor  of  paradoxes ;  but 
reason  repudiates  it  as  absurd,  and  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  has  well  said 
that  religion  must  be  "'our  reasonable  service."  Human  life,  incarnation, 
redemption,  must  mean  something  different  from  this.  For  the  spirit  that 
breathes  through  the  tradition  of  the  East,  the  spirit  of  profound  self-anni- 
hilation in  the  presence  of  the  Infinite,  and  of  ascetic  seif-immolation  as  to 
the  things  of  sense,  we  not  only  may  but  ought  to  entertain  the  tenderest 
sympathy,  nay,  the  sincerest  reverence.  Who  that  has  looked  into  it  but 
has  felt  the  fascination  of  its  mystic  gloom  ?  But  religion  means  more  than 
this ;  it  is  meant  not  for  man's  heart  alone,  but  for  his  intellect,  also.  It 
must  have  for  its  foundation  a  bed-rock  of  solid  philosophy.  Turn  we 
then  and  apply  the  touchstone  to  the  tradition  of   the  West. 

Here  it  needs  no  lengthy  philosophic  reflection  to  recognize  how  true 
it  is  that  what  is  not  self-exsistent,  what  has  a  beginning  must  be  finite, 
and  that  the  finite  must  be  substantially  distinct  from  the  Infinite.  We  rec- 
ognize that  no  multiplication  of  finite  individualities  can  detract  from  the 
Infinite  nor  could  their  addition  add  to  the  Infinite  ;  for  infinitude  resides 
not  in  multiplication  of  things,  but  in  the  boundless  essence  of  Being,  in 
■whose  simple  and  all-pervading  immensity  the  multitude  of  finite  things 
have  their  existence  gladly  and  gratefully.  "  What  have  you  that  you  have 
not  received  ?  And  if  you  have  received  it  why  should  you  glory  as  if  you 
had  not  received  it  ?"  This  is  the  keynote  not  only  of  their  humble  depend- 
ence, but  also  of  their  gladsome  thankfulness. 

We  recognize  that  man's  substantial  individuality,  his  spiritual  immor- 
tality, his  individual  power  of  will  and  consequent  moral  responsibility,  are 
great  truths  linked  together  in  manifest  logic,  great  facts  standing  together 
immovably. 

We  see  that  natural  ills  are  the  logical  result  of  the  limitations  of  the 
finite,  and  that  moral  evil  is  the  result  of  the  deviation  of  humanity  from  the 
norm  of  the  Infinite,  in  which  truth  and  rectitude  essentially  reside. 

We  see  that  the  end  and  purpose  and  destiny,  as  well  as  the  origin  of 
the  finite  must  be  in  the  Infinite — not  in  the  extinction  of  the  finite  individuality 
— else  why  should  it  receive  existence  at  all — but  in  its  perfection  and  beati- 
tude. And  therefore  we  see  that  man's  upward  aspiration  for  the  better  and 
the  best  is  no  illusion  but  a  reasonable  instinct  for  the  right  guidance  of  his 
life. 

All  this  we  find  explicitly  stated  or  plainly  implied  in  the  tradition  of 
the  West.  Here  we  have  a  philosophy  concerning  God  and  concerning 
man  which  may  well  serve  as  the  rational  basis  of  religion.  What  then  has 
this  tradition  to  tell  us  concerning  the  incarnation  and  the  redemption  ? 

From  the  beginning,  we  see  every  finger  pointing  toward  "  the  expected 
of  the  nations,  the  desired  of  the  everlasting  hills."  One  after  another  the 
patriarchs,  the  pioneer  fathers  of  the  race,  remind  their  descendants  of  the 
promise  given  in  the  beginning.     Revered  as  they  were,  each  of  them  says : 


886  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

"  I  am  not  the  expected  one ;  look  forward  and  strive  to  be  worthy  to  receive 
Him." 

Among  all  those  great  leaders  Moses  stands  forth  in  special  grandeur 
and  majestv.  But  in  his  sublime  humility  and  truthfulness  Moses  al?>o 
exclaims  :  "  I  am  not  the  Messiah  ;  I  am  only  his  type  and  figure  and  pre- 
cursor. The  Lord  hath  used  me  to  deliver  his  people  from  the  land  of 
bondage,  but  hath  not  permitted  me  to  enter  the  promised  land,  because  I 
trespassed  against  him  in  the  midst  of  the  children  of  Israel  at  the  waters - 
of  contradiction  ;  I  am  but  a  figure  of  the  sinless  One  who  is  to  deliver  man- 
kind from  the  bondage  of  evil  and  lead  them  into  the  promised  land  of 
their  eternal  inheritance.     Look  forward  and  prepare  for  him." 

One  after  another  the  prophets,  the  glorious  sages  of  Israel,  arise,  and 
each,  like  Moses,  point  forward  to  Him  that  is  to  come.  And  each  brings 
out  in  clearer  light  who  and  what  He  is  to  be,  the  nature  of  the  Incarnation. 
"  Behold,  a  Virgin  shall  conceive  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son  and  he  shall 
be  called  Emmanuel,  that  is,  God  with  us."  "  A  little  child  is  born  to  us, 
and  a  son  is  given  to  us,  and  the  principality  is  on  His  shoulder,  and  he 
shall  be  called  the  Wonderful,  the  Counselor,  the  Mighty  God,  the  Father 
of  the  World  to  come,  the  Prince  of  Peace." 

Outside  of  this  land  of  Israel  the  nations  of  the  Gentiles  were  stirred 
with  similar  declarations  and  expectancies.  Soon  after  the  time  of  Moses 
Zoroaster  gives  to  Persia  the  prediction  of  a  future  Saviour  and  judge  of  the 
world. 

Greece  hears  the  olden  promise  that  Prometheus  shall  yet  be  delivered 
from  his  chains,  re-echoed  in  the  prayer  of  dear  old  Socrates  that  he  would 
come  from  heaven  to  teach  his  people  the  truth  and  save  ihem  from  the 
sensualism  to  which  they  clung  so  obstinately.  And  pagan  Rome,  the 
inheritor  of  all  that  had  preceded  her,  hears  the  Sibyls  chanting  of  the 
Divine  One-that  was  to  be  given  to  the  world  by  the  wonderful  Virgin 
Mother,  and  feels  the  thrill  of  that  universal  expectancy  concerning  which 
Tacitus  testifies  that  all  were  then  looking  for  a  great  leader  who  was  to 
rise  in  Judea  and  to  rule  the  wot  Id. 

And  the  expectation  of  the  world  was  not  to  be  frustrated.  At  the 
verv  time  foretold  bv  Daniel  long  ages  before,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  of  the 
family  of  David,  in  the  little  town  of  Bethlehem,  with  fulfillment  of  all  the 
predictions  of  the  prophets,  the  Messiah  appears.  "Behold,"  says  the  mes- 
senger of  the  Most  High  to  the  Virgin  of  Nazareth,  "thou  shalt  conceive  in 
thy  womb,  and  shalt  l)ring  forth  a  son,  and  thou  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus. 
He  shall  be  great  and  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  the  Most  High;  and  the 
Lord  God  shall  give  unto  him  the  throne  of  David  his  father,  and  he  shall 
reign  in  the  house  of  Jacob  forever,  and  of  his  kingdom  there  shall  be  no 
end."  "How  shall  this  be  done,  because  I  know  not  man?"  "The  Holy 
Ghost  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the  power  of  the  Most  High  shall  over- 
shadow thee ;  and  therefore   also  the   Holy  One  that  shall  be  born  of  thee 


KEANE:   INCARNATION   AND   CHRIST.  887 

shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God."  "  Behold  the  handmaid  of  the  Lord ;  be 
it  done  to  me  according  to  thy  word." 

And  what  then  ?  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was 
with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God.  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  us,  full  of  grace  and  truth,  and  of  his  fullness  we  all  have 
received."  And  concerning  him  all  subsequent  ages  were  to  chant  the  can- 
ticle of  faith:  "I  believe  in  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  Creator  of 
heaven  and  earth:  and  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  only-begotten  Son  of 
God,  born  of  the  Father  before  all  ages,  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  true 
God  of  true  God,  begotten,  not  made,  consubstantial  with  the  Father; 
through  whom  all  things  were  made,  who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation 
came  down  from  heaven  and  was  incarnated  by  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mary,  and  was  made  man." 

But  again,  to  this  tremendous  declaration,  which  involves  not  only 
a  religion,  but  a  philosophy  also,  we  may,  and  we  should,  apply  the  touch- 
stone of  reason  and  ask,  "  Is  this  possible,  or  is  it  impossible  things  that 
are  here  told  us  ?  For  we  never  can  be  expected  to  believe  the  impossible. 
Let  us  analyze  the  ideas  comprised  in  it.  Can  God  and  man  thus 
become  one  ?  " 

Now,  first,  reason  testifies  as  to  man  that  in  him  two  distinct  and,  as  it 
would  seem,  opposite  substances  are  brought  into  unity,  namely — spirit  and 
matter,  the  one  not  confounded  with  the  other  yet  both  linked  in  one, 
thus  completing  the  unity  and  harmony  of  created  things.  Next  reasoa 
asks,  can  the  creature  and  the  Creator,  man  and  God,  be  thus  united  in 
order  that  the  unity  and  the  harmony  may  embrace  all  ? 

Reason  sees  that  the  finite  could  not  thus  mount  to  the  Infinite  an\' 
more  than  matter  of  itself  could  mount  to  spirit.  But  could  not  the  Infinite- 
stoop  to  the  finite  and  lift  it  to  his  bosom  and  unite  it  with  himself,  with  no 
confounding  of  the  finite  with  the  Infinite,  nor  of  the  Infinite  with  the  finite, 
yet  so  that  they  shall  be  linked  in  one  ?  Here  reaso:l  can  discern  no  con- 
tradiction of  ideas,  nothing  beyond  the  power  of  the  Infinite.  But  could 
the  Infinite  stoop  to  this  ?  Reason  sees  that  to  do  so  would  cost  the  Infinite 
nothing,  since  he  is  ever  his  unchanging  self ;  it  sees,  moreover,  that  since 
creation  is  the  offspring  not  of  his  need  but  of  his  bounty,  of  his  love,  it 
would  be  most  worthy  of  infinite  love  thus  to  perfect  the  creative  act,  thus 
to  lift  up  the  creature  and  bring  all  things  into  unity  and  harmony.  Then 
must  reason  declare  that  it  is  not  only  possible  but  it  is  most  fitting  that  it 
should  be  so. 

Moreover,  we  see  that  it  is  this  very  thing  that  all  humanity  has  been 
craving  for,  whether  intelligently  or  not.  This  very  thing  all  religions  have 
been  looking  forward  to,  or  have  been  groping  for  in  the  dark.  Turn  we 
then  to  himself  and  ask  :  "Art  thou  He  who  is  to  come,  or  look  we  for 
another?"  To  that  question  he  must  answer,  for  the  world  needs  and  must 
have  the  truth.     Meek  and  humble  of  heart  though  he  be,  the  world  has  a 


888  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

right  to  know  whether  he  be  indeed  "the  Expected  of  the  Nations,  the 
Immanuel,  God  with  us."  Therefore  does  he  answer  clearly  and  unmistak- 
ably : 

"Abraham  rejoiced  that  he  should  see  my  day.  He  saw  it  and  was  glad." 
"Art  thou  then  older  than  Abraham  ? "  "  Before  Abraham  was  I  am." 
"  Who  art  thou,  then  ? "  "  I  am  the  beginning,  who  also  speak  to  you." 
"Whosoever  seeth  me  seeth  the  Father ;  I  and  the  Father  are  one." 

His  enemies  threaten  to  stone  him,  "because,"  they  said,  "being  man 
he  maketh  himself  God."  They  demand  that  for  this  reason  he  shall  be  put 
to  death.  The  high  priest  exclaims  :  "  I  adjure  thee  by  the  living  God  that 
thou  tell  us  if  thou  be  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God."  He  answers  : 
"  Thou  hast  said  it,  I  am ;  and  one  day  you  shall  see  me  sitting  on  the  right 
hand  of  the  power  of  God  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven."  In  fulfill- 
ment of  the  prophecies  h^  is  condemned  to  death.  He  declares  it  is  for  the 
world's  redemption  :  "  I  lay  down  my  life  for  my  sheep.  No  one  taketh  my 
life  from  me,  but  I  lay  down  my  life,  and  I  have  power  to  lay  down  my  life, 
and  I  have  power  to  take  it  up  again." 

As  proof  of  all  he  said  he  foretold  his  resurrection  from  death  on  the 
third  day,  and  in  the  glorious  evidence  of  the  fulfillment  of  the  pledge,  his 
church  has  ever  since  been  chanting  the  Easter  anthem  throughout  the 
world. 

To  that  church  he  gives  a  commission  of  spiritual  authority  extending 
to  all  ages,  to  all  nations,  to  every  creature — a  commission  that  would  be 
madness  in  any  mouth  save  that  of  God  incarnate. 

This  is  the  testimony  concerning  himself  given  to  an  inquiring  and 
needy  world  by  him  whom  no  one  will  dare  accuse  of  lying  or  imposture, 
and  the  loving  adoration  of  the  ages  proclaims  that  his  testimony  is  true. 

In  him  are  fulfilled  all  the  figures  and  predictions  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets ;  all  the  expectation  and  yearning  of  Israel.  In  him  is  the  fullness 
of  grace  and  of  truth  toward  which  the  sages  of  the  Gentiles,  with  sad  or 
with  eager  longing,  stretched  forth  their  hands.  In  each  of  them  there  was 
much  that  was  true  and  good  ;  in  him  is  all  they  had,  and  all  the  rest  that 
they  longed  for;  in  him  alone  is  the  fullness,  and  to  all  of  them  and  all  of 
their  disciples  we  say:     "Come  to  the  fullness." 

Edwin  Arnold,  who  in  his  "Light  of  Asia"  has  pictured  in  all  the  col- 
ors of  poesy  the  sage  of  the  far  East,  ii'as  in  his  later  "  Light  of  the  World  " 
brought  that  wisdom  of  the  east  in  adoration  to  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ.  May 
his  words  be  a  prophecy. 

O,  Father,  grant  that  the  words  of  thy  Son  may  be  verified,  that  all, 
through  him,  may  at  last  be  made  one  in  Thee  ! 


RKV.  J.  KITTREDGE  WHEELER. 
THEODORE  F.  SEWARD. 
MOHAN  DEV. 


REV.  CARLOS  MARTVN. 
REV.   JK.VKLN'   LLOVD-JONES. 
REV.  FRANK  M.  BRISTOL. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST. 
By  Rev.  Julian  K.  Smyth,  Boston  Highlands. 

Christianity  in  its  broadest  as  well  as  deepest  sense  means  the  pres- 
ence of  God  in  humanity.  It  is  the  revelation  of  God  in  his  world,  the 
opening  up  of  a  straight,  sure  way  to  that  God,  and  a  new  tidal  flow  of 
divine  life  to  all  the  sons  of  men.  The  hope  of  this  has  in  some  measure 
been  in  every  age  and  in  every  religion,  stirring  them  with  expectation. 

Christianity  is  in  the  world  to  utter  her  t)elief,  that  he  who  revealed 
himself  to  Israel  as  the  Good  Shepherd  realizes  the  exi>ectations  and  fulfills 
the  promises  made  in  the  prophecies,  and  that  in  the  Word  made  flesh  the 
glory  of  Jehovah  has  been  revealed,  and  all  flesh  may  see  it  together.  Even 
in  childhood  he  bears  the  name  "  Emmanuel,"  which,  being  interpreted,  is 
"  God-with-us."  He  explains  his  work  and  his  presence  by  declaring  that 
it  is  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom — not  of  law,  nor  of  earthly  government,  nor 
of  ecclesiasticism — but  of  God.  It  is  not  another  Moses,  nor  another  Elias, 
but  God  in  the  world ;  God-with-us — this  the  supreme  announcement  of 
Christianity,  asserting  his  immanence,  revealing  God  and  man  as  intended 
for  each  other,  and  rousing  in  man  slumbering  wants  and  capacities  to  real- 
ize the  new  vision  of  manhood  that  dawns  upon  him  from  this  luminous 
figure. 

Christianity  affirms  as  a  fundamental  fact  of  the  God  it  worships,  that 
he  is  a  God  who  does  not  hide  nor  withhold  himself,  but  who  is  ever  going 
forth  to  man  in  the  effort  to  reveal  himself,  and  to  be  known  and  felt 
according  to  the  degree  of  man's  capacity  and  need.  This  self-manifesta- 
tion or  "forthgoing  of  all  that  is  known  or  knowable  of  the  divine  perfec- 
tions" is  the  Logos,  or  Word  ;  and  it  is  the  very  center  of  Christian  revela- 
tion. This  Word  is  God,  not  withdrawn  in  dreary  solitude,  but  coming 
into  intelligible  and  personal  manifestation.  .From  the  beginning — for  so 
we  may  now  read  the  "Golden  Proem"  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  with  its  won- 
derful spiritual  history  of  the  Logos — from  the  beginning  God  has  this 
desire  to  go  forth  to  something  outside  of  himself  and  be  known  by  it. 
"  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word."  Hence  the  creation  :  "  All  things  were 
made  by  him."  Hence,  too,  out  of  this  divine  desire  to  reveal  and  accom- 
modate himself  to  man,  his  presence  in  various  forms  of  religion.  "He 
was  in  the  world,"  Even  in  man's  sin  and  spiritual  blindness,  the  eternal 
Logos  seeks  to  bring  itself  to  his  consciousness. 

But  the  Christian  history  of  the  Logos  moves  on  to  its  supreme  announce- 
ment: "And  the  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  amo^ig  us,  and  we 
beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace 

890 


SMYTH:   GOD    IN   CHRIST.  89 1 

and  truth."  Not  some  angel  come  from  Heaven  to  deliver  some  further 
message;  not  another  prophet  sprung  from  our  bewildered  race  to  chide,  to 
warn,  or  to  exhort;  but  the  Logos,  which  in  the  beginning  was  with  God 
and  which  was  God;  the  Jehovah  of  the  old  prophecies,  whose  glory  it  had 
been  promised  would  be  revealed,  that  all  flesh  might  see  it  together. 

And  so,  in  the  Christian  view  of  it,  the  story  of  the  Logos  completes 
itself  in  the  story  of  the  manger.  And  so,  too,  the  Incarnation  instead  of 
being  exceptional  is  exactly  in  line  with  what  the  Logos  has  from  the  begin- 
ning been  doing.  God  as  the  Word  has  ever  been  coming  to  man  in  a  form 
accommodated  to  his  need,  keeping  step  with  his  steps,  until  in  the  complete- 
ness of  this  desire  to  bring  himself  to  man  where  he  is,  he  appears  to  the 
natural  senses,  and  in  a  form  suitable  to  our  natural  life.  In  the  Christian 
conception  of  God,  as  one  who  seeks  to  reveal  himself  to  man,  it  simply  is 
inevitable  that  the  Word  should  manifest  himself  on  the  very  lowest  plane 
of  man's  life,  if  at  any  time  it  would  be  true  to  say  of  his  spiritual  condition  : 
"  This  people's  heart  is  waxed  gross,  and  their  ears  are  dull  of  hearing,  and 
their  eyes  they  have  closed."  It  is  not  extraordinary,  in  the  sense  of  its 
being  a  hard  or  an  unnatural  thing  for  God  to  do.  He  has  always  been 
approaching  man,  always  adapting  his  revelations  to  human  conditions  and 
needs.  It  is  this  constant  accommodation  and  manifestation  that  has  kept 
man's  power  of  spiritual  thought  alive.  The  history  of  religions,  together 
with  their  remains,  is  a  proof  of  it.  The  history  of  "the  historic  faiths," 
presented  in  this  Parliament,  has  confirmed  it  as  the  most  self-evident  thing 
of  the  Divine  Nature  in  his  dealings  with  the  children  of  men ;  and  the 
Incarnation  is  its  natural  and  completest  outcome. 

And  then  we  begin  to  follow  the  life  of  him,  whose  footprints,  in  the 
light  of  Christian  history  and  experience,  are  still  looked  upon  as  the  very 
footprints  of  the  Incarnate  Word.  The  Gospel  story  is  a  story  of  toil,  of  suf- 
fering, of  storm  and  tempest ;  a  story  of  sacrifice,  of  love  so  pure  and  holy 
that  even  now  it  has  the  power  to  touch,  to  thrill,  to  re-create  man's  selfish 
nature.  There  is  an  undoubted  actuality  in  the  human  side  of  this  life  :  but 
just  as  surely  there  is  a  certain  divine  something  forever  speaking  through 
those  human  tones,  and  reaching  out  through  those  kindly  hands.  The 
character  of  the  Logos  is  never  lost,  sacrificed  or  lowered.  It  is  always 
this  divine  something  trying  to  manifest  itself,  trying  to  make  itself  under- 
stood, trying  to  redeem  man  from  his  slavery  to  evil,  and  draw  to  itself  his 
spiritual  attachment.  Here,  plain  to  human  sight,  is  part  of  that  agelong 
effort  of  the  Word  to  reveal  itself  to  man  ;  only  now  through  a  nature  formed 
and  born  for  the  purpose.  We  are  reminded  of  it  when  we  hear  him  say, 
"Before  Abraham  was,  I  am."  We  are  assured  of  it  when  he  declares  that 
he  came  forth  from  the  Father.  And  we  know  that  he  has  triumphed  when, 
at  the  last,  we  hear  his  promise,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always  I"  It  is  the 
Logos  speaking.  The  divine  purpose  has  been  fulfilled.  The  Word  has 
come  forth  on  this  plane  of  human  life,  manifested  himself,  and  established 


892  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS  :    EIGHTH    DAY. 

a  relationship  with  man  nearer  and  dearer  than  ever  before.  lie  has  made 
himself  available  and  indispensable  to  every  need  or  effort.  "Without  me, 
ye  can  do  nothing."  In  his  divine  humanity  he  has  established  a  perfect 
medium  whereby  we  may  have  free  and  immediate  access  to  God's  fatherly 
help.  "  I  am  the  door  of  the  sheep."  "  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life." 

In  this  thought  of  the  divine  character  of  the  Son  of  Man,  the  early 
Christians  found  strength  and  comfort.  For  a  time  they  did  not  attempt  to 
define  this  faith  theologically.  It  was  a  simple,  direct,  earnest  faith  in  the 
goodness  and  redeeming  power  of  the  God-man,  whose  perfect  nature  had 
inspired  them  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  his  heavenly  reign.  They  felt  that 
the  risen  Lord  was  near  them  ;  that  he  was  the  Saviour  so  long  promised  ; 
the  world's  hope,  "  in  whom  dwelleth  all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily." 

But  to-day  man  claims  his  right  to  enter  understandingly  into  the  mys- 
teries of  faith,  and  reason  asks.  How  could  God  or  the  divine  Logos  be 
made  flesh? 

Yet  in  seeking  for  an  answer  to  such  an  inquiry  we  are  at  the  same 
time  seeking  to  know  of  the  origin  of  human  life.  The  conception  and 
birth  of  Jesus  Christ  as  related  in  the  Gospels  is,  declares  the  reason,  a 
strange  fact.  So,  too,  is  the  conception  and  birth  of  every  human  being. 
Neither  can  be  explained  by  any  principle  of  naturalism,  which  regards  the 
external  as  first,  and  the  internal  as  second  and  of  comparative  unimpor- 
tance. Neither  can  be  understood  unless  it  be  recognized  that  spiritual 
forces  and  substances  are  related  to  natural  forces  and  substances  as  cause 
and  effect ;  and  that  they,  the  former,  are  prior  and  the  active,  formative 
agents  playing  upon  and  received  by  the  latter.  We  do  not  articulate 
words  and  then  try  to  pack  them  with  ideas  and  intentions.  The  process  is 
the  reverse;  first  the  intention,  then  that  intention  coming  forth  as  thought, 
and  then  the  thought  incarnating  itself  by  means  of  articulated  sounds  or 
written  characters. 

By  this  same  law  man  is,  primarily,  essentially  a  spiritual  being.  In  the 
very  form  of  his  creation,  that  which  essentially  is  the  man,  and  which  in 
time  loves,  thinks,  makes  plans  and  efforts  for  useful  life,  is  spiritual.  In 
his  conception,  then,  the  human  seed  must  not  only  be  acted  upon  but  be 
derived  from  invisible,  spiritual  substances,  which  are  clothed  with  natural 
substances  for  the  sake  of  conveyance..  That  which  is  slowly  developed 
into  a  human  being  or  soul  must  be  a  living  organism  composed  of  spiritual 
substances.  Gradually  that  primitive  form  becomes  enveloped  and  pro- 
tected within  successive  clothings  ;  while  the  mother,  from  the  substances 
of  the  natural  world,  silently  weaves  the  swathes  and  coverings  which  are 
to  serve  as  a  natural  or  physical  body,  and  make  possible  its  entrance  into 
this  outer  court  of  life. 

Very  like  our  humanities,  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  growth  of  the  natural 
body  and  natural  mind,  would  be  this  humanity  of  the  Son  of  Man.     The 


SMYTH:   GOD    IN   CHRIST.  893 

same  tenderness  and  helplessness  of  its  infantile  body;  the  same  possibility 
of  weariness,  hunger,  thirst,  pain  ;  the  same  exposure,  too,  in  the  lower  planes 
of  the  mind,  to  the  assaults  of  evil,  resulting  in  internal  struggle,  temptation, 
and  anguish  of  spirit.  And  yet  there  is  always  an  unlikeness,  a  difference, 
in  that  the  very  primitive,  determining  forms  and  possibilities  of  that  human- 
ity are  divinely  begotten. 

And  so  we  think  of  this  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ  as  so  formed  and  bom 
as  to  be  able  to  serve  as  a  perfect  instrument,  whereby  the  eternal  Logos 
might  come  and  dwell  among  us;  might  so  express  and  pour  forth  his  love ; 
might  so  accommodate  and  reveal  his  truth  ;  might,  in  a  word,  so  set  him- 
self to  our  human  conditions  and  needs,  and  so  establish  himself  on  all  the 
planes  of  angelic  and  human  existence  as  to  be  forever  after  immediately 
present  in  them,  and  so  become  literally,  actually,  God-with-us. 

Gradually  this  was  done.  Gradually  the  Divine  Life  of  love  and  wis- 
dom came  into  the  several  planes  which,  by  incarnation,  existed  ia  this 
humanity,  removing  from  them  whatever  was  limiting  or  imperfect,  and  sub- 
stituting what  was  divine,  filling  them,  glorifying  them,  and  in  the  end  making 
them  a  very  part  of  himself. 

This  brings  into  harmony  the  two  elements  "which  we  are  apt  to  look 
upon  and  keep  distinct, — the  human  and  the  divine.  For  he  himself  tells  us 
of  a  process,  a  distinct  change  which  his.  humanity  underwent,  and  which 
is  the  key  to  his  real  nature.  "  The  Holy  Spirit,"  says  the  record,  "  was  not 
yet  given,  because  that  Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified."  Some  divine  operation 
was  going  on  within  that  humanity  which  was  not  fully  accomplished.  But 
on  the  eve  of  his  crucifixion  he  exclaimed,  "  Now  is  the  Son  of  Man  glori- 
fied and  God  is  glorified  in  him."  It  is  this  process  of  putting  off  what 
was  finite  and  infirm  in  the  human,  and  the  substitution  of  the  divine  from 
within,  resulting  in  the  formation  of  a  divine  humanity.  So  long  as  that 
is  going  on,  the  human  as  the  Son  feels  a  separation  from  the  divine  as  the 
Father,  and  speaks  of  it,  and  turns  to  it,  as  though  it  were  another  pxerson. 
But  when  the  glorification  is  accomplished,  when  the  divine  has  entirely 
filled  the  human,  and  they  act  reciprocally  and  unanimously  as  soul  and 
body,  then  the  declaration  is,  "  I  and  the  Father  are  One."  Divine  in 
origin;  human  in  birth;  divinely  human  through  glorification.  As  to  his 
soul  or  inmost  being,  the  Father;  as  to  his  human,  the  Son  ;  as  to  the  life 
and  saving  power  that  go  forth  from  his  glorified  nature,  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  story  of  the  divine  life  in  its  descent  to  man,  this  coming  or  incar- 
nation of  the  Logos  through  the  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  the  sweet 
and  serious  privilege  of  Christianity  to  carry  into  the  world.  I  try  to  state 
it.  I  try  from  a  new  theological  standpoint  to  show  reasons  for  its 
rational  acceptance.  But  I  know  that  however  true  and  necessary  explana- 
tions may  be,  the  fact  itself  transcends  them  all.  No  one  in  this  free 
assembly  is  required  or  expefcted  to  hide  his  denominationalism.  And  yet 
I  love  to  stand  with  my  fellow  Christians  and  unite  with  them  in  that 
simplest,  most  comprehensive  creed  that  was  ever  uttered,  Credo  Doniine. 


BUDDHISM— ORTHODOX  SOUTHERN. 

By  Right  Rev.  H.  Sumangala,  High  Priest  of  the  SouTHERiV 
Buddhist  Church  of  Ceylon. 

The  Sinhalese  followers  of  Arya  Dharma,  miscalled  Buddhism  by  West- 
em  scholars,  through  their  chosen  delegate,  Mr.  Dharmapala,  greet  the  dele- 
gates representing  all  the  World's  Religions  in  open  Parliament  assembled 
at  Chicago,  in  the  year  .2436  of  Buddha's  Nirvana — A.D.  1893.  To  the 
Advisory  Council  of  the  Exposition,  and  to  all  and  several  the  delegates,  the 
salutations  of  peace,  tolerance,  and  human  and  divine  brotherhood. 

Be  it  known  to  you,  brethren,  that  ours  is  the  oldest  of  missionary  relig- 
ions, the  principle  of  propaganda  having  been  adopted  by  its  promulgator  at 
the  very  beginning  and  enforced  by  him  in  the  despatch  of  his  immediate 
followers,  "  The  Brethren  of  the  Yellow  Robe,"  shortly  after  his  attainment 
of  the  state  of  perfect  spiritual  illumination,  2481  years  ago,  under  the  Bodhi- 
tree  at  Buddha  Gaya  in  Middle  India.  Traces  of  these  ancient  missions  have 
been  discovered  of  late  years,  and  the  influence  of  their  teachings  recognized 
by  Western  scholars  ia  various  directions.  The  spread  of  these  ideas  has 
invariably  been  effected  by  their  intrinsic  excellence,  and  never,  as  we  rejoice 
to  know,  by  the  aid  of  force,  or  appeal  to  the  superstitious  weakness  of  the 
uneducated  masses.  No  blood  stains  our  temples,  no  profitable  harvest  have 
we  reaped  from  human  oppression.  The  Tathagata  Buddha  has  enjoined 
his  followers  to  promote  education,  foster  scientific  inquiry,  respect  the  relig- 
ious views  of  others,  frequent  the  company  of  the  wise,  and  avoid  unproduct- 
ive controversy.  He  has  taught  them  to  believe  nothing  upon  mere  author- 
ity, however  seemingly  influential,  and  to  discuss  religious  opinions  in  a 
spirit  of  love  and  forbearance,  \yithout  fear  and  without  prejudice,  confident 
that  truth  protects  the  righteous  seeker  after  truth. 

It  is  evident  then,  brethren,  that  the  scheme  of  your  Parliament  of  Relig- 
ions recommends  itself  to  the  followers  of  Sakya  Muni,  and  that  we,  one 
and  al!,  are  bound  to  wish  it  the  most  complete  success.  We  should  have 
been  glad  to  accede  to  the  wishes  of  your  council  in  sending  one  or  more  of 
our  ordained  monks;  but  being  ignorant  of" Western  languages,  their  pres- 
ence as  active  members  of  the  Parliament  would  be  useless.  For  centuries 
circumstances  have  put  a  stop  to  our  organized  foreign  propaganda,  and  the 
life  of  our  monks  has  been  one  of  quiet  study,  meditation  and  good  works 
in  and  near  their  monasteries.  It  was,  therefore,  a  joy  to  us  that,  through 
the  liberality  of  your  council,  our  young  lay-missionary,  H.  Dharmapala, 
has  been  enabled  to  undertake  the  honorable  duty  of  presenting  this  address 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

804  ^ 


896  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

of  greeting  and  taking  part  in  your  parliamentary  deliberations.  We  com- 
mend him  to  you  as  worthy  of  confidence,  and  hope  that  good  may  result 
from  his  mission.  ^ 

Education  in  Ceylon  on  Western  principles  has  been  backward  because 
until  quite  recently  our  children  could  not  procure  it  save  at  the  risk  of  the 
destruction  of  their  religious  belief  under  the  interested  tuition  of  anti- 
Buddhist  instruction.  This  is  now  being  remedied  by  the  opening  of  secu- 
lar schools  by  our  people  under  the  lead  of  the  Theosophical  Society.  To 
Colonel  Olcott  we  owe  the  very  catechism  out  of  which  our  children  are  being 
taught  the  first  principles  of  religion,  and  our  present  brotherly  relations 
with  our  co-religionists  of  Japan  and  other  Buddhistic  countries.  The  relig- 
ious future  of  Ceylon,  brethren,  is  full  of  promise,  and  with  the  growth  of 
our  enlightenment,  we  shall  be  more  fit  to  carry  abroad  the  teachings  of  the 
Great  Master,  whose  mission  was  to  emancipate  the  human  mind  from  the 
bonds  of  selfishness,  superstition  and  materialism. 

The  labors  of  Orientalists,  especially  of  Pali  scholars,  have  of  late 
resulted  in  spreading  very  widely  throughout  the  world,  some  knowledge  of 
the  Buddha's  teachings,  while  Sir  Edwin  Arnold's  epic,  "The  Light  of 
Asia,"  has  created  a  popular  love  for  the  stainless  and  compassionate  char- 
acter of  Gautama  Buddha.  Justice  being  done  to  him,  his  personality  is 
seen  to  shine  with  exceptional  brilliance  among  the  figures  of  human  his- 
tory. We  think  that  pur  Arya  Dhama  reflects  the  spiritual  sunlight  of  his 
own  pure  nobility  and  the  luminousness  of  his  own  wisdom.  We  invite  you 
all  to  examine  and  test  it  for  yourselves.  Our  founder  taught  that  the  causq 
of  all  miseries  is  ignorance ;  its  antithesis,  happiness,  is  the  product  of 
knowledge. 

He  taught  religious  tolerance,  the  kinship  of  human  families  with  each 
other  and  with  the  universe,  the  existence  of  a  common  law  of  being  and  of 
evolution  for  us  all,  the  necessity  for  the  conquest  of  the  passions,  the  avoid- 
ance of  cruelty,  lying,  lustfulness,  and  all  sensual  indulgences,  of  the  cling- 
ing to  superstitipus  beliefs,  whether  traditional  or  moderh,  and  of  belief  in 
alleged  infallibility  of  men  or  books.  He  inculcated  the  practice  of  all 
virtues,  a  high  altruism  in  word  and  deed,  the  following  of  blameless  modes 
of  living  and  the  keeping  of  an  open  mind  for  the  discovery  of  truth.  He 
taught  the  existence  of  a  natural  causation  called  Karma,  which  operates 
throughout  the  universe,  and  which,  in  the  sphere  of  ethics,  becomes  the  prin- 
ciple of  equilibrium  between  ihe  opposing  forces  of  ignorance  and  wisdom, 
the  agent  of  both  retribution  and  recompense.  He  taught  that  existence  in 
physical  life  is  attended  by  fleeting  pleasures  and  lasting  pains,  wherefore 
the  enlightened  mind  should  recognize  the  fact  and  conquer  the  lust  for  life 
in  the  plane  of  physical  being.  Every  effect  being  related  to  an  anterior, 
formative  cause,  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  life  are  the  fruits  of  our  individual 
actions ;  hence  man  is  the  creator  of  his  own  destiny,  and  is  his  only  possi- 
ble liberator.     Liberation  is  enfranchisement  from  the  trammels  of  ignor- 


SUMANGALA:   SOUTHERN    BUDDHISM.  897 

ance,  which  not  only  begets  the  sorrows  that  scourge  us,  but  also,  by  keep- 
ing active  the  thirst  for  bodily  life,  compels  us  to  be  incarnated  again  and 
again  indefinitely  until  wisdom  dries  up  the  salt  spring  at  which  we  try  to 
(juench  our  maddening  thirst  for  life  and  life's  illusive  activities,  and  we 
break  out  of  the  whirling  wheel  of  rebirth,  and  escape  into  the  calm  and  full 
wisdom  of  Nirvana. 

The  literature  of  Southern  Buddhism  is  copious,  yet  its  fundamental 
ideas  may  be  easily  synthesized. 

Our  scriptures  are  grouped  into  three  divisions,  called  Pitakas  ;  of 
which  the  first  (Sutta)  comprises  sermons  or  Tectures  on  morality ;  the 
second  (Vinaya)  specifies  the  constitution,  rules  and  discipline  of  the  Order 
and  of  our  Laity,  and  the  the  third  (Abhi  Dhamma)  propounds  the  psychol- 
ogy of  our  system. 

Of  course,  it  would  be  useless  to  lay  before  a  transient  body  like  yours 
a  collection  of  these  religious  books,  written  in  an  unfamiliar  language  ;  we 
must  trust  our  delegate  to  the  inspiration  of  your  presence  to  give  you  a 
summary  of  what  Southern  Buddhists  believe  it  necessary  for  the  world  to 
know,  in  the  intere^  of  human  progress  and  human  happiness. 


57- 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SYSTEiM  OF  THE  PARSEES. 

By  JiNANji  J'amshedji  Modi,  Bombay,  India. 

The  Parsees  of  India  are  the  followers  of  Zoroastrianism,  or  the  religion 
of  Zoroaster,  a  religion  which  was  for  centuries  both  the  state  religion  and 
the  national  religion  of  ancient  Persia.  As  Prof.  Max  Miiller  says,  "There  i 
were  periods  in  the  history  of  the  world  when  the  worship  of  Ormuzd  threat-  / 
ened  to  rise  triumphant  on  the  ruins  of  the  temples  of  all  other  gods.  If  the 
battles  of  Marathon  and  Salamis  had  been  lost  and  Greece  had  succumbed 
to  Persia,  the  state  religion  of  the  empire  of  Cyrus,  which  was  the  worship, 
of  Ormuzd,  might  have  become  the  religion  of  the  whole  civilized  world.. 
Persia  had  absorbed  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  empires;  the  Jews  were 
either  in  Persian  captivity  or  under  Persian  sway  at  home ;  the  sacred  mon- 
uments of  Egypt  had  been  mutilated  by  the  hands  of  Persian  soldiers.  The 
edicts  of  the  king — the  king  of  kings — were  sent  to  India,  to  Greece,  to 
Scythia,  and  to  Egypt,  and  if  'by  the  grace  of  Ahura  Mazda'  Darius  had 
crushed  the  liberty  of  Greece,  the  purer  faith  of  Zoroaster  might  easily  have 
superseded  the  Olympian  fables." 

-  With  the  overthrow  of  the  Persian  monarchy  under  its  last  Sassanlan 
king,Yazdagard,at  the  battle  of  Nehavand  in  A.D.  642,  the  religion  received 
a  check  at  the  hands  of  the  Arabs,  who,  with  sword  in  one  hand  and  Koran 
in  the  other,  made  the  religion  of  Islam  both  the  state  religion  and  the 
national  religion  of  the  country.  But  many  of  those  who  adhered  to  the  faith 
of  their  fathers  quitted  their  ancient  fatherland  for  the  hospitable  shores  of 
India.  The  modern  Parsees  of  India  are  the  descendants  of  those  early 
settlers.  In  the  words  of  the  Rt.  Rev,  Dr.  Meurin,the  learned  Bishop  (Vicar 
Apostolic)  of  Bombay  in  1885,  the  Parsees  are  "a  people  who  have  chosen 
to  relinquish  their  venerable  ancestors'  homesteads  rather  than  abandon  their 
ancient  religion,  the  founder  of  which  has  lived  no  less  than  3,000  years  ago 
— a  people  who  for  a  thousand  years  have  formed  in  the  midst  of  the  great 
Hindoo  people,  not  unlike  an  island  in  the  sea,  a  quite  separate  and  distinct 
nation,  peculiar  and  remarkable  as  for  its  race,  so  for  its  religious  and  social 
life  and  customs."  Prof.  Max  Miiller  says  of  the  religion  of  the  Parsees  : 
"Here  is  a  religion,  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  the  world,  once  the  state 
religion  of  the  most  powerful  empire,  driven  away  from  its  native  soil,  and 
deprived  of  political  influence,  without  even  the  prestige  of  a  powerful  or 
enlightened  priesthood,  and  yet  professed  by  a  handful  of  exiles — men  of 
wealth,  intelligence  and  moral  worth  in  western  India,  with  an  unhesitating 
fervor  such  as  is  seldom  to  be  found  in  larger  religious  communities.  It  is 
Copyrieht,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

898 


TIIK  NAVK.K  CKRI.MiiNN 


iM  ri,\'ni».\  TO  mi 
1.  i.wiiCA ri(>\. 


I'\K.>IJ'.   i'klK.SlI{()(;l). 


900  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

well  worth  the  earnest  endeavor  of  the  philosopher  and  the  divine  to  dis- 
cover, if  possible,  the  spell  by  which  this  apparently  effete  religion  continues 
to  command  the  attachment  of  the  enlightened  Parsees  of  India,  and  makes 
them  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  allurements  of  the  Brahmanic  worship'  and  the 
earnest  appeals  of  Christian  missionaries." 

It  is  the  system  of  such  a  religion  that  is  the  subject  of  my  paper.  As 
the  natural  love  and  respect  which  one  has  for  his  own  religion  are  some- 
times held  to  color  one's  picture  of  his  religion,  I  will  illustrate  my  account 
of  the  Parsee  religion  as  much  as  possible  with  the  statements  of  Western 
scholars  of  repute  who  have  studied  the  religion  and  the  literature  of  the 
Parsees. 

I  will  treat  my  subject  in  two  parts.  First,  I  will  give  a  brief  descrip- 
tion of  the  religion.  Second,  as  desired  by  Rev.  Dr.  Barrows  in  his  First 
Report  to  the  President  of  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary,  I  will  briefly  refer 
to  some  of  the  important  practical  questions  of  the  present  age  referred  to 
in  that  report,  and  examine  what  the  Parsee  religion  has  to  say  on  those 
questions. 

I.  Zoroastrianism  Dr  Parseeism — by  whatever  name  the  system  may  be 
■  called — is  a  monotheistic  form  of  religion.  It  believes  in  the  existence  of 
one  God,  whom  it  knows  under  the  names  of  Mazda,  Ahura  and  Ahura- 
Mazda,  the  last  form  being  one  that  is  most  commonly  met  with  in  the  later 
writings  of  the  Avesta.  That  the  religious  system  of  Zoroaster  is  monothe- 
istic is  evidenced,  among  other  things,  by  the  fact  that  Zoroaster  rejected 
from  his  writings  the  word  "daeva,"a  very  ancient  Aryan  word  for  God, 
derived  from  the  Aryan  root  "  div,"  "  to  shine."  Most  of  the  Western 
nations  which  separated  from  the  parent  stock  took  with  them  this  word  in 
one  form  or  another  for  the  name  of  their  God.  Thus  the  Greeks  called 
their  God,  Deos  or  Zeus  ;  the  Romans,  Deus  ;  the  Germans,  Teus ;  the 
Lithuanians,  Diewas,  and  so  on.  The  Indian  and  the  Iranian  branches  had 
the  word  "daeva."  But  when  the  early  Iranians  saw  that  the  belief  of  the 
people  was  tending  to  polytheism  and  that  the  sacred  word  "daeva," 
instead  of  being  used  for  God  alone,  was  being  used  for  many  of  his  created 
objects,  they  stamped  the  word  as  unfit  for  the  name  of  God  and  rejected  it 
altogether  from  the  Avesta. 

The  first  and  greatest  truth  that  dawns  npon  the  mind  of  a  Zoroastrian 
is  that  the  great  and  the  infinite  universe,  of  which  he  is  an  infinitesimally 
part,  is  the  work  of  a  powerful  hand — the  result  of  a  master  mind.  The 
first  and  the  greatest  conception  of  that  master  mind,  .-^hura-Mazda,  is  that, 
as  the  name  implies,  he  is  the  Ominiscient  Lord,  and  as  such  he  is  the  ruler 
of  both  the  material  and  the  immaterial  world,  the  corporeal  and  the  incor- 
poreal world,  the  visible  and  the  invisible  world. 

As  to  the  material,  corporeal,  or  visible  world,  the  sublime  objects  and 
the  grand  phenomena  of  nature  which  present  themselves  to  the  sight  of 
all  men,  from  intelligent  and  keen  observers  to  ordinary  simple  men  whose 


MODI:   THE    PARSEE    SYSTEM.  QOI 

powers  of  observation  are  in  their  crude  infancy,  bear  evidence  to  iiis  omnip- 
otence, to  his  ali-working  and  ever-working  power.  If  one  were  to  ask 
which  is  the  best  and  the  surest  evidence,  that  Zoroastrianism  rests  upon 
for  its  belief  in  the  existence  of  God,  the  reply  is  that  it  is  the  "evidence  / 
from  nature."  The  harmony,  the  order,  the  law,  and  the  system  observed 
in  nature  lead  the  mind  of  a  Zoroastrian  from  nature  to  nature's  God. 

As  in  the  physical  world  so  in  the  moral  world.  As  Ahura-Mazda  is 
the  ruler  of  the  physical  world,  so  he  is  the  ruler  of  the  spiritual  world. 
He  is  the  most  spiritual  among  the  spiritual  ones.  His  distinguished 
attributes  are  good  mind,  righteousness,  desirable  control,  piety,  perfection, 
and  immortality.  As  he  is  the  source  of  all  physical  light,  so  he  is  the  source 
of  all  spiritual  light,  all  moral  light.  He  is  the  beneficent  spirit  from  whom 
emanate  all  good  and  all  piety.  He  looks  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and  sees 
how  much  of  the  good  and  of  the  piety  that  have  emanated  from  him  has 
made  its  home  there,  and  thus  rewards  the  virtuous  and  punishes  the  vicious. 

As  he  has  arranged  all  order  and  harmony  in  the  physical  world,  so  he 
has  done  in  the  moral  world.  Of  course,  one  sees  at  times,  in  the  plane  of 
this  worM,  moral  disorders  and  want  of  harmony ;  but  then  the  present  state 
is  only  a  part,  and  that  a  very  small  part,  of  his  scheme  of  moral  government. 
As  petty  disorders  here  and  there  in  the  grand  system  of  nature  do  not  dis- 
close any  want  of  system  or  harmony  in  the  grand  scheme  of  the  universe, 
so  petty  disorders  in  the  moral  plane  in  the  present  state  of  life  do  not  disclose 
any  want  of  method  in  his  moral  government.  In  the  moral  world  virtue 
has  its  own  reward,  and  vice  its  own  punishment.  Virtue  has  all  happii)e?s 
and  pleasure  in  the  long  run,  and  vice  all  misery  and  grief.  From  a  Zoroas- 
trian point  of  view  the  consideration  of  these  facts  presents  a  strong  evidence 
for  the  existence  of  a  future  state  of  life,  for  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  As 
the  ruler  of  the  world,  Ahura-Mazda  hears  the  prayers  of  the  ruled.  He 
grants  the  prayers  of  those  who  are  pious  in  thoughts,  pious  in  words,  and 
pious  in  deeds.  "  He  not  only  rewards  the  good,  but  punishes  the  wicked.  ' 
AH  that  is  created,  good  or  evil,  fortune  or  misfortune,  is  his  work." 

We  now  come  to  the  subject  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Zoroastrian  religion. 

We  have  seen  that  Ahura-Mazda  or  God  is,  according  to  Parsee  Scrip- 
tures, the  causer  of  all  causes.  He  is  the  creator  as  well  as  the  destroyer, 
the  increaser  as  well  as  the  decreaser.  He  gives  birth  to  different  creatures, 
and  it  is  he  who  brings  about  their  end.  How  is  it,  then,  that  he  brings 
about  these  two  contrary  results?  "  This  great  thinker  [Zoroaster]  of  re- 
mote antiquity  solved  this  difficult  question  philosophically  by  the  supposi- 
tion of  two  primeval  causes,  which,  though  different,  were  united,  and 
produced  the  world  of  material  things,  as  well  as  that  of  the  spirit." 

These  two  primeval  causes  or  principles  are  called  in  the  Avesta  the 
two  "  Mainyus."  This  word  comes  from  the  ancient  Aryan  root  "man,"  to 
"  think.".  It  may  be  properly  rendered  into  English  by  the  word  "spirit,  " 
meaning  "that  which  can  only  be  conceived  by  the  mind  but  not  felt  by  the 


902  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAV. 

senses."  Of  these  two  spirits  or  primeval  causes  or  principles,  one  is  crea- 
tive and  the  other  destructive.  The  former  is  known  in  the  Avesta  by  the 
namh  of  "  Spenta-mainyush  "  or  the  increasing  spirit,  and  the  latter  by  that 
of  "  Angra-mainyush  "  or  the  decreasing  spirit.  These  two  spirits  work 
under  one  God,  Mazda,  who,  through  the  agency,  as  it  were,  of  these  two 
spirits,  is  the  causer  of  all  causes  in  the  universe,  the  creator  as  well  as  the 
destroyer.  • 

According  to  Zoroaster's  philosophy,  our  world  is  the  work  of  these 
two  hostile  principles,  Spenta-mainyush,  the  good  principle,  and  Angro- 
mainyush,  the  evil  principle,  both  serving  under  one  God.  In  the  words  of 
that  learned  Orientalist,  Professor  Darmesteter,  "  All  that  is  good  in  the 
world  comes  from  the  former ;  all  that  is  bad  comes  from  the  latter.  The 
history  of  the  world  is  the  history  of  their  conflict ;  how  Angro-mainyu 
invaded  the  world  of  Ahura-Mazda  and  marred  it,  and  how  he  shall  be 
expelled  from  it  at  last.  Man  is  active  in  the  conflict,"his  duty  in  it  being 
laid  before  him  in  the  law  revealed  by  Ahura-Mazda  to  Zarathushtra.  When 
the  appointed  time  is  come  .  .  .•  .  Angro-mainyu  and  hell  will  be 
destroyed,  man  will  rise  from  the  dead,  and  everlasting  happiness  will  reign 
over  the  world." 

Some  authors  entertain  an  opinion  that  Zoroaster  preached  dualism. 
But  this  is  a  serious  misconception.  On  this  point  Dr.  Haug  says  :  "The 
opinion,  so  generally  entertained  now,  that  Zarathushtra  was  preachir.lg  a 
dualism — that  is  to  say,  the  idea  of  two  original  and  independent  spirits,  one 
good  and  the  other  bad,  utterly  distinct  from  each  other,  and  one  counteracting 
the  creation  of  the  other,  is  owing  to  a  confusion  of  his  philosophy  with  his 
theology  .  .  .  S\  separate  evil  spirit  of  equal  power  with  Ahura-Mazda, 
and  always  opposed  to  him,  is  entirely  foreign  to  Zarathushtra's  theology." 

The  reason  why  the  original  Zoroastrian  notion  of  the  two  spirits,  the 
creative  and  the  destructive,  is  misunderstood  as  dualism  is  this.  In  the 
Parsee  Scriptures  the  names  of  God  are  Mazda,  Ahura,  and  Ahura-Mazda, 
the  last  word  being  a  compound  of  the  first  two.  The  first  two  words  are 
common  in  the  earliest  writings  of  the  Gatha,  and  the  third  in  the  later 
scriptures.  In  later  times  the  word  Ahura-Mazda,  instead  of  being  restricted, 
like  Mazda,  to  the  name  of  God,  began,  to  be  used  in  a  wider  sense  and  was 
applied  to  Spenta-mainyush,  the  Creative  or  the  Good  principle.  This  being 
the  case,  wherever  the  word  Ahura-Mazda  was  used  in  opposition  to  that  of 
Angro-mainyush,  later  authors  took  rt  as  the  name  of  God,  and  not  as  the 
name  of  the  Creative  principle,  which  it  really  was.  Thus  the  very  fact  of 
Ahura-Mazda's  name  being  employed  in  opposition  to  that  of  Angro-main- 
yush  or  Ahriman  led  to  the  notion  that  Zoroastrian  Scriptures  preached 
dualism. 

Dr.  West  presents  the  subject  from  another  point  of  view:  "The 
origin  and  end  of  Ahriman  appear  to  be  left  as  uncertain  as  those  of  the 
devil,  and  altogether  the  resemblance  between  these  two  ideas  of  the  evil 


niK  NAVKK  ci:ki;.m<>nv. 


MK   I'lRST  Alil.rrioN. 


904  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

spirit  is  remarkably  close ;  in  fact,  almost  too  close  to  admit  of  the  possibility 
of  their  being  ideas  of  different  origin.  ...  If,  therefore,  a  belief  in 
Ahriman,  as  the  author  of  evil,  makes  the  Parsee  religion  a  dualism,  it  is 
difficult  to  understand  why  a  belief  in  the  devil,  as  the  author  of  evil,  does 
not  make  Christianity  also  a  dualism." 

From  a  consideration  of  these  points  of  philosophy,  Mr.  Samuel  Lang 
says:     "The  doctrines  of  this  excellent  religion  are  extremely  simple.    The 
leading  idea  is  that  of  monotheism,  but  the  one  God  has  far  fewer  anthropo-  ' 
morphic  attributes,  and  is  relegated  much  further  back  into  the  vague  and  ; 
infinite  than  the  God  of  any  other  monotheistic  religion.     Ahura-Mazda,  of  | 
which  the  more  familiar  appellation  Ormuzd  is  an  abbreviation,  means  the  , 
'All-knowing  God ; '  he  is  said  sometimes  to  dwell  in  the  infinite  luminous  ; 
space,  and  sometimes  to  be  identical  with  it.     He  is,  in  fact,  not  unlike  the 
inscrutable  First  Cause,  whom  we  may  regard  with  awe  and  reverence,  with 
love  and  hope,  but  whom  we  cannot  pretend  to  define  or  to  understand. 
But  the  radical  difference  between  Zoroastrianism  and  other  religions  is  that 
it  does  not  conceive  of  this  one  God  as  an  omnipotent  Creator,  who  might 
make  the  universe  as  he  chose,  and  therefore  was  directly  responsible  for  all 
the  evil  in  it ;  but  as  a  being  acting  by  certain  fixed  laws,  one  of  which 
was,  for  reasons  totally  inscrutable  to  us,  that  existence  implied  polarity,  and 
therefore  that  there  could  be  no  good  without  corresponding  evil." 

We  will  now  see  how  these  precepts  and  philosophic  principles  affect 
the  (juestion  of  morality. 

As  there  are  two  primeval  principles  under  Ahura-Mazda  that  produce 
our  material  world,  as  said  above,  so  there  are  two  principles  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  man  which  encourage  him  to  do  good  or  tempt  him  to  do  evil. 
One  asks  him  to  support  the  cause  of  the  good  principle,  the  other  to  sup- 
port that  of  the  evil  principle. 

Now  these  two  principles  inherent  in  man,  viz.,  Vohumana  and  Aka- 
mana  (good  mind  and  evil  mind)  exert  their  influence  upon  a  man's  thoughts, 
words  and  deeds.  When  the  influence  of  the  former.  /.  <?.,  the  good  mind, 
predominates,  our  thoughts,  words  and  deeds  result  in  good  thoughts,  good 
words  and  good  deeds ;  but  when  that  of  the  latter,  /.  e.,  the  evil  mind,  pre- 
dominates, they  result  in  evil  thoughts,  evil  words  and  evil  deeds.  Now  the 
fifth  chapter  of  the  Vendidad  gives,  as  it  were,  a  short  definition  of  what  is 
morality  or  piety.  There,  first  of  all,  the  writer  says  that  "  Purity  is  the  best 
thing  for  man  after  birth."  This  you  may  say  is  the  motto  of  the  Zoroastrian 
religion.  Therefore  M.  d'Harlez  very  properly  says  that,  according  to 
Zoroastrian  scriptures,  the  "notion  of  the  word  virtue  sums  itself  up  in  that 
of  the  '  Asha.' "  What  Zoroastrian  moral  philosophy  teaches  is  this,  that 
your  good  thoughts,  good  words  and  good  deeds  alone  will  be  your  inter- 
cessors. Nothing  more  will  be  wanted.  They  alone  will  serve  you  as  a  safe 
pilot  to  the  harbor  of  Heaven,  as  a  safe  guide  to  thegites  of  paradise.  The 
late  Dr.  Haug  rightly  observed  that  "The  moral  philosophy  of  Zoroaster  was 


MODI:   THE    PARSEE    SYSTEM.  QOS 

moving  in  the  triad  of  '  thought,  word  and  deed.'  "  These  three  words  form, 
as  it  were,  the  pivot  upon  which  the  moral  structure  of  Zoroastrianism  turns. 
It  is  the  groundwork  upon  which  the  whole  edifice  of  Zoroastrian  morality 
rests. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  the  destiny  of  the  soul  after  death. 
Zoroastrianism  believes  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  The  Avesta  writings 
of  Iladokht  Nushk  and  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  the  Vendidad  atid  of  the 
Pehlevi  books  of  Minokherad  and  Viraf-nameh  treat  of  the  fate  of  the  soul 
a^ter  death.  The  last  mentioned  book  contains  an  account  of  (he  journey  of 
Ardai-Viraf  through  the  heavenly  regions.  This  account  corresponds  to  that 
of  the  ascension  of  the  prophet  Isaiah.  Its  notions  about  heaven  and  hell 
correspond  to  some  extent  to  the  Christian  notions  about  them.  According 
to  Dr.  Haug  its  description  of  hell  and  of  some  of  the  punishments  suffered 
by  the  wicked  there,  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  that  in  the  Inferno  of 
the  Italian  poet  Dante. 

Thus  Zoroastrianism  believes  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  A  plant 
called  the  Homa-i-saphid  or  white  Homa,  a  name  corresponding  to  the 
Indian  Soma  of  the  Hindus,  is  held  to  be  the  emblem  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  According  to  Dr.  Windischmann  and  Professor  Max  Miiller.  this 
plant  reminds  us  of  the  "  Tree  of  Life  "  in  the  garden  of  Eden.  As  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures  the  way  to  the  tree  of  life  is  strictly  guarded  by  the- 
Cherubim,  so  in  the  Zoroastrian  Scriptures  the  Homa-i-saphid,  or  the  plant 
which  is  the  emblem  of  immortalfly,  is  guarded  by  innumerable  Fravashis — 
that  is,  guardian  spirits.  The  number  of  these  guardian  spirits,  as  given  in 
various  books,  is  99,999. 

A  good  deal  of  importance  is  attached  in  the  Avesta  and  in  the  later 
Pehlevi  writings  to  this  question  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  because  a 
belief  in  this  dogma  is  essential  to  the  structure  of  moral  principles.  The 
whole  edifice  of  our  moral  nature  rests  upon  its  groundwork. 

Again,  Zoroastrianism  believes  in  heaven  and  hell. 

Between  heaven  and  this  world  there  is  supposed  to  be  a  bridge  named 
"CHinvat." 

According  to  the  Parsee  Scriptures,  for  three  days  after  a  man's  death 
his  soul  remains  within  the  limits  of  this  world  under  the  guidance  of  the 
angel  Srosh.  If  the  deceased  be  a  pious  man  or  a  man  who  led  a  virtuous 
life,  his  soul  utters  the  words,  "  Well  is  he  by  whom  that  which  is  his  benefit 
becomes  the  benefit  of  any  one  else."  If  he  be  a  wicked  man  or  one  who 
led  an  evil  life,  his  soul  utters  these  plaintive  words  :  "  To  which  land  .shall 
I  turn  ?     Whither  shall  I  go  ?" 

On  the  dawn  of  the  third  night  the  depji-ted  souls  appear  at  the  "Chin- 
vat  Bridge."  This  bridge  is  guarded  by  the  angel  .Meher  Daver,  i.  e.,  Meher 
the  Judge.  He  presides  there  as  a  judge  assisted  by  the  angels  Rashn^  and 
Astad,  the  former  representing  Justice  and  the  latter  Truth.  At  this  bridge, 
and  before  this  angel  Meher,  the  soul  of  every  man  has  to  give  an  account 


906  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

of  its  doings  in  the  past  life.  Meher  Daver,  the  judge,  weighs  a  man's 
actions  by  a  scale-pan.  If  a  man's  good  actions  outweigh  his  evil  ones, 
even  by  a  small  particle,  he  is  allowed  to  pass  from  the  bridge  to  the  other 
end  to  heaven.  If  his  evil  actions  outweigh  his  good  ones,  even  by  a 
small  weight,  he  is  not  allowed  to  pass  over  the  bridge,  but  is  hurled  down 
into  the  deep  abyss  of  hell.  •  If  his  meritorious  and  evil  deeds  counterbalance 
each  other,  he  is  sent  to  a  place  known  as  "  Hamast-gehan,"  corresponding 
to  the  Christian  "  Purgatory  "  and  the  Mohammedan  "  Aeraf."  His  meri- 
torious deeds  done  in  the  past  life  would  prevent  him  from  going  to  hell, 
and  his  evil  actions  would  not  let  him  go  to  heaven. 

Again,  Zoroastrian  books  say  that  the  meritoriousness  of  good  deeds 
and  the  sin  of  evil  ones  increase  with  the  growth  of  tim^.  As  capital 
increases  with  interest,  so  good  and  bad  actions  done  by  a  man  in  his  life 
increase,  as  it  were,  with  interest  in  their  effects.  Thus  a  meritorious  deed 
done  in  young  age  is  more  effective  than  that  very  deed  done  in 
advanced  age.  For  example,  let  that  meritorious  deed  be  valued 
in  money.  Let  two  friends,  A  and  B,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  propose 
doing  an  act  of  charity,  viz.,  a  donation  of  £i,ooo  to  a  charitable  institu- 
tion. A  immediately  gives  the  amount  and  B  postpones  the  act  for  some  time 
and  does  it  at  the  age  of  fifty.  Calculating  at  the  rate  of  four  per  cent., 
,A's  gift  of  £l,000  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  is  worth  twice  that  of  B  at  the 
age  of  fifty,  i.  e.,  twenty-five  years  later.  Thus,  the  Dadistan-i-Dini  recom- 
mends man  to  follow  the  path  of  virtue  from  his  very  young  age,  A 
virtuous  act  performed  by  a  young  man  is  more  meritorious  than  the  same 
act  performed  by  an  old  man.  A  man  must  begin  practicing  virtue  from 
his  very  young  age.  As  in  the  case  of  good  deeds  and  their  meritorious- 
ness, so  in  the  case  of  evil  action  and  their  sins.  The  burden  of  the  sin  of 
an  evil  action  increases,  as  it  were,  with  interest.  A  young  man  doing  an 
evil  act  has  time  and  opportunities  at  his  disposal  to  wash  off,  as  it  were, 
the  effect  of -that  act  either  by  repentance  or  good  deeds  in  return.  A 
young  man  has  a  long  time  to  repent  of  his  evil  deeds  and  to  do  good  deeds 
that  could  counteract  the  effect  of  his  evil  deeds.  If  he  does  not  .take 
advantage  of  these  opportunities,  the  burden  of  those  evil  deeds  increases 
with  time. 

Having  given  a  brief  outline  of  the  religious  system  of  the  Parsees,  we 
will  here  say  a  few  words  about  the  Parsee  places  of  worship  and  about  the 
Parsee  prayers.  As  a  good  deal  of  ignorance  seems  to  prevail  among  non- 
Zoroastrians  as  to  the  reverence  paid  to  fire  by  the  Parsees,  it  will  not  be 
out  of  place  here  to  say  something  on  the  subject  of  the  so-called  fire- 
worship  of  the  Parsees.  The  Parsee  places  of  worship  are  known  as  fire- 
temples.  The  very  name  fire-temple  would  strike  a  non-Zoroastrian  as  an 
unusual  form  of  worship. 

We  will  not  enter  here  into  the  history  of  the  so-called  fire-worship,  nor 
enter  into  the  different  grounds  —  religious,  moral  and  scientific — which 


IIIK  N.WKR  t'KRKMoW.     -,.  IN  11  lA  IK  iN. 


908  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

actuate  and  even  justify  a  Parsee  in  offering  his  reverence — which,  it  must 
be  remembered,  is  something  different  from  worsh'P — to  fire.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  the  Parsees  do  not  worship  fire  as  God.  They  merely  regard  fire' 
as  an  emblem  of  refulgence,  glory  and  light,  as  the  most  perfect  symbol  of 
God,  and  as  the  best  and  noblest  representative  of  his  divinity.  "In  the 
eyes  of  a  Parsee  his  (fire's)  brightness,  activity,  purity,  and  incorruptibility 
bear  the  most  perfect  resemblance  to  the  nature  and  perfection  of  the 
deity."  A  Parsee  looks  upon  fire  "as  the  most  perfect  symbol  of  the  deity 
on  account  of  its  purity,  brightness,  activity,  subtility,  purity,  and  incorrupt-  ■ 
ibility."  ". 

Again,  one  must  remember  that  it  is  the  several  symbolic  ceremonies  that 
add  to  the  reverence  entertained  by  a  Parsee  for  the  fire  burning  in  his  fire-  ■ 
temples.'     "  A  new  element  of  purity  is  added  to  the  fire  burning  in  the  fire- 
temples  of  the  Parsees  by  the  religious  ceremonies  accompanied  with  pray-  ' 
ers  that  are  performed  over  it,  before  it  is  installed  in  its  place  on  a  vase  on 
an  exalted  stand  in  a  chamber  set  apart.     The  sacred  fire  burning  there  is  . 
not  the  ordinary  fire  burning  in  our  hearths.     It  has  undergone  several  cer-  ' 
emonies,  and  it  is  these  ceremonies,  full  of  meaning,  that  render  the  fire  ■ 
more  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  a  Parsee.     We  will  briefly  recount  the  process 
here.     In  establishing  a  fire-temple,  fires  from  various  places  of  manufact- 
ure are  brought  and  kept  in  different  vases.   ,  Great  efforts  are  also  made 
to  obtain  fire  caused  by  lightning.     Over  one  of  these   fires  a  perforated  I 
metallic  flat  tray  with  a  handle  attached  is  held.     On  this  tray  are  placed  • 
small  chips  and  dust  of  fragrant  sandalwood.     These   chips  and  dust  are  ' 
ignited  by  the  heat  of  the  fire  below,  care   being  taken  that  the  perforated 
tray  does  not  touch  the  fire.     Thus  a  new  fire  is  created  out  of- the  first  fire. 
Then  from  this  new  fire  another  one  is  created  by  the  same  process.     From 
this  new  fire  another  is    again  produced,  and  so    on,  until  the  process  is 
repeated  nine  times.     The  fire  thus  prepared  after  the  ninth  process  is  con-  \ 
sidered   pure.     The   fires   brought  from   other  places  of   manufacture   are 
treated  in  a  similar  manner.     These  purified   fires  are  all  collected  together  . 
upon    a   large  vase,  which  is  then   put  in  its  proper  place  in  a  separate 
chamber. 

"  Now,  what  does  a  fire  so  prepared  signify  to  a  Parsee  ?     He  thinks  to  . 
himself:     'When   this  fire   on  this  vase   before   me,  though  pure  in  itself, 
though  the  noblest  of  the  creations  of  God,  and  though  the  best  symbol  of 
the  Divinity,  had  to  undergo  certain   processes  of  purification,  had  to  draw 
out,  as  it  were,  its  essence — nay,  its  quintessence — of  purity,  to  enable  itself  . 
to  be  worthy  of  occupying  this  exalted  position,  how  much  more:  necessary, 
more  essential,  and  more  important  it  is  for  me — a  poor, mortal  who  is  liable 
to  commit  sins  and  crimes,  and   who  comes  into  contact  with  hundreds  of 
evils  both  physical  and  mental — to  undergo  the  process  of  purity  and  piety,  • 
making  my  thoughts,  words  and  actions  pass,  as  it  were,  through  a  iieve  of " 

«  "  History  of  the  Parsees,"  by  Mr.  Dossabhoy  Framjee,  vol.  II.  p.  21a. 


MODI:   THE    PARSEE   SYSTEM.  909 

piety  and  purity,  virtue  and  morality,  and  to  separate  by  that  means  my 
good  thoughts,  good  words  and  good  actions  from  bad  thoughts,  bad 
words,  and  bad  actions,  so  that  I  may,  in  my  turn,  be  enabled  to  acquire  an 
exalted  position  in  the  next  world.'  " 

Again,  the  fires  put  together  as  above  are  collected  from  the  houses  of 
men  of  different  grades  in  society.  This  reminds  a  Parsee  that,  as  all  these 
fires  from  the  houses  of  men  of  different  grades  have  all,  by  the  process  of 
purification,  equally  acquired  the  exalted  place  in  the  vase,  so  before  God 
all  men — no  matter  to  what  grades  of  society  they  belong  —  are  equal, 
provided  they  pass  through  the  process  of  purification,  i.  e.,  provided  they 
preserve  purity  of  thoughts,  purity  of  words  and  purity  of  deeds. 

Again,  when  a  Parsee  goes  before  the  sacred  fire,  which  is  kept  all  day 
and  night  burning  in  the  fire  temple,  the  officiating  priest  presents  before 
him  the  ashes  of  a  part  of  the  consumed  fire.  The  Parsee  applies  it  to  his 
forehead  just  as  a  Christian  applies  the  consecrated  water  in  his  church,  and 
thinks  to  himself  :  "  Dust  to  dust.  The  fire,  all  brilliant,  shining  and 
resplendent,  has  spread  the  fragrance  of  the  sweet-smelling  sandal  and 
frankincense  round  about,  but  is  at  last  reduced  to  dust.  So  it  is  destined 
for  me.  After  all  I  am  to  be  reduced  to  dust  and  have  to  depart  from  this 
transient  life.  Let  me  do  my  best  to  spread,  like  this  fire,  before  my  death, 
the  fragrance  of  charity  and  good  deeds  and  lead  the  light  of  righteousness 
and  knowledge  before  others." 

In  short,  the  sacred  fire  burning  in  a  fire  temple  serves  as  a  perpetual 
monitor  to  a  Parsee  standing  before  it,  to  preserve  piety,  purity,  humility 
and  brotherhood. 

Now,  though  a  Parsee's  reverence  for  fire,  as  the  emblem  of  God's 
refulgence,  glory  and  light,  as  the  visible  form  of  all  heat  and  light  in  the 
universe,  in  fact  as  the  visible  form  of  all  energy,  and  as  a  perpetual  moni- 
tor, encouraging  ennobling  thoughts  of  virtue,  has  necessitated  the  erection 
of  fire-temples  as  places  of  worship,  he  is  not  restricted  to  any  particular 
place  for  his  prayers.  He  need  not  wait  for  a  priest  or  a  place  to  say  his 
prayers. 

Nature  in  all  its  grandeur  is  his  temple  of  worship.  The  glorious  sun, 
the  resplendent  moon,  the  mountains  towering  high  into  the  heavens  and 
the  rivers  fertilizing  the  soil,  the  extensive  seas  that  disappear,  as  it  were, 
into  infinity  of  space  and  the  high  vault  of  heaven,  all  these  grand  objects 
and  phenomena  of  nature  draw  forth  from  his  soul  admiration  and  praise 
for  the  Great  Architect  who  is  their  author. 

As  we  said  above,  evidence  from  nature  is  the  surest  evidence  that 
leads  a  Parsee  to  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  Deity.  From  nature  he 
is  led  to  nature's  God.  From  this  point  of  view,  then,  he  is  not  restricted 
to  any  particular  place  for  the  recital  of  his  prayers.  For  a  visitor  to  Bom- 
bay, which  is  the  headquarters  of  the  Parsees,  it  is  therefore  not  unusual  to 
see  a  number  of  Parsees  saying  their  prayers,  morning  and  evening,  in  the 


910  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

open  space,  turning  their  faces  to  the  rising  or  the  setting  sun,  before  the 
glowing  moon  or  the  foaming  sea.  Turning  to  these  grand  objects,  the  best 
and  sublimest  of  his  creations,  they  address  their  prayers  to  the  Almighty. 

Mr.  S.  Lang  'says  of  this:  "  Here  is  an  ideal  religious  ceremony  com- 
bining all  that  is  most  true,  most  touching  and  most  sublime  in  the  attitude 
of  man  towards  the  Great  Unknown.  .  .  .To  the  Zoroastrian,  prayer 
assumes  the  form  of  a  recognition  of  all  that  is  pure,  sublime  and  beautiful 
in  the  surrounding  universe.  He  can  never  want  opportunities  of  paying 
homage  to  the  Good  Spirit  and  of  looking  into  the  abysses  of  the  unknown 
with  reverence  and  wonder.  The  light  of  setting  suns,  the  dome  of  loving 
blue,  the  clouds  in  the  might  of  the  tempest  or  resting  still  as  brooding^ 
doves,  the  mountains,  the  ocean  lashed  by  storm  .  •  .  .  .'  these  are  a 
Zoroastrian's  prayers."  In  this  respect,  however,  what  I  have  called  the 
Zoroastrian  theory  of  religion  affords  great  advantages.  It  connects  relig- 
ion directly  with  all  that  is  good  and  beautiful,  not  only  in  the  higher 
realms  of  speculation  and  emotion,  but  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  daily  life. 
To  feel  the  truth  of  what  is  true,  the  beauty  of  what  is  beautiful,  is  of  itself 
a  silent  prayer  or  act  of  worship  to  the  Spirit  of  light ;  to  make  an  honest, 
earnest  effort  to  attain  this  feeling,  is  an  offering  or  act  of  homage.  Chian- 
liness  of  mind  and  body,  order  and  propriety  in  conduct,  civility  in  inter- 
course, and  all  the  homely  virtues  of  every-day  life,  thus  require  a  higher 
significance,  and  any  wilful  and  persistent  disregard  of  them  becomes  an 
act  of  mutiny  against  the  Power  whom  we  have  elected  to  serve. 

Having  spoken  at  some  length  about  the  place  of  prayers,  we  will  say 
here  something  about  the  prayers  themselves.  All  Parsee  prayers  begin 
with  an  assurance  to  do  acts  that  would  please  the  Almighty  God.  The 
assurance  is  followed  by  an  expression  of  regret  for  past  evil  thoughts, 
words  or  deeds,  if  any.  Man  is  liable  to  err,  and  so,  if  during  the  interval 
any  errors  of  commission  or  omission  are  committed,  a  Parsee  in  the  begin- 
nings of  his  prayers  repents  for  those  errors.  He  says:  "O  Omniscient 
Lord  !  I  repent  of  all  my  sins.  I  repent  of  all  evil  thoughts  that  I  might  have 
entertained  in  my  mind,  of  all  the  evil  words  that  I  might  have  spoken,  of 
all  the  evil  actions  that  I  might  have  committed.  O  Omniscient  Lord  1  I 
repent  of  all  the  faults  that  might  have  originated  with  me,  whether  they 
refer  to  thoughts,  words,  or  deeds,  whether  they  appertain  to  my  body  or 
soul,  whether  they  be  in  connection  with  the  material  world  or  spiritual." 
About  the  catholicity  of  Parsee  prayers  we  will  speak  on  in  the  second  part' 
of  the  paper. 

II.  Having  given  a  brief  outline  of  the  religious  system  of  the  Parsees, 
their  places  of  worship  and  forms  of  prayer,  we  will  now  proceed  to  consider 
how  far  the  precepts  of  that  <&^igion  are  applied  to  some  of  the  practical 
questions  of  life. 

We  will  first  speak  of  education.     To  educate  their  children  is  a  spirit- 

'  "  A  Modern  Zoroastrian,"  by  Samuel  Lang,  p.  xto. 


IHI-.   N.WI.l;    I  IKI.Mu.W  .     .,.   1  l\AI.  I  ii<Wl.|<.>. 


912  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

ual  duty  of  Zoroastrian  parents.  Education  is  necessary,  not  only  for  the 
material  good  of  the  children  and  the  parents,  but  also  for  their  spiritual 
good.  It  was  the  spirit  of  the  Zoroastrian  religion  that  had  colored  the  edu- 
cation of  the  early  Zoroastrians,  of  which  Professor  Rapp  says  :  "  The  most 
remarkable  and  the  most  beautiful  form  in  which  the  moral  spirit  of  the  Per- 
sian people  realized  itself  in  life  is  the  well-known  Persian  education.  It, 
indeed,  at  an  early  age,  implanted  in  the  souls  of  young  Persians  the  senti- 
ments which  should  always  guide  them  in  all  their  dealings  and  which  pre- 
pared and  hardened  their  bodies  in  order  that  as  capable  citizens  they  might 
thereby  be  able  at  some  future  time  to  serve  their  native  country  with  worthy 
deeds."*  According  to  the  Parsee  books,  the  parents  participate  in  the 
meritoriousness  of  the  good  acts  performed  by  their  children  as  the  result  of 
the  good  education  imparted  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  parents 
neglect  the  education  of  their  children,  and  if,  as  the  result  of  this  neglect, 
they  do  wrongful  acts  or  evil  deeds,  the  parents  have  a  spirituah  responsi- 
bility for  such  acts.  In  proportion  to  the  malignity  or  evilness  of  these  acts 
the  parents  are  responsible  to  God  for  their  neglect  of  the  education  of  their 
children.  It  is,  as  it  were,  a  spiritual  self-interest  that  must  prompt  a  Par- 
see  to  look  to  the  good  education  of  his  children  at  an  early  age.  Thus, 
from  a  religious  point  of  view,  education  is  a  great  question  with  the  Parsees. 
The  proper  age  recommended  by  religious  Parsee  books  for  ordinary 
education  is  seven.  Before  that  age,  children  should  have  home  education 
'.with  their  parents,  especially  with  the  mother.  At  the  age  of  seVfen,  after  a 
.little  religious  education,  a  Parsee  child  is  invested  with  Sudreh  and  Kusti, 
I.  If.,  the  sacred  shirt  and  thread.  This  ceremony  of  investiture  corresponds  to 
the  confirmation  ceremony  of  the  Christians.  A  Parsee  may  put  on  the  dress 
of  any  nationality  he  likes,  but  under  that  dress  he  must  always  wear  the 
sacred  shirt  and  thread.  These  are  the  symbols  of  his  being  a  Zoroastrian. 
These  symbols  are  full  of  meaning,  and  act  as  perpetual  monitors  advising 
the  wearer  to  lead  a  life  of  purity  —of  physical  and  spiritual  purity.  A  Par- 
see  is  enjoined  to  remove,  and  put  on  again  immediately,  the  sacred  thread 
several  times  during  the  day,  saying  a  very  short  prayer  during  the  process. 
He  has  to  do  so  early  in  the  morning  on  rising  from  bed,  before  meals  and 
after  ablutions.  The  putting  on  of  the  symbolic  thread  and  the  accompany- 
ing short  prayer  remind  him  to  be  in  a  state  of  repentance  for  misdeeds  if 
any,  and  to  preserve  good  thoughts,  good  words  and  good  deeds  (Humata, 
Kukhta  and  Hvarshta),  the  triad  in  which  the  moral  philosophy  of  Zoroas- 
ter moved. 

It  is  after  this  investiture  with  the- sacred  shirt  and  thread  that  the  gen- 
eral education  of  a  child  generally  begins.     The  Parsee  books  speak  of  the 
necessity  of  educating  all  children,  whether  male  or  female.     Thus  female 
education  claims  as  mu^'b  attention  among  the  Parsees  as  male  education. 
Physical  education  is  as  much  spoken  of  in  the  Zoroastrian  books  as- 

>  Mr.  K.  R.  Cama's  translations. 


MODI:   THE    PARSEE    SYSTEM.  9I3 

mental  -ind  moral  education.  The  health  of  the  body  is  considered  the  first 
requisite  for  the  health  of  the  soul.  That  the  physical  education  of  the 
ancient  Persians,  the  ancestors  of  the  modern  Parsees,  was  a  subject  of 
admiration  among  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  is  well  known.  In 
all  the  blessings  invoked  upon  one  in  the  religious  prayers,  the  strength  of 
body  occupies  the  first  and  the  most  prominent  place. 

Analyzing  the  Bombay  Census  of  1881,  Dr.  Weir,  the  health  officer, 
said  :  "  Examining  education  according  to  faith  or  class,  we  find  that  edu- 
cation is  most  extended  amongst  the  Parsee  people  ;  female  education  is 
more  diffused  amongst  the  Parsee  population  than  any  other  class  .  .  . 
Contrasting  these  results  with  education  at  an  early  age  amongst  Parsees, 
we  find  12.2  per  cent.  Parsee  male  and  8.84  per  cent,  female  children, 
under  six  years  of  age,  under  instruction ;  between  six  and  fifteen  the  num- 
ber of  Parsee  male  and  female  children  under  instruction  is  much  larger 
than  in  any  other  class.  Over  fifteen  years  of  age,  the  smallest  proportion 
of  illiterates,  either  male  or  female,  is  found  in  the  Parsee  population." 

Obedience  to  parents  is  a  religious  virtue  with  the  Zoroastrian  religion. 
Disobedient  children  are  considered  great  sinners.  This  virtue  of  obedi- 
ence to  parents  was  such  a  common  characteristic  with  the  ancient  Zoroas- 
trians  that,  as  Herodotus  says,  the  legitimacy  of  a  child  accused  of  a  mis- 
deed towards  the  parents  was  looked  at  with  great  suspicion.  The  parents 
were  the  rulers  of  the  house.  The  father  was  the  king  and  the  mother  the 
queen  of  the  house.  So  the  children,  as  subjects,  were  bound  to  be  obedi- 
ent to  their  rulers.  This  obedience  to  parents  at  home,  and  to  teachers  at 
school,  was  a  training  for  obedience  to  the  rules  and  manners  of  society  at 
large,  and  to  the  constitutional  forms  for  the  government  of  the  country.  A 
child  disobedient  to  his  parents  cannot  be  expected  to  be  a  good  member  of 
society  and  to  be  a  good  and  loyal  subject ;  so  the  religious  books  of  the 
Parsees  greatly  emphasize  this  virtue.  One  of  the  blessings  that  a  priest 
prays  for  in  a  house  on  performing  the  Afringan  ceremony,  is  the  obedience 
of  the  children  to  the  head  of  the  family.  He  prays :  "  May  obedience 
overcome  disobedience  in  this  house  ;  may  peace  overcome  dissension  ;  may 
charity  overcome  want  of  charity ;  may  courtesy  overcome  pride  ;  may  truth 
overcome  falsehood."  Zoroastrianism  teaches  love  and  regard,  loyalty  and 
obedience,  to  the  regular  constitutional  forms  of  government.  We  said 
above  that  a  Parsee's  mind  is  trained,  by  his  religious  precepts,  to  love 
nature,  from  which  it  is  led  to  nature's  God.  As  he  always  sees  order  and 
harmony  in  nature,  he  is  trained  to  love  order  and  hate  disorder,  so  in  his 
usual  prayers  he  prays  for  his  sovereign  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment. Where  love,  order  and  harmony  reign,  there  reign  peace  and  pros- 
perity. A  Parsee  mother  prays  for  a  son  that  could  take  an  intelligent  part 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  councils  of  his  community  and  government ;  so 
a  regard  for  the  regular  forms  of  government  was  necessary. 

As  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  duties  of  a  good  government  to  look 

58 


9M  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

to  the  sanitation  of  the  country,  we  will  speak  here  about  the  Parsee  ideas 
of  sanitation  and  see  how  far  these  ideas  help  the  general  cause  of  sanitation. 
Of  all  the  practical  questions,  the  one  most  affected  by  the  religious  precepts 
of  Zoroastrianism  is  that  of  the  observation  of  sanitary  rules  and  principles. 
Several  chapters  of  the  Vendidad  form,  as  it  were,  the  sanitary  code  of  the 
Parsees.  Most  of  the  injunctions  will  stand  the  test  of  sanitary  science  for 
ages  together.  Of  the  different  Asiatic  communities  inhabiting  Bombay,  the 
Parsees  have  the  lowest  death-rate.  A  breach  of  sanitary  rules  is,  as  it  were, 
helping  the  cause  of  the  evil  principle. 

Again,  Zoroastrianism  asks  its  disciples  to  keep  the  earth  pure,  to  keep 
the  air  pure,  and  to  keep  the  water  pure.  It  considers  the  sun  as  the  greatest 
purifier.  In  places  where  the  rays  of  the  sun  do  not  enter,  fire  over  which 
fragrant  wood  is  burnt  is  the  next  purifier.  It  is  a  great  sin  to  pollute  water 
by  decomposing  matter.  Not  only  is  the  commission  of  a  fault  of  this  kind 
a  sin,  but  also  the  omission,  when  one  sees  such  a  pollution,  of  taking  proper 
means  to  remove  it.  A  Zoroastrian,  when  he  happens  to  see,  while  passing 
in  his  way,  a  running  stream  of  drinking  water  polluted  by  some  decompos- 
ing matter,  such  as  a  corpse,  is  enjoined  to  wait  and  try  his  best  to  go  into  the 
stream  and  to  remove  the  putrefying  matter,  lest  its  continuation  may  spoil 
the  water  and  affect  the  health  of  the  people  using  it.  An  omission  to  do 
this  act  is  a  sin  from  a  Zoroastrian  point  of  view.  At  the  bottom  of  a  Par- 
see's  custom  of  disposing  of  the  dead,  and  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  strict  relig- 
ious ceremonies  enjoined  therewith,  lies  the  one  main  principle,  viz.,  that, 
preserving  all  possible  respect  for  the  dead,  the  body,  after  its  separation 
from  the  immortal  soul,  should  be  disposed  of  in  a  way  the  least  harmful 
and  the  least  injurious  to  the  living. ' 

We  said  above  that  a  Parsee  is  enjoined  to  keep  the  earth  pure.  As 
one  of  the  means  to  do  this,  cultivation  is  specially  recommended.  To  bring 
desolate  land  into  cultivation,  and  thus  to  add  to  the  prosperity  of  the  inhabi- 
tants is  a  meritorious  act,  helping  the  cause  of  the  good  principle.  To  help 
cultivation  is  as  meritorious  as  helping  the  cause  of  holiness  and  piety  (Vend, 
iii.  31)  because  it  helps  the  poor  to  gain  their  honest  bread  by  honest  work. 

Coming  to  the  question  of  temperance,  taking  the  word  in  its  general 
sense,  we  find  that  Zoroastrian  books  advise  temperance  in  all  cases.  Tem- 
perance is  spoken  of  as  a  priestly  virtue  (Vend.  xiii.  43).  It  was  owing  to 
these  teachings  of  their  religion  that  the  ancient  Persians  were,  accoiding 
to  Strabo,  Xenophon,  and  other  ancient  historians,  well  known  for  their 
temperate  habits.  Easting  is  not  prescribed  in  any  case  as  in  other 
religions. 

The  old  religious  books  of  the  Parsees  do  not  strictly  prohibit  the  use 
of  wine,  but  preach  moderation.  Dadistan-i-dini  (ch.  xl.  xli.)  allows  the 
use  of  wine,  and  admonishes  every  man  to  exert  moral  control  over  himself. 

»  For  the  Parsee  custom  of  the  disposal  of  tnedead,  vide  my  paper  on  "  The  Funeral  Cere- 
monies of  the  Parsees,  their  Origin  and  Explanation. " 


HK  N.W  Kl<  ri-KKMoNV.       .   .\\  <  M<|>.\I  M-;[ .   PKIKS 


9^6  TARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

To  the  robust  and  intelligent,  who  can  do  without  wine,  it  recommends 
abstinence.  To  others  it  recommends  'moderation.  A  person,  who  gives 
another  a  drink,  is  deemed  as  guilty  as  the  drinker,  if  the  latter  does  any 
mischief  either  to  himself  or  to  others  through  the  influence  of  that  drink. 
Only  that  man  is  justified  to  take  wine  who  can  thereby  do  some  good  to 
himself,  or  at  least  can  da  no  harm  to  himself. 

On  the  subject  of  the  trade  of  wine-sellers,  the  Dadistan-i-dini  says 
that  not  only  is  a  man  who  makes  an  improper  and  immoderate  use  of  wine 
guilty,  but  also  a  wine-seller  who  knowingly  sells  wine  to  those  who  make 
an  improper  use  of  it.  It  is  improper  and  unlawful  for  a  wine-s61ler  to  con- 
tinue to  sell  wine,  for  the  sake  of  his  pocket,  to  a  customer  who  is  the  worse 
for  liquor.  He  is  to  make  it  a  point  to  sell  wine  to  those  only  who  can  do 
some  good  to  themselves  by  that  drink,  or  at  least  no  harm  either  to  them 
selves  or  to  others. 

We  now  come  to  the  question  of  wealth,  poverty,  and  labor.  As 
Herodotus  said,  a  Parsee,  before  praying  for  himself,  prays  for  his  sovereign 
and  for  his  community,  for  he  is  himself  included  in  the  community.  His 
religious  precepts  teach  him  to  drown  his  individuality  in  the  common  interests 
of  his  community.  In  the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Yasna,  which  contains,  as  it 
were,  the  Zoroastrian  articles  of  faith,  a  Zoroastrian  promises  to  preserve  a 
perfect  brotherhood.  He  promises,  even  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  to  protect 
the  life  and  the  property  of  all  the  members  of  his  community  and  to  help 
in  the  cause  that  would  bring  about  their  prosperity  and  welfare.  It  is  with 
these  good  feelings  of  brotherhood  and  charity  that  the  Parsee  community 
has  endowed  large  funds  for  benevolent  and  charitable  purposes.  If  the 
rich  Parsees  of  the  future  generations  were  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of 
their  ancestors  of  the  past  and  present  generations  in  the  matter  of  liberal 
donations  for  the  good  of  the  deserving  poor  of  their  community,  one  can 
say  that  there  would  be  very  little  cause  for  the  socialists  to  complain  from  a 
poor  man's  point  of  view.  Men  of  all  grades  in  society  contribute  to  these 
funds  on  various  occasions.  The  rich  contribute  on  occasions  both  of  joy 
and  grief.  On  grand  occasions  like  those  of  weddings  in  their  families  they 
contribute  large  sums  in  charity  to  commemorate  those  events.  Again,  on 
the  death  of  their  dear  ones,  the  rich  and  the  poor  all  pay  various  sums, 
according  to  their  means,  in  charity.  These  sums  are  announced  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Oothumna  or  the  ceremony  on  the  third  day  after  death. 
'Ihe  rich  pay  large  sums  on  these  occasions  to  commemorate  the  names  of 
their  dear  ones." 

The  religious  training  of  a  Parsee  doti^s  not  restrict  his  ideas  of  brother 
hood  and  charity  to  his  own  community  alone.  He  extends  his  charity  to 
non  Zoroastrians  as  well. 

As  it  is  the  duty  of  the  rich  to  give  in  charity  and  help  the  poor  from 

'  Vide  my  paper  on  "  The  Funeral  Ceremonies  of  the  Parsees,  their  Origin  and 
Explanation,"  before  the  Anthropological  Society  of  Bombay,  vol.  II. 


MODI:   THE    PARSEE   SYSTEM.  917 

the  wealth  God  has  endowed  them  with,  it  is  equally  the  duty  of  all  classes 
and  grades  of  people  to  work  hard  for  their  bread.  The  very  land  on  which 
a  laborer  works  honestly  blesses  him,  and  that  on  which  he  does  not  work 
honestly,  but  wastes  his  time,  curses  him.  The  capitalist,  or  the  rich  man, 
and  the  laborer,  or  the  poor  man,  have  respective  duties  towards  one 
another.  The  prosperity  of  the  world  depends  upon  their  mutual  aid.  It  is 
a  great  sin  for  a  capitalist  to  keep  back  from  the  laborers  their  proper  wages 
(Viraf,  Chapter  39).  It  is  as  great  a  sin  for  a  man  to  lead  an  idle  life  as  it 
is  for  a  rich  man  to  fail  to'  help  the  deserving  poor  and  waste  his  wealth  in 
the  self-enjoyment  of  vicious  pleasures. 

For  all  workers,  the  Avesta  (Yasna,  Ixii.  5)  recommends  sleep  and  a 
complete  cessation  from  every  kind  of  work  for  eight  hours  during  the  day. 
The  Pehlevi  Pandnameh  of  Bouzorge-Meher  recommends  eight  hours  dur- 
ing the  day  for  mental  recreation,  religious  meditation,  prayers  and  study. 
The  rest  of  the  day,  i.e.,  eight  hours,  are  recommended  for  field" labor  and 
such  other  hard  physical  work. 

We  now  come  to  the  question  of  the  influence  of  the  Parsee  religion  on 
the  literature,  art,  commerce,  government,  and  domestic  and  social  life  of 
the  people. 

As  to  the  literature  of  the  Parsees,  it  has,  on  the  whole,  a  very  healthy 
tone.  The  materialism,  the  agnosticism,  the  atheism,  and  the  other  "isms" 
of  the  Western  world  have  no  place  in  it  as  yet.  Zoroaster,  when  he  preached 
his  religion  in  ancient  Persia,  specially  asked  his  hearers  not  to  accept  it  on 
mere  blind  faith,  but  to  criticise  it  and  to  choose  it  after  deliberation  (Yasna, 
XXX.).  A  part  of  the  old  Pehlevi  literature  of  the  Parsees  also  displays  some- 
thing of  a  critical  tone  of  inquiry.  The  modern  literature  of  the  Parsees  on 
the  subject  of  religious  matters  is  also  critical  and  inquisitive;  but  on  the 
whole  it  is  religious  in  its  tone.  Faith  in  the  existence  of  God,  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  and  in  future  reward  and  punishment  pervades  the  sub- 
stratum of  all  thoughts.  This  faith  is  not  necessarily  and  always  entertained 
from  a  Zoroastrian  point  of  view,  but  from  what  we  should  term  a  general 
theistic  point  of  view.  Again,  the  literature  is  very  tolerant  of  other  religions. 
It  is  never  carping  at  other  faiths  or  forms  of  belief  unless  compelled  to  do  so 
in  self-defense.  One  of  the  reasons  for  this  is  that  the  Parsees  do  not  prose- 
lyte others.  Their  literature,  always  ready  to  tolerate  freedom  of  thought,  is 
liberal  in  its  opinions  and  views.  It  is  always  loyal  and  respectful  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  its  country,  and  at  the  same  time  independent  and  free  in  its  criti- 
cism. It  is  always  ready  to  stand  by  the  side  of  its  British  rulers  in  all  cases 
of  difficulties. 

It  is  commerce  that  has  made  the  Parsees  prosperous  up  to  now.  The 
founders  of  the  great  Parsee  families,  that  have  given  hundreds  of"  thousands 
of  rupees  in  charity  for  the  good  of  their  own  and  other  communities  of  Bom- 
bay, had  all  acquired  their  wealth  by  commerce.  Honesty  in  trade  is  a  virtue 
highly   recommended   in   Parsee  books.     Dishonesty  with  partners,  fraud  in 


9l8  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

weights  and  measures,  defrauding  laborers  of  their  proper  wages,  acquisition 
of  wealth  by  unfair  means,  making  of  false  agreements,  and  breach  of  prom- 
ise— all  these  are  great  sins  punishable  in  hell.  In  some  of  the  practical 
admonitions  given  to  a  bridegroom  in  the  marriage  service,  he  is  specially 
advised  not  to  enter  into  pj^rtnership  with  an  ambitious  man. 

Coming  to  the  question  of  the  influence  of  the  Parsee  religion  on  the 
domestic  and  social  life  of  the  Parsees,  we  find  that,  according  to  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Parsee  books,  a  husband  is  the  king,  and  the  wife  the  queen,  of 
the  household.  On  the  husband  devolves  the  duty  of  maintaining  his  wife  and 
children;  on  the  wife,  that  of  making  the  home  comfortable  and  cheerful. 

The  qualifications  of  a  good  husband,  from  a  Zoroastrian  point  of  view, 
are  that  he  must  be  (l)  young  and  handsome;  (2)  strong,  brave,  and 
healthy  ;  (3)  diligent  and  industrious  so  as  maintain  his  wife  and  children ; 
(4)  truthful,  as  would  prove  true  to  herself  and  true  to  all  others  with  whom 
he  would  come  in  contact;  and  (5)  wise  and  educated.  A  wise,  intelligent, 
and  educated  husband  is  compared  to  a  fertile  piece  of  land  which  gives  a 
plentiful  crop,  whatever  kinds  of  seeds  are  sown  in  it.  The  qualifications  of 
a  good  wife  are  that  she  be  wise  and  educated,  modest  and  courteous,  obed- 
ient and  chaste.  Obedience  to  her  husband  is  the  first  duty  of  a  Zoroastrian 
wife.  It  is  a  great  virtue  deserving  all  praise  and  reward.  Disobedience  is 
a  great  sin  punishable  after  death.  According  to  the  Sad-dar,  a  wiTc  that 
expressed  a  desire  to  her  husband  three  times  a  day — in  the  morning,  after- 
noon and  evening — to  be  one  with  him  in  thoughts,  words  and  deeds,  i.e.,X.o 
sympathize  with  him  in  all  his  noble  aspirations,  pursuits,  and  desires,  per- 
formed as  meritorious  an  act  as  that  of  saying  her  prayers  three  times  a  day. 
She  must  wish  to  be  of  the  same  view  with  him  in  all  his  noble  pursuits  and 
ask  him  every  day,  "What  are  your  thoughts,  so  that  I  may  be  one  with  you 
in  those  thoughts  ?  What  are  your  words,  so  that  I  may  be  one  with  you  in 
your  speech  ?  What  are  your  deeds,  so  that  I  may  be  one  with  you  in  your 
deeds?"  A  Zoroastrian  wife  so  affectionate  and  obedient  to  her  husband  was 
held  in  great  respect,  not  only  by  the  husband  and  the  household,  but  in 
society  as  well.  As  Dr.  West  says,  though  a  Zoroastrian  wife  was  asked  to 
be  very  obedient  to  her  husband,  she  held  a  more  respectable  position  in 
society  than  that  enjoined  by  any  other  Oriental  religion. 

Marriage  is  an  institution  which  is  greatly  encouraged  by  the  spirit  of 
the  Parsee  religion.  It  is  especially  recommended  in  the  Parsee  Scrip- 
tures on  the  ground  that  a  married  life  is  more  likely  to  be  happy  than  an 
unmarried  one,  that  a  married  person  is  more  likely  to  be  able  to  withstand 
physical  and  mental  afflictions  than  an  unmarried  person,  and  that  a  mar- 
ried man  is  more  likely  to  lead  a  religious  and  virtuous  life  than  an  unmar- 
ried one.  The  following  verse  in  the  Gathjl  conveys  this  meaning  (liii, 
5)  :  "I  sav  (these)  words  to  you  marrying  brides  and  to  you  bridegrooms. 
Impress  them  in  your  mind.  May  you  two  enjoy  the  life  of  good  mind  by 
following  the  laws  of  religion.     Let  each  one  of  you  clothe  the  other  with 


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920  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAY. 

righteousness,  because  then  assuredly  there  will  be  a  happy  life  for  you." 
\n  unmarried  person  is  represented  to  feel  as  unhappy  as  a  fertile  piece  nf 
ground  that  is  carelessly  allowed  to  lie  uncultivated  by  its  owner  (Vend.  iii. 
24).  The  fertile  piece,  when  cultivated,  not  only  adds  to  the  beauty  of  the 
spot,  but  lends  nourishment  and  food  to  many  others  round  about.  So  a 
married  couple  not  only  add  to  their  own  beauty,  grace  and  happiness,  but 
by  their  righteousness  and  good  conduct  are  in  a  position  to  spread  the 
blessings  of  help  and  happiness  among  their  neighbors.  Marriage  being 
thus  considered  a  good  institution,  and  being  recommended  by  the  religious 
scriptures,  it  is  considered  a  very  meritorious  act  for  a  Parsee  to  help  his 
co-religionists  to  lead  a  married  life  (Vend.  iv.  44).  Several  rich  Parsees 
have,  with  this  charitable  view,  founded  endowment  funds,  from  which 
young  and  deserving  brides  are  given  small  sums  on  the  occasion  of  their 
marriage  for  the  preliminary  expenses  of  starting  in  married  life. 

Fifteen  is  the  minimum  marriageable  age  spoken  of  by  the  Parsee 
books.  The  parents  have  a  voice  of  sanction  or  approval  in  the  selection 
of  wives  and  husbands.  Mutual  -friends  of  parents  or  marrying  parties  may 
bring  about  a  good  selection.  Marriages  with  non-Zoroastrians  q^re  not 
recommended,  as  they  are  likely  to  bring  about  quarrels  and  dissensions 
owing  to  difference  of  manners,  customs  and  habits. 

We  said  above  that  the  Parsee  religion  has  made  its  disciples  tolerant 
about  the  faiths  and  beliefs  of  others.  It  has  as  well  made  them  sociable 
with  the  other  sister  communities  of  the  country.  They  mix  freely  with 
members  of  other  faiths  and  take  a  part  in  the  rejoicings  of  their  holidays. 
They  also  sympathize  with  them  in  their  griefs  and  afflictions,  and  in  case 
of  sudden  calamities,  such  as  fire,  floods,  etc.,  they  subscribe  liberally  to 
alleviate  their  misery.  From  a  consideration  of  all  kinds  of  moral  and 
charitable  notions  inculcated  in  the  Zoroastrian  Scriptures,  Frances  Power 
Cobbe,  in  her  "  Studies,  New  and  Old,  of  Ethical  and  Social  Subjects," 
says  of  the  founder  of  the  religion  :  "  Should  we  in  a  future  world  be  per- 
mitted to  hold  high  converse  with  the  great  departed,  it  may  chance  that  in 
the  Bactrian  sage,  who  lived  and  taught  almost  before  the  dawn  of  history, 
we  may  find  the  spiritual  patriarch,  to  whose  lessons  we  have  owed  such  a 
portion  of  our  intellectual  inheritance  that  we  might  hardly  conceive  what 
human  belief  would  be  now  had  Zoroaster  never  existed." 


DIVINE    PROVIDENCE    AND   THE     ETHNIC 

RELIGIONS. 

.  By  Rev.  T.  J.  Scott. 

The  thought  of  asking  the  representatives  of  the  great  historic  religions 
of  the  race  to  sit  down  together  in  brotherly  counsel,  if  not  unique  in  the 
world's  history,  is  at  least,  in  the  scope  and  completeness  of  the  proposal  made 
for  the  World's  Parliament  of  Religions  at  Chicago,  without  parallel.  The 
narrow  and  ungenerous  conception  of  too  many  in  the  Christian  world  has 
accorded  but  little  of  the  Heavenly  Father's  care  and  love  to  the  nations 
outside  of  Christendom.  Some  have  imagined  that  this  is  the  spirit  and 
teachings  of  the  Bible,  but  the  inherent  unreasonableness  of  all  such  views 
appears  on  a  glance  at  the  magnitude  of  this  race  thus  abandoned,  and  by 
asking  the  question  :  Has  God  had  no  care  over  these  millions,  has  he  never 
spoken  to  them,  and  is  there  no  loving  Providence  over  the  world  ?  The 
population  of  lands  having  the  Bible  is  but  a  drop  in  the  ocean  compared  to 
this  mass  of  humanity.  Have  these  not  been  the  subject  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence ?  "  Is  he  the  God  of  the  Jews  only  ?  Is  he  not  also  the  God  of  the 
Gentiles  ?     Yea,  of  the  Gentiles  also."     (Romans  iii.  2q.) 

It  is  hardly  credible  to  the  adherents  of  our  popular  theology,  that 
some  of  the  great  ethnic  religions,  as  Hinduism  and  Buddhism,  have  had  a 
better  conception  of  God's  grace  than  theirs.  While  they  hold  this  religion 
as  good  for  them  they  admit  that  the  religion  of  others  may  be  from  the  same 
divine  source  for  them.  But,  lest  we  attract  the  attentions  of  the  heresy  hun- 
ter, it  is  well  to  bring  this  question  to  the  test  of  the  Bible.  The  light  of  a 
few  plain  texts  flashed  over  the  subject  must  suffice  for  this  short  paper. 

We  can  easily  learn  (a)  what  is  God's  attitude  toward  the  nations  repre- 
sented in  the  ethnic  religions,  {/>)  what  the  rule  of  this  probation  is,  and  {<:) 
what  their  responsibilities, 

I.  On  the  question  of  God's  relation  to  the  people  outside  of  Judaism 
and  Christianity  it  is  interesting  to  note  certain  characters  who  appear  in 
Bible  history.  We  have  what  may  be  called  Gentile  saints  in  the  persons  of 
Melchisedek,  priest  of  the  most  high  God,  Jethro,  Moses'  father-in-law,  per- 
haps Job,  and  Balaam  who  at  last  sold  himself  for  gold,  Cornelius  the 
Roman  captain,  Lydia  the  purple-seller  of  Thyatira,  and  others.  These 
were  of  various  nationalities,  and  the  incident  of  Peter's  meeting  with  the 
captain  of  the  Roman  band  furnishes  the  key  to  a  right  view  of  God's  feel- 
ing toward  them.  "  I  perceive  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  but  in  every 
nation  he  that  feareth  him  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  of  him." 
(Acts  X.  24-25.)     God,  then,  is  no  respecter  of  persons  among  the  nations. 

921 


922  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS :   NINTH    DAY. 

Jew  and  Christian  must  not  arrogate  to  themselves  all  his  grace.  And 
there  are  those  in  every  nation  who  fear  God  and  work  righteousness.  Here 
is  a  plea  for  a  Socrates,  a  Plato,  a  Seneca,  a  Mena,  a  Confucius. 

2.  The  nations  not  having  the  Bible  must  have  some  plain  rule  of  pro- 
bation not  just  the  same  as  the  written  revelation  of  the  Christian.  That 
revelation  itself  gives  us  the  key,  so  that  we  can  understand  how  non- Chris- 
tian nations  are  not  left  without  hope.  If  God  is  "  no  respecter  of  persons," 
the  rule  for  those  without  the  Bible  must  be  equitable.  So  upon  this  point, 
so  strangely  troublesome  to  many  theologians  in  the  West,  the  Book  itself 
helps  us  out.  First,  God  has  "  not  left  himself  without  witness  in  that  he 
did  good  and  gave  rain  from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons."  Then  "  His 
eternal  power  and  Godhead  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  bathings  that 
are  made."  This  is  the  light  of  nature,  and  thus  God  has  manifested  his 
"  invisible  things "  unto  them.  Secondly,  there  is  the  inward  light  of  con- 
science. The  nations  "  not  having  the  law  are  a  law  unto  themselves." 
Paul  affirms  that  God  will  give  "  glory,  honor,  peace,"  **  to  every  man  accord- 
ing to  his  deeds,"  "for  there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  God."  (Rom.  ii.) 
Nature  is  a  great  object  lesson  leading  man  up  to  God.  Conscience,  illum- 
inated by  the  "  Light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  '.rorld," 
is  light  enough  to  enable  every  man  to  "  fear  God  and  work  righteousness." 

We  are  apt  to  underestimate  the  gracious  help  thus  given  to  those  who 
have  not  had  the  Bible.  On  account  of  our  knowledge  of  the  Bible  we  are 
apt  to  assume  for  our  people  a  degree  of  righteousness  that  does  not  exist, 
and  on  account  of  their  idolatry  we  overlook  the  true  knowledge  of  God 
among  non-Christian  peoples  and  the  consequent  righteousness  among  them. 
The  lessons  of  nature's  book  and  the  monitions  of  the  moral  sense  constitute 
a  dispensation  of  grace  for  the  non-Christian  world.  If  the  divine  compas- 
sion, as  we  may  well  believe,  has  been  over  this  part  of  humanity  also,  God 
has  been  helping  them  all  through  the  ages.  That  the  Holy  Spirit  has  been 
shining  into  their  hearts  and  illuminating  their  understanding  we  may  hold 
to  be  beyond  question.  Hence  in  their  religious  books  and  in  the  systems 
which  they  have  wrought  out  there  must  be  some  good.  They  have  often 
wrestled  manfully  with  the  problems  of  being.  The  existence  and  character 
of  the  Supreme  One,  the  origin  and  destiny  of  the  human  spirit,  sin  and 
salvation,  are  questions  that  have  been  deeply  pondered.  The  limits  of  this 
paper  do  not  admit  of  even  a  brief  statement  of  what  they  have  contributed 
to  humanity's  uplift  toward  truth  and  reality,  and  perhaps  in  the  history  of 
the  development  of  the  race,  the  time  has  not  yet  come  when  we  are  pre- 
pared, without  prejudice,  fairly  to  estimate  what  each  great  nation  has 
wrought  out,  how  much  Rome  did  for  law  and  civil  life,  Greece  for  art,  India 
for  a  powerful  hold  on  the  thought  of  God's  immanence,  China  for  practical 
piety  and  lessons  of  steady  patient  industry. 

Paul's  "in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,"  is  likely  an 
echo  of  Oriental  thought.   Christianity  is  the  supreme  religion,  but  it  has  had 


9^4  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   EIGHTH    DAY. 

a  historical  preparation  with  contributions  from  the  great  ethnic  religions. 
Some  may  imagine  that  in  Christianity  Christian  people  have  all  the  truth 
that  may  have  been  wrought  out  in  the  ethnic  religions,  but  is  it  true  that 
there  are  no  lessons  yet  to  be  learned  or  illustrated,  and  that  the  Occident 
can  gather  nothing  from  the  Orient  ?  It  is  a  hopeful  sign  in  the  history  of 
the  race  that  generous,  broad-minded  thinkers  now  appreciate  more  fully  the 
great  fact  hinted  at  here,  and  are  beginning  to  work  this  mine  more  earn- 
estly. The  lesson  of  all  is,  God  has  been  truly  a  Father  to  those  outside  of 
Judaism  and  Christianity.  He  "  is  the  God  of  the  Gentiles  also."  God's 
thoughts  have  not  been  our  thoughts,  nor  have  his  ways  been  our  ways. 
Our  thoughts  and  theology  are  often  too  narrow,  while — 

"There's  a  wideness  in  God's  mercy 
Like  the  wideness  of  the  sea." 

3.  This  view  of  the  non-Christian  world  is  not  a  mere  sentiment  which 
takes  away  almost  all  responsibility.  The  Bible  is  plain  in  its  statement 
that  the  part  of  the  world  without  this  written  law  is  also  under  ethical  law. 
God's  eternal  power  and  divinity  are  so  clearly  to  be  inferred  that  they  are 
"without  excuse."  Light  has  been  given  by  the  Divine  Spirit  speaking 
through  nature  and  the  moral  sense.  Where  there  has  not  been  a  spirit  of 
obedience  or  a  principle  of  righteousness,  "  the  whole  world  becomes  guilty 
before  God."  Just  as  Christendom  has  not  lived  up  to  its  light,  so  we  learn 
from  Paul's  letter  to  the  Romans  the  non-Christian  world  has  not  lived  up 
to  its  light.  There  has  been  light  enough  for  obedience  and  virtue,  hence 
there  must  be  condemnation  where  the  spirit  of  these  does  not  exist. 

4.  At  this  point  sometimes  the  question  is  raised,  as  it  was  for  Paul, 
what  advantage  then  has  the  Christian,  and  why  carry  the  gospel  to  the 
nations  ?  We  may  give  Paul's  reply, — the  "  advantage  "  is  "  much  every 
way,  chiefly  because  unto  them  were  committed  the  oracles  of  God." 
While  admitting  much  that  is  good  in  the  best  books  of  the  ethnic  relig- 
ions, there  is  a  transcendent  superiority  in  the  Bible  over  them,  that  in  a 
unique  sense  constitutes  it  "  the  oracles  of  God." 

We  may  not  yet  be  fully  prepared  to  answer  the  question  why  God 
chose  a  particular  branch  of  the  race  as  the  medium  and  depository  of  his 
Word,  but  analogy  in  human  affairs  gives  us  some  clew.  Some  men  mani- 
fest greater  susceptibility  to  divine  grace  than  others,  and  doubtless  this  is 
the  case  with  nations  also  which  take  on  character  and  manifest  special 
tendencies.  There  doubtless  was  an  equal  chance  in  primitive  times.  In 
the  historic  period  the  Semitic  race  has  seemed  the  most  capable,  of  all  the 
races  of  the  world,  of  grasping  and  maintaining  the  idea  of  a  righteous  personal 
God.  If  the  Hebrew  family  had  developed  a  peculiar  fitness  for  being  the 
depository  of  the  oracles  of  God,  that  will  account  for  the  fact  as  it  is 
claimed.  They  must  have  been  adapted,  as  no  other  nations  were,  to 
receive  and  preserve  and  perpetuate  the  truths  of  the  Bible.  Meanwhile 
God  did  not  leave  himself  without  witness  among  other  nations.     Doubt- 


SCOTT:    ETHNIC    REVELATION.  925 

less  ilivine  wisdom  did  the  most  possible  in  giving  them  light,  and  the  out- 
come, as  far  as  wrong,  has  been  a  perversion  of  the  truth.  It  is  a  notable 
fact  that  there  has  been  a  deterioration  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  ethnic 
religions,  and  not,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrew,  an  evolution  toward  greater 
light  and  truth. 

As  we  come  to  recognize  more  fully  the  brotherhood  of  nations  under 
the  loving  Fatherhood  of  God  we  will  be  able  to  study  this  whole  question 
more  justly  and  recognize  the  work  and  place  of  each  great  nation  in  the 
education  and  development  of  humanity.  There  has  been  a  loving  Father- 
hood over  all,  and  help  for  all.  In  our  fear  of  putting  ourselves  on  a  level 
with  the  ethnic  religions,  we  place  them  entirely  outside  our  sacred  circle  ; 
but  we  will  yet  come  to  find  that  God  has  been  more  manifestly  present  in 
their  circle  than  our  narrow  creed  admitted. 

Now  a  brief  word  in  conclusion  with  some  practical  suggestions.  God 
is  one.  Humanity  is  one.  The  antagonistic  and  inimical  relations  of 
nations  must  pass  away  as  man's  true  destiny  is  discovered.  The  family  of 
man  has  yet  to  realize  its  real  brotherhood.  Many  forces  are  at  work  to 
bring  the  nations  into  fellowship.  Science,  commerce,  travel,  easy  and 
rapid  communication,  the  spread  of  common  languages,  notably  English  (the 
familiar  tongue  for  the  Parliament  of  Religions),  and  even  Religion  itself, 
the  theme  of  this  Parliament — all  these  are  bringing  the  races  of  the  world 
together.  Soon  the  electric  flash  will  put  the  entire  globe  in  momentary 
touch.  Common  interest  must  make  humanity  one  in  thought  and  coopera- 
tion. The  truth  of  all  things  must  be  evolved,  and  the  religion  of  human- 
ity will  be  acknowledged.  A  tolerant,  generous  spirit,  recognizing  the  good 
in  all,  and  a  hearty  mutual  feeling  of  universal  inter-dependence  will  hasten 
the  happy  day.  This  Parliament  of  Religions  should  not  be  without  perma- 
nent practical  results.  It  should  not  close  without  the  elements  at  least  of 
a  constitution  being  adopted  providing  for  similar  periodic  meetings.  I 
may  suggest  that  such  constitution  might  consist  of  some  few  points  as 
follows  :  (l)  Objects  of  an  international  moral  and  religious  congress,  (2) 
Statement  of  principles  of  brotherhood,  (3)  Some  principles  of  reform 
touching  the  morals  of  international  commerce,  war  and  arbitration,  (4) 
Suggestions  for  some  plan  of  representative  cooperation,  time  and  place  of 
parliaments  similar  to  the  one  in  Chicago. 


THE  XrXTH  DA  Y. 


LETTER    FROM  LADY  HENRY  SOMERSET. 

Eastnor  Castlk,  Engi.ano. 
Rev.  Dr.  John  Barrows, 

Chairman  of  the  World's  Religious  Congresses,  Chicago. 

Honored  P'riend, — You  have  doubtless  been  told  with  fatiguing  reit- 
eration by  your  world-wide  client&Ie  of  correspondents  that  they  considered 
the  Religious  Congresses  immeasurably  more  significant  than  any  others  to 
be  held  in  connection  with  the  Columbian  Exposition.  You  must  allow  me, 
however,  to  repeat  this  statement  of  opinion,  for  I  have  cherished  it  from 
the  lime  when  I  had  a  conversation  with  you  in  Chicago,  and  learned  the 
vast  scope  and  catholicity  of  the  plans  whose  fulfillment  must  be  most  grati- 
fying to  you  and  your  associates,  for,  with  but  few  exceptions  among  the 
religious  leaders  of  the  world,  there  has  been,  so  far  as  I  have  heard  and 
read,  the  heartiest  sympathy  in  your  effort  to  bring  together  rei>jresenti,tives 
of  all  those  innumerable  groups  of  men  and  women  who  have  been  united 
by  the  magnetism  of  some  great  religious  principle,  or  the  more  mechanical 
methods  that  give  visible  form  to  some  ecclesiastical  dogma.  The  key-note 
you  have  set  has  already  sounded  forth  its  clear,  harmonious  strain,  and  the 
weary  multitudes  of  the  world  have  heard  it  and  have  said  in  their  hearts, 
"  Behold  how  good  and  how  pleasant  it  would  be  if  brethren  would  but 
dwell  together  in  unity." 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  best  result  of  this  great  and  unique  move- 
ment for  a  truly  pan-religious  congress  was  realized  before  its  members  met, 
for  in  these  days  the  press,  with  its  almost  universal  hospitality  toward  new 
ideas,  helps  beyond  any  other  agency  to  establish  an  equilibrium  of  the  best 
thought,  affection  and  purpose  of  the  world,  and  is  the  only  practical  force 
adequate  to  bring  this  about. 

By  nature  and  nurture  I  am  in  sympathy  with  every  effort  by  which 
men  may  be  induced  to  think  together  along  the  lines  of  their  agreement 
rather  than  their  antagonism,  but  we  all  know  that  it  is  more  easy  to  get 
them  to  act  together  than  to  think  together.  For  this  reason,  the  Con- 
gresses which  are  to  set  forth  the  practical  workings  of  various  forms  of 
religion  were  predestined  to  succeed,  and  their  influence  must  steadily 
increase  as  intelligent  men  and  women  reflect  upon  the  record  of  the  results. 
It  is  the  earnest  hope  of  thoughtful  religious  people  throughout  the  world, 
as  all  can  see  who  study  the  press  from  a  cosmopolitan  point  of  view,  that 

936 


LETTER    FROM    LADY    HENRY    SOMERSET  92/ 

out  of  the  nucleus  of  influence  afforded  by  the  Congress  may  come  an  organ- 
ized movement  for  united  activity,  based  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man. 

The  only  way  to  unite  is  never  to  mention  subjects  on  which  we  are 
irrevocably  opposed;  perhaps  the  chief  of  these  is  the  historic  episcopate; 
but  the  fact  that  he  believes  in  this,  while  I  do  not,  would  not  hinder  that 
good  and  great  prelate,  Archbishop  Ireland,  from  giving  his  hearty  help  to 
me,  not  as  a  Protestant  woman,  but  as  a  temperance  worker.  The  same 
was  true  in  England  of  that  lamented  leader,  Cardinal  Manning,  and  is 
true  to-day  of  Monsignor  Nugent,  of  Liverpool,  a  priest  of  the  people,  uni- 
versally revered  and  loved.  A  consensus  of  opinion  on  the  practical  out- 
working of  the  Golden  Rule,  declared  negatively  by  Confucius  and  posi- 
tively by  Christ,  will  bring  us  all  into  one  camp,  and  that  is  precisely  what 
the  enemies  of  liberty,  worship,  purity,  and  peace  do  not  desire  to  see ;  but 
it  is,  this  I  am  persuaded,  that  will  be  attained  by  the  great  conclave  soon  to 
assemble  in  the  White  City  of  the  West.  The  Congress  of  Religions  is  the 
mightiest  ecumenical  council  the  world  has  ever  seen  ;  Christianity  has 
from  it  everything  to  hope  ;  for  even  as  the  plains,  the  table-lands,  the  foot- 
hills, the  mountain  ranges,  all  conduct  alike  slowly  ascending  to  the  loftiest 
peak  of  the  Himalayas,  so  do  all  views  of  God  tend  toward  and  culminate 
in  the  character,  the  life  and  work  of  Him  who  said  :  "And  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me." 

Believe  me,  yours  in  humble  service  for  God  and  humanity, 

Isabel  Somerset. 


THE  ARMENIAxN  CHURCH. 
By  Prof.  Minas  Tcheraz. 

[After  expatiating  upon  the  noble  history  of  Armenia,  the  earliest  of 
Christian  nations,  long  the  bulwark  of  Christendom  against  the  invasions  of 
Zoroastrianism  and  Islam,  but  at  last  overwhelmed  by  the  Moslem  hosts,  the 
writer  proceeded]  : 

The  Armenians  had  opposed  an  active  resistance  to  the  Mohammedans, 
which  prevented  them  from  penetrating  sooner  into  eastern  Europe.  The 
resistance  became  passive  from  the  time  that  they  lost  their  political  inde- 
pendence, but  it  was  none  the  less  decisive.  Persecutions  did  not  cease  under 
the  dominion  of  the  Ottomans,  supported  by  their  co-religionists,  the  Kurds, 
Turcomans,  Tartars,  Kizilbashis,  and  Circassians,  and  reinforced  above  all 
by  the  swarm  of  renegades  of  all  races,  who  were  always  ready  to  attach 
themselves  to  every  state  religion,  every  belief  surrounded  by  privileges  and 
worldly  advantages,  and  who  will  be  the  first  to  return  to  Christianity,  if 
some  day  a  Christian  state  takes  the  place  of  the  Turkish.  These  persecu- 
tions assumed  exceptional  rigor  at  the  epoch  of  the  Janissaries,  whose  cr.:<:l- 
ties  knew  no  bounds.  To  speak  truly,  they  continued  until  our  own  day 
under  one  form  and  another,  but  they  have  not  been  able  to  sap  the  .Armen- 
ian Church,  which  numbers  even  now  5,000,000  faithful  souls,  scattered  over 
all  parts  of  the  globe.  Etchmiadzin  is  revered  not  only  by  the  sons  of  this 
church,  but  also  by  the  80,000  Armenians  who  have  entered  within  the  pale 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  the  20,000  who  have  become  Protestants,  and  a  small 
number  which  has  adhered  to  the  Greek  orthodoxy.  It  has  had  under  its  juris- 
diction the  Christians  of  Albania  and  Georgia,  converted  by  its  missionaries, 
and  has  still  under  its  jurisdiction  Syrians,  Copts,  and  Abyssinians,  who 
receive  hospitality  in  its  important  establishments  in  the  Holy  Land  ;  for  the 
Armenian  Church  at  Jerusalem  occupies  a  position  equal  to  that  of  the  Greek 
or  the  Latin  Church. 

In  some  respects  misfortune  is  beneficial.  The  persecutions  directed 
against  the  Armenian  Church  have  had  some  good  results.  They  have  served 
to  strengthen  the  character  of  the  faithful  who  have  survived  them.  At  Con- 
stantinople I  have  seen  many  Christians  from  Hungary  and  Poland  embrace 
Islam  without  difficulty  in  order  to  obtain  employment  in  the  Turkish  army 
or  administration  ;  but  very  few  Armenians  succumb  to  this  temptation,  and 
if  an  Armenian  turns  Mohammedan,  he  raises  the  murmur  of  the  whole  com- 
munity against  him,  who  never  pardon  this  apostasy.  It  is  a  spectacle 
worthy  of  admiration,  not  only  from  the  Christian  but  from  the  human  point 
of  view  to  see  these  Armenians  who  prefer  to  suffer  for  their  religious  con- 

gzS 


TCHERAZ:  THE    ARMENIAN   CHURCH.  9^9 

victions,  rather  than  be  loaded  with  honors  for  renouncing  them.  If  they 
abandon  the  cross  for  the  crescent  their  miseries  cease,  and  a  free  career  is 
opened  before  them  of  social  distinction  and  earthly  pleasures  ^nder  the 
negis  of  a  religion  which  patronizes  polygamy.  Well !  the  worship  of  the 
ideal  is  so  strong  in  them  that  they  stubbornly  refus^  to  change  the  rags  of 
the  giaour  for  the  golden  epaulettes  of  the  pasha. 

Another  result  of  these  manifold  persecutions  has  been  to  strengthen  the 
attachment  of  the  Armenians  to  the  Church  of  St.  Gregory  the  Illuminator. 
Etchmiadzin  has  become  a  word  of  enchantment,  graven  in  the  soul  of  every 
Armenian.  The  Armenians  of  the  mother  country  bow  down  with  love 
before  this  sanctuary,  which  has  already  seen  1,591  summers.  And  as 
regards  those  who  have  left  their  native  land,  if  it  is  far  from  their  eyes  it  is 
not  far  from  their  hearts.  A  Persian  monarch,  Shah-Abbas,  had  forcibly 
transported  into  his  dominion  14,000  Armenian  families.  Like  the  captive 
Israelites  at  the  remembrance  of  Jerusalem,  these  Armenians  always  sighed 
at  the  recollection  of  Etchmiadzin.  In  order  to  keep  them  in  their  new  coun- 
try, Shah-Abbas  conceived  the  project  of  destroying  Etchmiadzin,  of  trans- 
porting the  stones  to  Djoulfa  (Ispahan),  and  there  reconstructing  a  similar 
convent.  He  actually  transported  the  central  stone  of  the  chief  altar,  the 
baptismal  fonts,  and  other  important  pieces,  but  the  emotion  of  the  Armen- 
ians became  so  great  that  he  was  forced  to  give  up  his  project  of  vandalism. 

If  Armenia  has  been  exposed  to  so  many  calamities  for  having 
embraced  the  Christian  religion,  the  latter  has,  however,  rendered  inesti- 
mable services  in  its  turn.  There  it  has  organized  charity  and  spread 
instruction,  and  it  has  maintained  the  Armenian  nationality. 

The  spirit  of  charity  which  forms  the  very  basis  of  the  Christian 
religion  has  penetrated  the  heart  of  the  people.  Innumerable  houses  of 
piety  and  benevolence  have  been  erected  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and 
the  sick  and  disinherited  have  always  found  hands  stretched  out  to  help 
them.  Narses  the  Great  himself  built  more  than  two  thousand  charitable 
establishments  :  hospitals  for  lepers  and  the  infirm,  hospitals  for  the  poor, 
houses  of  refuge  for  the  old,  the  orphans  and  the  indigent,  hospices  for 
foreign  travelers  and  priests,  monasteries,  nunneries,  etc.  This  spirit  is 
equally  evident  among  Armenians  in  other  countries,  and  if  you  enter  Con- 
stantinople by  the  railway  from  Roumelia,  the  first  great  building  which 
strikes  your  eyes  is  the  Armenian  hospital  of  Gedi-Kouleh,  with  its  thousand 
inmates  who  are  treated  with  every  care. 

The  revolution  brought  about  by  Christianity  in  the  ideas  of  the 
Armenian  people  has  pushed  them  forward  in  the  way  of  instruction.  The 
Armenians  formed  their  own  alphabet,  and  from  the  Greek  text  of  the 
Septuagint  and  from  the  Syriac  version  called  Peshito,  they  translated  the 
Bibie  with  a  skill  that  has  been  highly  appreciated  by  Golius,  Hottinger, 
Piques  and  Pierre  Ledbrun,  while  Lacroze  did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  the 
Armenian   version  of  the   New  Testament,  "  the   queen  of   all   versions." 

-      59 


930  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

They  have  produced,  generally  in  the  silence  of  a  number  of  flourishing 
cloisters,  an  immense  literature,  "one  of  the  most  fruitful  and  interesting  in 
the  Christian  East,"  according  to  the  celebrated  French  Armenist,  Victor 
Langlois.  "  The  Armenian  liturgy,"  says  another  distinguished  Armenist, 
Edouard  Dulaurier,  "contains  a  number  of  prayers  in  which  the  turn  and 
movement  of  the  thought,  the  majestic  fullness  and  correctness  of  the  style 
reveal  an  original  composition  which  is  entirely  Armenian."  Their  poetic 
genius  has  produced  superb  canticles  which  da  honor  to  the  Christian 
inspiration,  of  which  a  selection  is  to  be  found  in  their  national  hymnary 
(Sharagan),  justly  compared  to  a  diamond  necklace. 

Christianity,  when  it  became  a  natfonal  church",  maintained  the  Armenian 
nationality.  Without  it  the  Armenians  would  have  been  absorbed  in  Zoroas- 
trianism,  and  at  a  later  period  in  Islamism ;  for  in  that  nest  of  religions 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  the  East,  religion  makes  nationality;  and  the 
peoples  are  nothing  but  religious  communities.  That  is  why  the  Armenians, 
especially  after  the  loss  of  their  political  independence,  look  askance  at 
every  attempt  to  detach  the  faithful  from  their  church.  Surrounded  at  the 
present  day  by  Orthodoxy  {i.  e.,  the  Greek  Church),  Catholicism  and  Protest- 
antism, each  of  which  aims  at  bringing  this  martyrized  church  into  its  course, 
they  believe  it  is  their  duty  to  maintain  the  status  quo,  because  they  would 
not  be  able  to  satisfy  the  three  churches  all  at  once,  and  because  their  church 
is  the  last  refuge  of  their  nationality.  They  possess  a  national  church,  just 
as  they  possess  a  national  language  and  literature,  with  a  national  alphabet, 
a  national  era  and  a  national  history,  a  national  music  and  a  national  archi- 
tecture, and  they  do  not  wish  to  sacrifice  them  to  the  national  characteristics 
of  the  more  numerous  nations;  for,  in  their  eyes,  numbers  do  not  constitute 
merit,  and  human  civilization  owes  more  to  Greece,  which  is  microscopically 
small,  than  to  China  which  is  colossal  in  its  greatness.  They  are  conscious 
of  their  mission  in  Asia,  and  M.  F^lix  N&ve  did  not  -exaggerate  in  any 
respect  when  he  wrote  these  lines  :  "  By  a  two-fold  phenomenon,  which  is 
very  rare  in  history,  the  Armenian  people,  strong  by  reason  of  an  admirable 
fidelity  to  its  character  and  its  faith,  survives  the  wars  and  revolutions 
that  have  in  a  way  decimated  it ;  it  possesses  in  its  literary  and  liturgical 
idiom  a  sign  of  its  vitality  and  a  pledge  of  its  perpetuity.  One  could  believe 
that  it  is  destined  to  take  part  some  day  in  the  regeneration  of  Asia." 

The  foreign  missionaries  who  find  it  convenient  to  preach  Christianity 
to  the  faithful  of  a  church  nearly  contemporary  with  Christ,  ought  not  to 
forget  that  it  is  their  first  duty  not  to  weaken  in  any  way  the  position  of  a 
church  which  is  in  daily  conflict  with  the  powerful  religion  of  Islam. 
Blessed  be  the  church  which  should  undertake  to  propagate  among  the 
Christians  of  Armenia,  not  such  or  such  a  form  of  Christianity,  but  an 
instruction  and  an  education  which  render  a  people  capable  of  reconciling 
respect  for  the  past  with  the  exigencies  of  the  modern  spirit !  From  this 
point  of  view,  the  American  college  at  Constantinople  renders  greater  serv- 


PROF.  MIX  AS  TCHERAZ,  LONDON,  ENGLAND. 


'•  U  HAl  CAN  KESLLT  FKOM  1  Ills  GREAT  PAKI.IAM  ENT,  HIT  THE  GENERAL  CONVIC1ION  THAT 
h'Kl.KilONS  \KK  NOT  RARKIEKS  OE  IKON  WHICH  SEPARATE  KOKEVER  THE  MEMDEKS  OK  llfi; 
HIM  AS  I-  \MU.\-.  lUT  ARE  llAKKIERS  o|-  ICK,  WHICH  MR  IT  A  I  Till-:  IIRST  GLANCE  "I-  IHU  SIN  Ml-' 
l.li\E  " 


932  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

ices  than  those  who  waste  their  time  in  inculcating  Puritan  simplicity  on  the 
brilliant  imagination  of  an  Eastern  people. 

The  Armenian  Church  belongs  to  the  Eastern  Church,  and  its  rites  do 
not  differ  much  from  those  of  the  Greek  Church  ;  but  it  is  completely 
autonomous,  and  is  ruled  by  its  deacons,  priests  and  bishops,  whose  eccle- 
siastical vestments  recall  those  of  the  Greeks  and  Latins.  It  has  a  special 
hagiography  which  embraces  the  entire  ecclesiastical  year ;  a  special  ritual, 
a  special  missal,  a  special  breviary,  a  special  hymnary.  It  admits  the  seven 
sacraments,  but  administers  extreme  unction  only  to  the  ecclesiastics ;  does 
not  recognize  either  expiations  or  indulgences ;  and  celebrates  the  commun- 
ion with  unleavened  bread  and  wine  without  water.  It  holds  Easter  at  the 
date  assigned  by  Christians  before  the  Nicene  Council,  and  the  Nativity  and 
Epiphany  on  the  sixth  of  January,  It  prescribes  fasting  on  Wednesday  and 
Friday,  and  has  a  period  of  fasting  and  an  order  of  saints  which  are  pecul- 
iar to  it.  It  believes  that  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father.  It  is 
not  at  all  Eutychian,  of  which  it  has  been  falsely  accused,  for  it  explicitly 
professes  the  dogma  of  the  two  natures,  of  the  two  wills  and  of  the  two 
operations  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  not  a.question  of  dogma,  but  of  jurisdic- 
tion, that  caused  it  to  reject  the  council  of  Chalcedon.  Its  conduct  is  only 
guided  by  a  feeling  of  self-preservation,  and  is  dictated  to  it  by  the  necessi- 
ties of  its  situation.  As  long  as  Armenia  lacks  political  independence,  the 
Armenians  will  not  be  able,  without  danger,  to  recognize  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon.  It  is  a  rampart  which  separates  them  from  the  Greek  or  Rus- 
sian Church  ;  if  they  renounce  it,  almost  half  of  the  nation  who  live  under 
Muscovite  rule,  would  be  easily  absorbed  in  the  Russian  Church  and  nation- 
ality. The  state  of  servitude,  in  which  the  Armenians  live,  will  likewise 
prevent  them  from  introducing  reforms  in  their  church,  whose  popular  char- 
acter permits  it  to  accept,  without  opposition,  the  ameliorations  desired  by 
the  faithful. 

These,  then,  are  almost  all  the  differences  which  separate  the  Armenian 
from  the  venerable  Greek  Church,  from  the  powerful  Roman  Church,  or  from 
the  free  Protestant  Church.  It  has  its  reasons  for  maintaining  them,  and  the 
liberal  spirit  with  which  all  the  churches  are  to-day  penetrated  gives  ground 
for  hope  that  tolerance  will  be  shown  to  it,  as  it  shows  tolerance  to  its 
Orthodox,  Catholic  and  Protestant  sisters,  for  which  it  professes  the  most 
sincere  affection  and  the  most  profound  respect. 

Toleration  is  one  of  the  glories  of  the  Armenian  Church.  Its  adherents 
have  given  manifold  proofs  of  it  to  the  Christians  of  all  denominations,  and 
if  you  happen  to  visit  Etchmiadzin,  you  will  see  the  tomb  of  Sir  John  Mac- 
Donald,  who  was  British  envoy  in  Persia,  quite  close  to  the  entrance  of  the 
cathedral,  among  the  tombs  of  the  greatest  patriarchs  of  modern  Armenia. 
The  church  founded  by  the  Illuminator  prays  daily  "  for  all  holy  and  ortho- 
dox bishops,"  and  "  for  the  peace  of  the  whole  world  and  the  stability  of  the 
holy  church,"  and  beseeches  the  mercy  of  God  "  by  the  prayers  and  interces- 


TCHERAZ:   THE    ARMENIAN    CHURCH.  933 

sions  of  those  who  invoke  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Sanctity,  in  any  country, 
from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun."  Some  extracts  from  the  confession  of 
faith  of  Mgr.  Nerses  Varjabedian,  who  died  in  1884,  on  the  Armenian 
patriarchal  throne  at  Constantinople,  will  suffice  to  give  an  idea  of  the  spirit 
of  this  church.  These  are  the  words  which  the  illustrious  prelate  wrote  in 
the  heat  of  a  discussion  relative  to  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  : 

"The  Armenian  Church,  both  before  and  after  the  Latins  and  Greeks 
condemned  each  other  to  hell,  did  not  interfere  in  their  controversies,  nor 
did  it  attach  any  importance  to  them ;  it  did  not  alter  any  more  for  this  rea- 
son the  commentaries  of  its  dogmas ;  but  before,  as  after,  it  treated  all  the 
bishops  and  all  the  churches  with  love  and  toleration. 

"The  Armenian  Church  rejects  only  heretics,  and  hitherto  it  has  had 
nothing  essential  to  reject  in  the  tenets  of  the  Latins  and  Greeks. 

"The  Apostles'  Creed  is  sufficient  for  orthodoxy;  the  rest  contains  dog- 
mas, the  differences  between  which  do  not  impair  orthodoxy. 

"The  Armenian  Church,  in  speaking  of  an  orthodox  church,  does  not 
mean  itself  alone. 

"The  unique  glory  of  the  Armenian  Church  consists  in  its  treating  its 
heterogeneous  brethren  in  the  spirit  of  the  Primitive  Church,  "that  is  to  say, 
with  toleration,  even  if  they  speak  against  it  out  of  ignorance  and  hardness 
of  heart,  or  through  the  pride  of  their  prelates. 

"  Whosoever  does  not  profess  this  creed  does  not  belong  to  the  Arme- 
nian Church.  The  blessed  fathers  of  the  Armenians  down  to  Lampronatzi 
and  Shnorhali  have  held  this  same  language.  The  two  last  named  fathers 
wrote  at  a  time  when  the  Christians  were  wrangling  with  one  another  more 
violently  than  ever." 

Another  glory  of  the  Armenian  Church  is  its  democratic  spirit.  No  obsta- 
cle is  put  in  the  way  of  its  adherents  to  read  and  study  the  Bible.  In  the 
mass  it  practises  the  ceremony  of  cordial  salutation,  which  the  faithful  render 
to  one  another  with  the  holy  kiss.  Its  deacons  and  priests,  who  are  married, 
live  from  the  voluntary  offerings  of  their  flocks,  and  it  is  the  high  clergy  only, 
who  are  bound  to  celibacy,  who  receive  a  very  moderate  stipend.  No  annual 
payment  is  required,  as  in  certain  civilized  countries,  to  have  a  pew  in  the 
church  ;  every  Christian  is  received  gratuitously,  and  rich  and  poor  alike  bow 
the  head  side  by  side  before  the  Eternal.  The  clergy,  from  the  humblest 
deacon  to  the  supreme  patriarch,  are  elected  by  the  free  will  of  the  ecclesias- 
tics and  the  laity.  In  the  very  midst  of  the  consecration  of  a  candidate,  the 
bishop  stops  to  ask  the  congregation  if  he  is  worthy  of  receiving  orders.  If 
one  single  individual  calls  out  that  he  is  not  worthy  of  them,  the  consecration 
is  suspended,  and  if  this  individual  proves  his  assertion  to  the  bishop,  the 
candidate  is  immediately  discarded.  It  may  well  be  said  that  the  Armenian 
clergy  are  the  servants  and  not  the  masters  of  the  church. 

Such  is  the  Armenian  Church,  venerable  by  reason  of  its  antiquity,  proud 
of  its  orthodoxy,  and  glorious  in  the  purple  mantle  of  its  martyrdom.    Every 


934  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

stone  of  this  sanctuary  is  cemented  with  the  tears  and  the  blood  of  its  perse- 
cuted children  ;  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  seat  of  the  Illuminator  is  so  firmly 
established,  and  with  so  much  vigor  raises  aloft  its  five  domes  —  symbols  of 
the  five  Armenian  patriarchates  of  Etclimiadzin,  Sis,  Aghtamar,  Constanti- 
nople and  Jerusalem,  Sentinel  of  civilization  and  advance  guard  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  Armenian  Church  has  bravely  done  its  duty  on  the  confines  of  the 
Eastern  world.  It  has  survived  the  attacks  of  Zoroastrianism  and  of  Islam,  as 
it  has  survived  the  attacks  of  Christians  who  did  not  understand  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  in  the  midst  of  the  painful  crisis  which  it  is  going  through  at  the 
present  time,  it  sends  a  fraternal  salutation  to  all  the  pious  souls  who  are  gath- 
ered together  at  this  truly  ecumenical  council,  and  it  blesses  the  first  steps  of 
the  Parliament  of  Religions  in  the  path  of  universal  tolerance  and  charity,  and 
the  noble  efforts  of  the  great  American  people  to  spread  the  marvelous  rain- 
bow of  human  brotherhood  over  the  deluge  of  long-standing  hatreds. 


GREEK  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN 

RELIGION. 

By  Prof.  F.  Max  MOller,  Oxford  University. 

To  the  Rev.  John  Henry  Barrows,  D.D.,  Chairman. 

Dear  Sir, — What  I  have  aimed  at  in  my  Gifford  I^ectures  on  Natural 
Religion  is  to  show  that  all  religions  are  natural,  and  you  will  see  from  my 
last  volume  On  Theosophy  or  Psychological  Religion,  that  what  I  hope  for 
is  not  simply  a  reform,  but  a  complete  revival  of  religion,  more  particularly 
of  the  Christian  Religion.  I  have  often  asked  myself  how  St.  Clement  and 
Origen  came  to  embrace  Christianity,  and  to  elaborate  the  first  system  of 
Christian  theology.  There  was  nothing  to  induce  them  to  accept  Christi- 
anity. They  were  philosophers  first,  Christians  afterwards.  They  had 
nothing  to  gain  and  much  to  lose  by  joining  this  new  sect  of  Christians. 
We  may  safely  conclude,  therefore,  that  they  found  their  own  philosophical 
convictions,  the  final  outcome  of  the  long  preceding  development  of  phil- 
osophical thought  in  Greece,  perfectly  compatible  with  the  religious  and 
moral  doctrines  of  Christianity  as  conceived  by  themselves. 

Now,  what  was  the  highest  result  of  Greek  philosophy  as  it  reached 
Alexandria,  whether  in  its  Stoic  or  Neo-Platonic  garb  ?  It  was  the  inerad- 
icable conviction  that  there  is  Reason  or  Logos  in  the  world.  When  as.ked. 
Whence  that  Reason,  as  seen  by  the  eye  of  science  in  the  phenomenal 
world,  they  said  :  "  From  the  Cause  of  all  things  which  is  beyond  all  names 
and  comprehension,  except  so  far  as  it  is  manifested  or  revealed  in  the 
phenomenal  world.  What  we  call  the  different  types,  or  ideas,  or  logoi,  in 
the  world,  are  the  logoi,  or  thoughts,  or  wills  of  that  Being  whom  human  lan- 
guage has  called  God.  These  thoughts,  which  embrace  everything  that  is, 
existed  at  first  as  thoughts,  as  a  thought-world,  KO'ifio^  vorjTOs,  before  by 
will  and  force  they  could  become  what  we  see  them  to  be,  the  types  or 
species  realized  in  the  visible  world,  Koa-fio^  o^aro?."  So  far  all  is  clear 
and  incontrovertible,  and  a  sharp  line  is  drawn  between  this  philosophy  and 
another,  likewise  powerfully  represented  in  the  previous  history  of  Greek 
philosophy,  which  denied  the  existence  of  that  eternal  Reason,  denied  that 
the  world  was  thought  and  willed,  as  even  the  Klamaths,  a  tribe  of  Red 
Indians,  profess,  and  ascribed  the  world,  as  we  see  it  as  men  of  science,  to 
purely  mechanical  causes,  to  what  we  now  call  uncreate  protoplasm,  assum- 
ing various  casual  foj-ms  by  means  of  natural  selection,  influence  and  envi- 
ronment, survival  of  the  fittest,  and  all  the  rest. 

The  critical  step  which  some  of  the  philosophers  of  Alexandria  took, 
while  others  refused  to  take  it,  was  to  recognize  the  perfect  realization  of  the 

935 


936  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

Divine  Thought  or  Logos  of  manhood  in  Christ,  as  in  the  true  sense  the  Son 
of  God,  not  in  the  vulgar  mytiiological  sense,  but  in  the  deep  metaphysical 
meaning  which  the  vtos/AOvoy«K>;9  had  long  possessed  in  Greek  philosophy. 
Those  who  declined  to  take  that  step,  such  as  Celsus  and  his  friends,  did  so 
either  because  they  denied  the  possibility  of  any  divine  thought  ever  becom- 
ing fully  realized  in  the  flesh,  or  in  the  phenomenal  world,  or  because  they 
could  not  bring  themselves  to  recognize  that  realization  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
Clement's  conviction  that  the  phenomenal  world  was  a  realization  of  the 
Divine  Reason  was  based  on  purely  philosophical  grounds,  while  his  con- 
viction that  the  ideal  or  the  divine  conception  of  manhood  had  been  fully 
realized  in  Christ  and  in  Christ  only,  dying  on  the  cross  for  the  truth  as  re- 
vealed to  him  and  by  him,  could  have  been  based  on  historical  grounds  only. 

Everything  else  followed.  Christian  morality  was  really  in  complete 
harmony  with  the  morality  of  the  Stoic  school  of  philosophy,  though  it  gave  /' 
to  it  a  new  life  and  a  higher  purpose.  But  the  whole  world  assumed"  a  new 
aspect.  It  was  seen  to  be  supported  and  pervaded  by  reason  or  Logos,  it 
was  throughout  teleological,  thought  and  willed  by  a  rational  power.  The 
same  divine  presence  had  now  been  perceived  for  the  first  time  in  all  its 
fullness  and  perfection  in  the  one  Son  of  God,  the  pattern  of  the  whole  race 
of  men,  henceforth  to  be  called  "  the  sons  of  God." 

This  was  the  groundwork  of  the  earliest  Christian  theology,  as  presup- 
posed by  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  likewise  by  many  passages 
in  the  Synoptical  Gospels,  though  fully  elaborated  for  the  first  time  by  such 
men  as  St.  Clement  and  Origen.  If  we  want  to  be  true  and  honest  Chris- 
tians we  must  go  back  to  those  earliest  ahte-Nicene  authorities,  the  true 
Fathers  of  the  Church.  Thus  only  can  we  use  the  words,  "  In  the  beginning 
was  the  Word  and  the  Word  became  flesh,"  not  as  thoughtless  repeaters,  but 
■as  honest  thinkers  and  believers.  The  first  sentence,  "In  the  beginning 
was  the  Word,"  requires  thought  and  thought  only ;  the  second,  "  And  the 
Logos  became  flesh,"  requires  faith,  faith  such  as  those  who  knew  Jesus 
had  in  Jesus,  and  which  we  may  accept,  unless  we  have  any  reason  for 
doubting  their  testimony. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  all  this,  it  is  only  the  earliest  Christian  the- 
ology restated,  restored  and  revived.  Il  gives  us  at  the  same  time  a  truer 
conception  of  the  history  of  the  whole  world,  showing  that  there  was  a  pur- 
pose in  the  ancient  religions  and  philosophies  of  the  world,  and  that  Chris- 
tianity was  really  from  the  beginning  a  synthesis  of  the  best  thoughts  of  the 
past,  as  they  had  been  slowly  elaborated  by  the  two  principal  representatives 
of  the  human  race,  the  Aryan  and  the  Semitic. 

On  this  ancient  foundation,  which  was  strangely  neglected,  if  not  pur- 
posely rejected,  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  a  true  revival  of  the  Christian 
religion  and  a  reunion  of  all  its  divisions  may  become  possible,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  your  Congress  of  Religions  of  the  World  might  do  excellent 
work  for  the  resuscitation  of  pure  and  primitive  ante-Nicene  Christianity. 

Yours  very  truly,  F.  Max  Muller. 


/ 

MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 
By  P.ROFEssoR  A.  B.  Brucr,  D.D. 

[Accepting  without  reserve,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  the  evolutionist 
account  of  the  origin  of  man,  the  question  of  his  religious  significance  still, 
-remains  to  be  considered.] 

I.  It  looks  as  if  nature  herself  were  inviting  us  to  regard  man  as,  while 
no  exception  in  origin,  exceptional  in  significance.  She  has  hidden  the 
evidence  of  our  parentage  ;  she  has  thrown  down  the  scaffolding  after  fin- 
ishing the  building.  How  much  trouble  it  has  given  the  scientists  to  find 
links  of  connection  between  man  and  the  lower  creation  !  So  far  as  the 
body  is  concerned,  the  best  evidence  is  that  which  is  carefully  concealed 
from  observation,  the  transfomtiation  which  a  human  being  undergoes  before 
he  is  born.  Then  of  the  evolution  of  mind  how  faint  the  traces  !  Grant 
the  reality  of  the  evolutionary  process,  and  that  here  as  elsewhere  it  has 
proceeded  by  insensible  progression  ;  nevertheless  what  we  see  is  a  great 
gulf  separating  man  even  at  the  lowest  point  of  civilization  from  the  most 
intelligent  animal.  Has  this  fact  no  meaning  ?  The  meaning  of  it  is 
nothing  less  than  this,  that  in  man  all  that  went  before  finds  its  rationale. 
Evolution  of  the  inanimate  and  the  lower  animate  world  took  place  because 
it  was  to  end  in  the  evolution  of  man. 

This  is  what  we  have  all  got  to  do,  and  what,  I  submit,  the  theory  of 
evolution,  rightly  construed,  helps  us  to  do  ; — we  have  to  learn  that  we  do 
not  suffer  by  comparison  with  the  heavenly  bodies.  Rather  they,  by  com- 
parison, dwindle  into  insignificance.  When  I  consider  man,  final  product  of 
the  creative  process,  what  are  sun,  moon  and  stars  ?  Whether  the  astro- 
nomic bodies  contain  human  beings  I  know  not.  If  they  do,  then  man 
there,  as  here,  is  supreme.  If  they  do  not,  then  vast  in  mass,  in  distance, 
and  in  the  swings  of  their  revolutionj  as  these  bodies  are,  they  are  insig- 
nificant compared  with  the  chief  tenant  of  this  small  terrestrial  planet. 

Similar  is  the  view  to  be  taken  of  the  whole  sub-human  creation.  It 
has  its  reason  of  existence  in  man  and  the  moral  interests  he  represents.  If 
man  had  not  been,  it  would  riot  have  been  worth  while  for  the  lower  world  to 
be.  If  the  Creator  had  not  had  man  in  view  from  the  first,  the  lower  world 
would  not  have  come  into  existence.  This  is  how  the  Theist  must  view  the 
matter.  He  must  regard  the  sub-human  universe  in  the  light  of  an  instru- 
ment to  be  used  in  subservience  to  the  ends  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  uni- 
verse, and  created  by  God  for  that  purpose.  The  Agnostic  can  evade  this 
conclusion  by  regarding  the  evolution  of  the  universe  as  an  absolutely  nec- 
Gjpyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

938 


BRUCE:    MAN'S    PLACE    IX   THE    UNIVERSE.  939 

ossary  and  aimless  process.  For  us  this  theory  is  once  for  all  impossible. 
We  must  believe  in  God,  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth.  And  believing  in 
him  we  look  for  a  plan  in  his  work.  In  creation,  as  in  Providence,  we  find 
at  first  much  mystery  and  darkness.  To  what  end,  that  all-diffused  fiery 
mist,  those  igneous  rocks,  those  microscopic  protozoa,  those  hideous  "drag- 
ons of  the  prime"?  But  stay,  here  at  the  end  of  the  aeons,  is  man.  It  was 
worth  God's  while  to  make  him,  and  in  the  light  of  this  latest  creation  we 
can  see  at  least  a  glimmering  of  meaning  even  in  chaos,  in  the  apparently 
useless,  the  irrational,  the  monstrous.  All  these  were  natural  steps  in  the 
gradual  process  that  was  to  have  a  worthy  ending  in  which  the  whole  crea- 
tive movement  should  find  its  justification. 

2.  Through  man  as  the  head  of  creation  we  may  know  God.  The  end 
explains  not  only  the  process  of  creation  but  the  Creator.  It  was  man  in 
view  as  the  "far-off  divine  event"  that  gave  God  an  interest  in  the  process. 
Doth  God  care  for  fiery  clouds,  or  for  protozoa,  or  for  "dragons  of  the, 
prime  "  ?  He  cares  for  spirit  and  its  characteristic  endowments,  reason,  free- 
dom, love  of  the  good,  hatred  of  evil.  That  is,  he  is  himself  a  spirit  with 
essentially  similar  character.  Our  inference  does  not  rest  on  the  mere  cata- 
gory  of  causality.  God  as  cause  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  all  beings, 
and  on  that  ground  might  be  as  like  one  being  as  another.  Our  inference 
is  based  on  the  category  of  purpose.  Man  is  not  only  one  of\he  infinite 
number  of  effects  produced  by  Divine  causality,  but  he  is  the  effect  which 
explains  all  the  rest,  the  end  in  view  of  the  Creator  in  all  his  creative  work. 
If  this  conception  be  allowed,  then  it  cannot  be  denied  that  man's  relation 
to  God  is  unique.  It  is  a  relation  of  affinity,  because  God  ex  hypothesi 
supremely  cares  for  what  man  distinctively  is. 

The  point  that  needs  emphasizing  to-day  is  not  that  man  is  like  God, 
but  that  God  is  like  man  ;  for  it  is  God,  his  being  and  nature,  that  we  long 
to  know,  and  we  welcome  any  legitimate  avenue  to  this  high  knowledge. 
And  man  by  his  place  in  nature  is  accredited  to  us  as  our  surest,  perhaps 
sole,  source  of  knowledge.  And  it  confirms  us  in  the  use  of  this  source  to 
find  that  ancient  wisdom,  as  represented  by  the  Hebrew  sage  to  whom  we 
owe  the  story  of  Genesis,  indirectly  endorses  our  method,  by  proclaiming 
that  in  man  we  may  see  God's  image. 

This  doctrine  has  in  its  favor  the  consensus  gentium.  Men  everywhere 
and  always  have  conceived  their  gods  as  manlike.  They  have  done  so  too 
often  in  most  harmful  ways,  imputing  to  the  Divine  human  passions  and 
vices.  The  desideratum  is  to  conceive  God  not  as  like  what  man  is  or  has 
been  at  any  stage  in  time,  but  as  like  what  man  wilt  be  when  his  moral 
development  has  reached  its  goal.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  God  is  what  man 
always  has  been  in  germ,  a  rational,  free,  moral  personality.  But  it  is  not 
safe  to  fill  in  the  picture  of  the  Divine  personality  by  indiscriminate  imputation 
to  God  of  the  very  mixed  contents  of  the  average  human  personality.  Our 
very  ideals  are  imperfect,  how  much  more  our  realizations  !     Our  theology 


940  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

must  be  constructed,  therefore,  on  a  basis  of  careful,  impartial  self-criticism, 
casting  aside  as  unfit  material  for  building  our  system,  not  only  all  that  can 
be  traced  to  our  baser  nature,  but  even  all  in  our  highest  thoughts,  feelings 
and  aspirations  that  is  due  to  the  influence  of  the  time-spirit,  or  is  merely 
an  accident  of  the  measure  of  civilization  reached  in  our  social  environment. 
The  safest  guides  in  theology  are  always  the  men  who  are  more  or  less  dis- 
turbed because  they  are  in  advance  of  their  time ;  the  men  of  prophetic 
spirit,  who  see  lights  not  yet  above  the  horizon  for  average  moral  intelli- 
gence;  who  cherish  ideals  regarded  by  many  as  idle  dreams;  who,  while 
affirming  with  emphasis  the  essential  affinity  of  the  Divine  with  the  human, 
understand  that  even  in  that  which  is  truly  human,  .say,  in  pardoning  grace, 
God's  thoughts  rise  above  man's  as  the  heavens  rise  above  the  earth. 

On  this  view  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  each  age  needs  its  own 
prophets  to  lead  it  in  the  way  of  moral  progress,  and  set  before  it  ideals  in 
advance  of  those  which  have  be>«  the  guiding  lights  of  the  past.  And  yet 
it  is  possible  that  there  may  be  prophets  of  bygone  days  whose  significance, 
as  teachers  has  been  by  no  means  exhausted. 

This  may  be  claimed  preeminently  for  him  whom  Christians  call  their 
Lord.  The  claim,  I  believe,  will  be  allowed  even  by  those  who  are  not 
Christians.  I  can  even  imagine  a  more  sincere,  deeper  homage  to  Christ's 
present  value  being  paid  by  intelligent  adherents  of  other  faiths  than  by 
many  who  pay  to  him  the  conventional  homage  of  Christendom.  I  do  not 
expect  a  time  will  ever  come  when  men  may  say,  we  do  not  need  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  any  more.  That  time  has  certainly  not  come  yet.  We  have  not 
got  to  the  bottom  of  Christ's  doctrine  of  God  and  man  as  related  to  each 
other  as  Father  and  son.  How  beautifully  he  has  therein  set  the  great 
truth  that  God  is  manlike,  and  man  Godlike,  making  man  at  his  best  the 
emblem  of  God,  and  at  the  worst  the  object  of  God's  love!  All  fathers  are 
not  what  they  ought  to  be,  but  even  the  worst  fathers  have  a  shrewd  idea 
what  it  becomes  a  father  to  be.  And  the  better  fathers  and  mothers  grow, 
the  better  they  will  know  God.  Theology  will  become  more  Christian  as 
family  affection  flourishes.  And  what  a  benefit  it  will  be  to  mankind  when 
Christ's  doctrine  of  Fatherhood  has  been  sincerely  and  universally  accepted! 
Every  man  God's  son  ;  therefore  every  man  under  obligation  to  be  God- 
like, that  is  to  be  a  true  man,  self-respecting  and  worthy  of  respect.  Every 
man  God's  son  ;  therefore  every  man  entitled  to  be  treated  with  respect  by 
fellow  men,  despite  of  poverty,  low  birth,  yea,  even  in  spite  of  low  charac- 
ter, out  of  regard  to  the  possibilities  in  him.  Carry  out  this  program 
ind  away  goes  caste  in  India,  England,  America,  everywhere,  in  every  land 
where  men  are  supposed  to  have  forfeited  the  rights  of  a  man  by  birth,  by 
color,  by  poverty,  by  occupation ;  and  where  many  have  yet  to  learn  the 
simple  truth  quaintly  stated  by  Jesus  when  he  said,  "  How  much  is  a  man 
better  than  a  sheep."  What  a  long  way  we  have  to  travel  before  it  can  be 
said  :  "Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  superseded  !" 


BRUCE:    MAN'S    PLACE    IN   THE    UNIVERSE.  941 

3.  A  long  way  to  thoroughly  Christian  civilization.     Yes,  but  the  goal 
will  be  reached.     Evolution  points  that  way.     Evolution  does  not  foster  a 
pessimistic  spirit.     It  encourages  hope  for  the  distant  future.     It  does  so  by 
the  view  it  gives  of  the  general  trend  of  the  universe  upwards.     It  does  so 
still  more  by  placing  man  at  the  summit.     If  man  himself  was  the  terminus 
ad  qtiem,  then  man  must  become  all  that  it  is  in  him  to  be.     It  was  not  man 
the  savage,   Homo  alalus,  for  whom  all  creation  in  its  earlier  stages  was 
in  travail,  but  man  the  civilized,  man  the  completely  Christianized.     And 
therefore  we  may  confidently  hope  that  he  will  make  his  appearance  in  due 
season,  possibly  not  till  the  lapse  of  millenniums  in  this  world.      In  this 
world,  but  what  of  the  next  ?     Does  the  view  of  man,  as  the  crown  of  evo- 
lutionary process,  throw  any  light  on  his  eternal  destiny  ?     Does  it  contain 
any  promise  of  immortality  ?     Here  one  feels  inclined  to  speak  with  bated 
breath.     A  hope  so  august,  so  inconceivably  great,  makes  the  grasping 
hand  of  faith  tremble.     We  are  tempted  to  exclaim,  "Behold,  we  know  not 
anything."     Yet  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  leading  advocates  of  evolution- 
ism are  among  the  most  pronounced  upholders  of   immortality.     Mr.  Fiske 
says  :     "  For  my  own  part  I  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  not  inj 
the  sense  in  which  I  accept  the  demonstrable  truths  of  science,  but  as  a 
supreme  act  of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God's  work."     He  cannot 
believe  that  God  made  the  world,  and  especially  its  highest  creature,  simply 
to  destroy  it,  like  a  child  who  builds  houses  out  of  blocks,  just  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  knocking  them  down.     Not  less  strongly  Le  Conte  writes  :     "With 
out  spirit-immortality  this  beautiful  cosmos,  which  has  been  developing  into 
increasing  beauty  for  so  many  millions  of  years,  when  its  evolution  has  run 
its  course  and  all  is  over,  would  be  precisely   as  if  it  had  never  been — an 
idle  dream,  an  idiot  tale  signifying   nothing."     These  utterances  of  course 
do  not  settle  the  question.     But  considering  whence  they  emanate,  they  may 
be   taken   at  least  as  an  authoritative  indication   that   the  tenet  of  human 
immortality  is  congruous  with,  if  it  be  not  a  necessary  deduction  from,  the 
demonstrable  truth  that  man   is  the  consummation  of  the  great  world-pro- 
cess by  which  the  universe  has  been  brought  into  Being, 


THE  RELIGION  OF  SCIENCE. 
By  Sir  William  Dawson,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

Natural  religion,  if  thereby  we  understand  the  beliefs  fairly  deducible 
from  the  facts  of  nature,  is  in  truth  closely  allied  to  natural  science,  and,  if 
reduced  to  a  system,  may  even  be  considered  as  a  part  of  it.  Our  principal 
inquiry,  therefore,  should  be  not  so  much,  "How  do  scientific  results  agree 
with  religious  beliefs,  or  any  special  form  of  them  ?  "  but  rather,  "  How  much 
and  what  particular  portion  of  thai  which  is  held  as  religious  belief  is  insep- 
erable  from  or  fairly  deducible  from  the  results  of  natural  science  ?" 

All  scientific  men  are  probably  prepared  to  admit  that  there  must  be  a 
first  cause  for  the  phenomena  of  the  universe. 

We  cannot,  without  violating  all  scientific  probability,  suppose  these  to 
be  causeless,  self-caused,  or  eternal.  Some  may,  however,  hold  that  the  first 
cause,  being  an  ultimate  fact,  must  on  that  account  be  unknowable.  Though 
this  may  be  true  of  the  first  cause  as  to  origin  and  essence,  it  cannot  be  true 
altogether  as  to  qualities.  The  first  cause  must  be  antecedent  to  all  phe- 
nomena. The  first  cause  must  be  potent  to  produce  all  resulting  effects,  and 
must  include  potentially  the  whole  fabric  of  the  universe.  The  first  cause 
must  be  immaterial,  independent,  and  in  some  sense  self-contained  or  indi- 
vidual. These  properties,  which  reason  requires  us  to  assign  to  the  first 
cause,  are  not  very  remote  from  the  theological  idea  of  a  self-existent,  all- 
powerful,  and  personal  Creator. 

Even  if  we  fail  to  apprehend  these  properties  of  the  first  cause,  we  are 
not  necessarily  shut  up  to  absolute  agnosticism,  for  science  is  familiar  with 
the  idea  that  causes  may  be  entirely  unknown  to  us  in  themselves,  yet  well- 
known  to  us  in  their  laws  and  their  effects.  Since  then,  the  whole  universe 
must  in  some  sense  be  an  illustration  and  development  of  its  first  cause,  it 
must  all  reflect  light  on  this  primitive  power,  which  must  thus  be  known  to  us 
at  least  in  the  same  manner  in  which  such  agencies  as  gravitation  and  the 
ethereal  medium  occupying  space  are  known. 

Nor  can  we  interpret  these  analogies  in  a  pantheistic  sense.  The  all  is 
itself  a  product  of  the  First  Cause,  which  must  have  existed  previously,  and  of 
which  we  cannot  affirm  any  extension  in  a  material  sense.  The  extension 
is  rather  like  that  of  the  human  will,  which,  though  individual  and  personal, 
may  control  and  animate  a  vast  number  of  persons  and  agencies — may,  for 
example,  pervade  and  regulate  every  portion  of  a  great  army  or  of  a  great 
empire.  Here  again  we  are  brought  near  to  the  theological  doctrine,  and 
perceive  that  the  First  Cause  may  be  the  will  of  an  Almighty  Being,  or  at  least 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

94a 


DAWSON;   THE    RELIGION   OF   SCIENCE.  943 

something  which,  relatively  to  an  eternal  and  infinite  existence,  may  be  com- 
pared with  what  will  is  in  the  lesser  sphere  of  human  consciousness.  In  this 
way  we  can  at  least  form  a  conception  of  a  power  all-pervading,  yet  per- 
sonal ;  free,  yet  determined  by  its  own  innate  constitution. 

Thus  science  seems  to  have  no  place  for  agnosticism,  except  in  that 
sense  in  which  the  essence  of  all  energies  and  even  of  matter  is  unknown  ; 
and  it  has  no  place  for  pantheism,  except  in  that  sense  in  which  energies, 
like  gravitation,  apparently  localized  in  a  central  body,  are  extended  in 
their  effects  throughout  the  universe.  In  this  way  science  merges  into 
rational  theism  and  its  First  Cause  becomes  the  will  of  a  divine  Being  inscru- 
table in  essence,  yet  universal  in  influence,  and  manifested  in  his  works.  In 
this  way  science  tends  to  be  not  only  theistic,  but  monotheistic,  and  con- 
nects those  ideas  of  unity  which  it  derives  from  the  uniformity  and  univer- 
sality of  natural  laws  with  the  will  of  one  law-maker.  Nor  does  law  exclude 
volition.  It  becomes  the  expression  of  the  unchanging  will  of  infinite  wisdom 
and  foresight.  Otherwise  we  should  have  to  believe  that  the  laws  of  nature 
are  either  necessary  or  fortuitous,  and  we  know  that  neither  of  these  alter- 
natives is  possible. 

All  animals  are  actuated  by  instincts  adapted  to  their  needs  and  place 
in  nature,  and  we  have  a  right  to  consider  such  instincts  as  in  accordance 
with  the  will  of  their  Creator.  Should  we  not  regard  the  intuitions  of  man 
in  the  same  light,  and  also  what  may  be  called  his  religious  and  moral 
instincts  ?  Of  these,  perhaps  one  of  the  most  universal  next  to  the  belief  in 
a  god  or  gods,  is  that  in  a  future  life.  It  seems  to  have  been  implanted  in 
those  antediluvian  men  whose  remains  are  found  in  caverns  and  alluvial 
deposits,  and  it  has  continued  to  actuate  their  descendants  ever  since.  This 
instinct  of  immortality  should  surely  be  recognized  by  science  as  constituting 
one  of  the  inherent  and  essential  characters  of  humanity. 

So  far  in  the  direction  of  religion  the  science  of  nature  may  logically 
carry  us  without  revelation,  and  we  may  agree  with  the  Apostle  Paul,  that 
even  the  heathen  may  learn  God's  power  and  divinity  prove  the  things  that 
he  has  made.  In  point  of  fact,  without  the  aid  of  either  formal  science  or 
theology,  and  in  so  far  as  is  known  without  any  direct  revelation,  the  belief 
in  God  and  immortality  has  actually  been  the  common  property  of  all  men, 
in  some  form  more  or  less  crude  and  imperfect.  But  there  are  special  points 
in  revealed  religion  respecting  which  the  study  of  nature  may  give  some  testi- 
mony. 

When  natural  science  leaves  merely  material  things  and  animal  instincts, 
and  acquaints  itself  with  the  rational  and  ethical  nature  of  man,  it  raises  new 
questions  with  reference  to  the  First  Cause.  This  must  include  potentially  all 
that  is  developed  from  it.  Hence  the  rational  and  moral  powers  of  man  must 
be  emanations  from  those  inherent  in  the  First  Cause,  which  thus  becomes  a 
divinity,  having  a  rational  and  moral  nature  comparable  with  that  of  man, 
but  infinitely  higher. 


944  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

On  this  point  a  strange  confusion,  produced  apparently  by  the  philoso- 
phy of  evolution,  seems  to  have  affected  some  scientific  thinkers,  who  seek  to 
read  back  moral  ideas  into  the  history  of  the  world  at  a  time  when  no  mun- 
dane moral  agent  is  known  to  have  been  in  existence.  They  represent  man 
as  engaged  in  an  almost  hopeless  and  endless  struggle  against  an  inherited 
"cosmic  nature,"  evil  and  immoral.  This  absurd  and  atheistic  exaggeration 
of  the  theological  idea  of  original  sin,  and  the  pessimism  which  springs  from 
it,  have  absolutely  no  foundation  in  natural  science. 

Natural  science  does,  however,  perceive  a  discord  between  man,  and 
especially  his  artificial  contrivances,  and  nature ;  and  a  cruel  tyranny  of  man 
over  lower  beings  and  interference  with  natural  harmony  and  symmetry. 
In  other  words,  the  independent  will,  free  agency,  and  inventive  powers  of 
man  have  set  themselves  to  subvert  the  nice  and  delicate  adjustments  of 
natural  things  in  a  way  to  cause  much  evil  and  suffering  to  lower  creatures, 
and  ultimately  to  man  himself.  Science  sees,  moreover,  a  great  moral  need 
which  it  cannot  supply,  and  for  which  it  can  appeal  only  to  the  religious  idea 
of  a  divine  redemption. 

On  this  account,  if  no  other,  science  should  welcome  the  belief  in  a 
divine  revelation  to  humanity.  On  other  grounds  also  it  can  see  no  objec- 
tion to  the  idea  of  divine  inspiration.  The  First  Cause  manifests  him- 
self hourly  before  our  eyes  in  the  instincts  of  the  lower  animals,  which  are 
regulated  by  his  laws.  It  is  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  which  gives 
man  his  rational  nature.  Is  it  probable  then  that  the  mind  of  man  is  the 
only  part  of  nature  shut  out  from  the  agency  and  communication  of  the  all- 
pervading  mind  ?  This  is  evidently  altogether  improbable.  If  so  have  we 
not  the  right  to  believe  that  divine  inspiration  is  present  in  genius  and 
inventive  power,  and  that  in  a  higher  degree  it  may  animate  the  prophet 
and  the  seer,  or  that  God  himself  may  have  been  directly  manifested  as  a 
divine  teacher  ?  Science  cannot  assure  us  of  this,  but  it  makes  no  objection 
to  it. 

This,  however,  raises  the  question  of  miracle  and  the  supernatural  ;  but 
in  opposition  to  these  science  cannot  consistently  place  itself.  It  has  by  its 
own  discoveries  made  us  familiar  with  the  fact  that  every  new  acquisition  of 
knowledge  of  nature  confers  powers  which,  if  exercised  previously,  would 
have  been  miraculous  ;  that  is,  would  have  been  evidence  of,  for  the  time, 
superhuman  powers.  We  know  no  limit  to  this  as  to  the  agency  of  intelli- 
gences higher  than  man,  or  as  to  God  himself.  Nor  does  miracle  in  this 
aspect  counteract  natural  law.  The  scope  for  the  miraculous  within  the 
limits  of  natural  law,  and  the  properties  of  natural  objects,  is  thus  practi- 
cally infinite.  All  the  metaphysical  arguments  of  the  last  generation 
against  the  possibility  of  miracles  have  in  fact  been  destroyed  by  the  pro- 
gress of  science,  and  no  limit  can  be  set  to  divine  agency  in  this  respect, 
provided  the  end  is  worthy  of  the  means.  On  the  other  hand,  science  has 
rendered  human  imitations  of  divine  miracles  impostures,  too  transparent  to 
be  credited  by  intelligent  persons. 


SIR  WILLIAM  DAWSON,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Etc. 

"  ALL  THE  METAPHYSICAL  AKCUME.NTS  OF  THE  LAST  GENERATION  AGAINST  THE  POSSIBILITY-  OF 
MIRACLES  HAVE  IN  FACT  BEEN  DESTROYED  BY  THE  PROGRESS  OF  SCIENCE,  AND  NO  LIMIT  CAN 
BE  SET  TO  DIVINE  AGENCY  IN  THIS  RESPECT,  PROVIDED  THE  END  IS  WORTHY  OF  THE  MEANS. 
I  STATE  MY  CONVICTIONS  THAT  THE  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENTS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH, 
WHILE  TRUE  TO  NATURE  IN  THEIR  REFERENCE  TO  IT,  INFINITELY  TRANSCEND  ITS  TEACHING  IN 
THEIR  SUBLIME  REVELATIONS  RESPECTING  GOD  ANp  HIS  PyRPOSES  TOWARDS  >ieH," 

60 


946  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINTH    DAY. 

For  these  reasons  the  attitude  of  science  to  divine  revelation  is  not  one 
of  antagonism,  except  in  so  far  as  any  professed  revelation  is  contrary  to 
natural  facts  and  laws.  This  is  a  question  on  which  I  do  not  propose  to 
enter,  but  may  state  my  conviction,  which  1  have  elsewhere  endeavored  to 
vindicate,  that  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  of  the  Christian  faith,  while 
true  to  nature  in  their  reference  to  it,  infinitely  transcend  its  teaching  in 
their  sublime  revelations  respecting  God  and  his  purposes  toward  man. 

Finally,  we  have  thus  seen  that  natural  science  is  hostile  to  the  old 
materialistic  worship  of  natural  objects,  as  well  as  to  the  worship  of  ances- 
tors and  heroes,  of  humanity  generally,  and  of  the  state,  or  indeed  of  any- 
thing short  of  the  great  First  Cause  of  all.  It  is  also  hostile  to  that  agnosti- 
cism which  professes  to  be  unable  to  recognize  a  First  Cause,  and  to  pan- 
theism, which  confounds  the  primary  cause  with  the  cosmos  resulting  from 
his  action.  On'the  contrary,  it  has  nothing  to  say  against  the  belief  in  a 
divine  First  Cause,  against  divine  miracle  or  inspiration,  against  the  idea  of 
a  future  life,  or  against  any  moral  or  spiritual  means  for  restoring  man  to 
harmony  with  God  and  nature.  As  a  consequence  it  will  be  found  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  more  distinguished  scientific  men  haVe  been  good 
and  pious  in  their  lives,  and  friends  of  religion. 


MUSIC,  EMOTION  AND  MORALS. 
By  The  Rev.  Dr.  H.  R.  Haweis,  of  London. 

My  topic  is  "Music,  Emotion  and  Morals."  I  find  thai  the  connection 
between  music  and  morals  has  been  very  much  left  out  in  the  cold  here, 
and  yet  music  is  the  golden  art.  You  have  heard  many  grave  things 
debated  in  this  room  during  the  last  three  or  four  days.  Let  me  remind 
you  that  the  connection  between  the  arts  and  morals  is  also  a  very  grave 
subject.  Vet,  here  we  are,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  living  in  the  middle  of 
the  golden  age  of  music,  perhaps  without  knowing  it.  What  would  you 
have  given  to  have  seen  a-  day  of  Raphael  or  to  have  seen  a  day  of  Pericles, 
you  who  have  been  living  in  this  great  Christian  age  ?  And  yet  the  age  of 
Augustus  was  the  golden  age  of  Roman  literature.  The  age  of  Pericles 
was  that  of  sculpture,  the  Medicean  age  of  painting ;  so  the  golden  age 
of  music  is  the  Victorian  or  the  Star-Spangled  Banner  age. 

Music  is  the  only  living,  growing  art.  All  other  arts  have  been  discov- 
ered. An  art  is  not  a  growing  art  when  all  its  elements  have  been  discov- 
ered. You  paint  jiow,  and  you  combine  the  discoveries  of  the  past ;  you  dis- 
cover nothing;  you  build  now,  and  you  combine  the  researches  and  the 
experiences  of  the  past ;  but  you  cannot  paint  better  than  Raphael ;  you  can- ' 
not  build  more  beautiful  cathedrals  than  the  cathedrals  of  the  middle  ages  ; 
but  music  is  still  a  growing  art.  Up  to  yesterday  everything  in  music  had 
not  been  explored.  I  say  we  are  in  the  golden  age  of  music,  because  we  can 
almost  within  the  memorv  of  a  man  reach  hands  with  Mozart,  Beethoven  and 
Wagner.  We  place  their  heads  upon  pedestals  side  by  side  with  Raphael 
and  with  Michel  Angelo, yet  we  have  no  clear  idea  of  the  connection  between 
the  art  of  music  and  morals,  although  we  acknowledge  that  great  men  like 
Beethoven  are  worthy  of  a  place  along  with  the  great  sculptors,  poets  and 
painters.  Now  let  me  tell  you  that  you  have  no  business  to  spend  much 
time  or  money  or  interest  upon  any  subject  unless  you  can  make  out  a  con- 
nection between  the  subject  and  morals  and  conduct  and  life ;  unless  you 
can  give  an  art  or  occupation  a  particular  ethical  and  moral  basis. 

If  anyone  asks  you  what  is  the  connection  between  music  and  morals,  I 
will  give  it  to  you  in  a  nutshell.  This  is  the  connection.  Music  is  the  lan- 
guage of  emotion.  Emotion  is  connected  with  thought.  Therefore  music  is 
connected  with  thought.  Thought  is  connected  with  action,  action  deals 
with  conduct,  and  the  sphere  of  conduct  is  connected  with  morals.  There- 
fore, ladies  and  gentlemen,  if  music  is  connected  with  emotion,  and  emotion 
is  connected  with  thought,  and  thought  is  connected  with  action,  and  action 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


948  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINTH    DAY. 

is  connected  with  the  sphere  of  conduct,  or  with  morals,  things  which  are 
connected  by  the  same  must  be  connected  with  one  another,  and  therefore 
music  must  be  connected  with  morals. 

Now,  the  reason  why  we  have  coupled  all  these  three  worlds — music,  emo- 
tion, morals — together,  is  because  emotion  is  coupled  with  morals.  The  great 
disorders  of  our  age  come  not  from  the  possession  of  emotional  feeling,  but 
from  its  abuse,  its  misdirection  and  the  bad  use  of  it.  Once  discipline  your 
emotions,  and  life  becomes  noble,  fertile  and  harmonious. 

Well,  then,  if  there  is  this  close  connection  between  emotion  or  feeling, 
and  the  life,  conduct,  or  morals,  what  the  connection  between  emotion  and 
morals  is,  that  also  must  be  the  character  of  the  connection  between  music, 
which  is  the  art  medium  of  emotion,  and  morals. 

Nothing  good  and  true  was  ever  carried  out  in  this  world  without 
emotion. 

There  has  never  been  a  gteat  crisis  in  a  nation's  history  without  some 
appropriate  air,  some  appropriate  march,  which  has  been  the  voiceless 
emotion  of  the  people.  I  remember  Garibaldi's  hymn.  It  expresses  the 
essence  of  the  Italian  movement.     Look  at  all  your  patriotic  songs.    Look  at 

"John  Brown's  body  is  a-mouldering  in  the  ground, 
,        But  his  soul  is  marching  on." 

The  feeling  and  action  of  a  country  passes  into  music.  It  is  the  power 
of  emotion  through  music  upon  politics  and  patriotism.  I  remember  when 
Wagner,  as  a  very  young  man,  came  over  to  England  and  studied  our 
national  anthems.  He  said  that  the  whole  of  the  British  character  lay  in 
the  first  two  bars  of  *'  Rule  Britannia." 

And  so  your  "Star-Spangled  Banner"  has  kindled  much  unity  and 
patriotism.  The  profoundly  religious  nature  of  the  Germans  comes  forth  in 
their  patriotic  hymn,  "God  Save  the  Emperor."  Our  "God  Save  the  Queen" 
strikes  the  same  note,  in  a  different  way,  as  "  Rule  Britannia."  This  shows 
the  connection  between  emotion  and  music  in  politics  and  patriotism.  It 
throws  a  great  light  upon  the  wisdom  of  that  statesman  who  said  :  "  Let 
who  will  make  the  laws  of  a  people  ;  let  me  make  their  national  songs." 

I  see  another  gentleman  is  in  charge  of  the  topic  "  Religion  and  Music," 
but  it  is  quite  impossible  for  me  to  entirely  exclude  religion  from  my  lecture 
to-day,  or  the  power  of  emotion  through  music  upon  religion  and  through 
religion  upon  morals,  for  religion  is  that  thing  which  kindles  and  makes 
operative  and  irresistible  the  sway  of  the  moral  nature.  I  read  that  our 
Lord  and  his  disciples,  at  a  time  when  all  words  failed  them  and  when  their 
hearts  were  heavy,  when  all  had  been  said  and  all  had  been  done  at  that 
last  supper,  after  they  had  sung  a  hymn,  went  out  into  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
After  Paul  and  Silas  had  been  beaten  and  thrust  into  a  noisome  dungeon, 
they  forgot  their  pain  and  humiliation  and  sang  songs,  spiritual  psalms,  in 
the  night,  and  the  prisoners  heard  them.  I  read,  in  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  when  the  great  creative  and  adaptive  genius  of  Rome  took 


haweis:  music,  emotion  and  morals.        949 

possession  of  that  mighty  spiritual  movement  and  proceeded  to  evangelize 
the  Roman  Empire,  that  St.  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan  in  the  third  century, 
collected  the  Greek  modes  and  adapted  certain  of  them  for  the  Christian 
Church,  and  that  these  scales  were  afterward  revived  by  the  great  Pope 
Gregory,  who  gave  the  Christian  Church  the  Gregorian  chants,  the  first 
elements  of  emotion  interpreted  by  music  which  appeared  in  the  Christian 
Church.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  overestimate  the  power  of  those  crude 
scales,  although  they  seem  harsh  to  our  ears.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  the 
effect  produced  by  Augustine  and  his  monks  when  they  landed  in  Great 
Britain,  chanting  the  ancient  Gregorian  chants.  When  the  king  gave  his 
partial  adherence  to  the  mission  of  Augustine,  the  saint  turned  from  the 
king  and  directed  his  course  toward  Canterbury,  where  he  was  to  be  the  first 
Cliristian  archbishop. 

Still,  as  he  went  along  with  his  monks,  they  chanted  one  of  the  Gre 
gorian  chants.     That  was  his  war  cry. 

"  Turn  away,  O  Lord,  thy  wrath  from  this  city,  and  thine  anger  from 
its  sin." 

That  is  a  true  Gregorian  ;  those  are  the  very  words  of  Augustine.  And 
later  on  I  shall  remind  you  of  both  the  passive  and  active  functions  of  the 
Christian  Church — passive  when  the  people  sat  still  and  heard  sweet 
anthems ;  active  when  they  broke  out  into  hymns  of  praise.  Shall  I  tell 
you  of  the  great  comfort  which  the  church  owes  to  Luther  who  stood  up  in 
his  carriage  as  he  approached  the  City  of  Worms  and  sang  his  hymn,  "  Ein 
feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott  "?  Shall  I  tell  you  of  others  who  have  solaced  their 
hours  of  solitude  by  singing  hymns  and  spiritual  psalms,  and  how  at  times 
hymn  singing  in  the  church  was  almost  all  the  religion  that  the  people 
had?  The  poor  Lollards,  when  afraid  of  preaching  their  doctrine,  still  sang, 
and  throughout  the  country  the  poor  and  uneducated  people,  if  they  could 
not  understand  the  subtleties  of  theological  doctrine,  still  could  sing  praise 
and  make  melody  in  their  hearts.  I  remember  how  much  I  was  affected  in 
passing  through  a  little  Welsh  village  some  time  ago  at  night,  in  the  solitude 
of  the  Welsh  hills,  as  I  saw  a  little  light  in  a  cottage-,  and  as  I  came  near  I 
heard  the  voices  of  the  children  singing  : 

"Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul, 
Let  me  to  thy  bosom  fly." 

And  I  thought  .how  those  little  ones  had  gone  to  school  and  had  learned 
this  hymn  and  had  come  home  to  evangelize  their  little  remote  cottage  and 
lift  up  the  hearts  of  their  parents  with  the  love  of  Jesus. 

I  now  approach  the  last  clause  of  my  discourse.  We  have  discovered 
the  elements  of  music.  Modern  music  has  been  three  or  four  hundred  years 
in  existence,  .and  that  is  ahjout  the  time  that  every  art  has  taken  to  be 
thoroughly  explored.  After  that,  all  its  elements  have  been  discovered  ; 
there  is  no  more  to  be  discovered,  properly  speaking,  and  all  that  remains 
is  to  apply  it  to  the  use,  consolation  and  elevation  of  mankind. 


950  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

Music  is  the  most  spiritual  and   latest  born  of  the   arts  in  this  most 
material  and  skeptical  age  ;  it  is  not  only  a  consolation,  but  a  kind  of  min- 
istering angel  in  the  heart ;  it  lifts  us  up  and  reminds  us  and  restores  in  us 
the  sublime  consciousness  of  our  own  immortality.     For  it  is  in  listening  to 
sweet  and  noble  strains  of  music  that  we  feel  lifted   and  raised   above  our- 
selves.    We  move  about  in  worlds  not  realized  ;  it  is  as  the  footfalls  on  the 
threshold  of  another  world.     We  breathe  a  higher  air.     We  stretch  forth  the 
spiritual  antennae  of  our  being  and  touch  the  invisible,  and  in  still  moments 
we  have  heard  the  songs  of  the  angels,  and  at  chosen  seasons  there  comes 
a  kind  of  open  vision.     We  have  "  seen  white  presences  among  the  hills." 
"  Hence  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 
Though  inland  far  we  be. 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither." 


MAN  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  REVELATION  AND  SCIENCE. 
By  Thomas  Dwight,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Harvard  University. 

Man,  in  the  light  of  revelation,  as  made  known  through  the  Scriptures 
and  by  the  definitions  and  traditions  of  the  Catholic  Church,  is  a  compound 
of  soul  and  body.  He  is  the  product  of  God's  last  creative  act.  His  body 
is  of  the  earth,  but  his  immortal  spiritual  soul  is  the  image  of  God.  His 
end  is  God.  But  to  reach  that  end  he  must  pass  through  a  period  of  pro- 
bation on  this  earth.  Everything  in  creation  is  subordinate  to  the  issue  of 
that  great  struggle.  The  first  man,  Adam,  fell.  Through  his  sin  human 
nature,  while  remaining  unchanged  in  essence,  lost  something  of  its  super- 
added gifts.  At  first  man's  reason  was  supreme.  Now  it  is  obscured  by 
passions  and  a  tendency  to  evil. 

It  concerns  us  to  know  whether  the  accepted  truths  of  biological  sci- 
ence, more  particularly  those  of  anatomy,  anthropology,  and  physiology, 
harmonize  with  those  of  revelation.  Turning,  then,  from  revelation  to 
science,  we  have  to  examine  man  and  to  classify  him — to  determine,  in  short, 
according  to  Huxley's  happy  phrase,  his  place  in  nature.  If  we  subject  the 
tissues  of  his  body  to  chemical  analysis ;  if,  with  the  highest  powers  of  the 
microscope,  we  examine  the  minutest  elements  of  structure  of  bone,  muscle, 
blood,  brain,  and  all  the  rest,  there  is  nothing  implying  essential  difference 
between  man  and  animals.  We  next  dissect  man's  body  and  examine  the 
various  so-called  svstems,  the  bones,  muscles,  vessels,  the  brain  and  nerves, 
and  the  internal  organs.  Comparing  system  by  system,  we  find  differences 
in  degree,  and  in  degree  only,  between  the  bodies  of  man  and  ape.  The 
difference  is  vast,  but  it  is  a  difference  only  in  degree  after  all. 

The  intimate  relationship  in   bodily  structure  between  man  and  ani- 


UKV.   11.   R.   IIAWKIS. 


"it  is  IMrOSSIBI.E,  WITH  THIS  MOTrO,  '  MUSIC,  RMHTION  AND  KELICIION'  FOR  MV  TEXT,  TO 
F.XCLL'DE  THE  CONSIUEKATION  OF  THE  EFI-'ECT  OF  MISIC  II'HN  RELICroN.  I  READ  THAT  OUK 
LOKI)  AND  HIS  DISCIPLES,  AT  A  TIME  WHEN  AM.  WORDS  FMLKD  THEM  AND  WHEN  THEIR  HEARTS 
WERE  HEAVY.  WHEN  ALL  HAD  BEEN  SAID  AND  ALL  HAD  URKN  DONE  AT  THAT  LAST  SUITER  —  I 
READ  THAT.  AFTER  THEY  HAP  SL'NG  A  HYMN,  OUK  LORD  AND  THE  DISCll'LES  WENT  OUT  INTO 
nil-:  MOUNT  OF  OLIVES." 


952  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS  :   NINTH    DAY. 

mals  is  further  shown  by  the  science  of  embryology.  While *we  are  not 
called  upon  to  accept  very  literally  the  claim  that  the  development  of  the 
embryo  presents  an  epitome  of  the  history  of  the  rise  of  the  human  race 
from  the  lowest  forms,  none  the  less  its  transitory  structures  and  arrange- 
ments offer  overwhelming  evidence  of  the  animal  nature  and  affinities  of 
the  human  body. 

But,  as"  we  have  undertaken  a  scientific  study  of  man,  we  must  not  stop 
with  his  lifeless  body.  All  must  be  seen  and  studied  living  to  be  properly 
placed.  Studying  "man  in  this  way,  we  find  that  he  is  a  living  organism. 
From  this  we  infer  that  he  has  a  vital  principle.  In  common  with  plants, 
his  vital  principle  presides  over  nutrition,  reproduction,  and  growth.  In 
common  with  other  animals,  he  has  in  addition  the  power  of  motion  and 
sensation  of  various  kinds.  He  has  instincts  also.  But  beyond  and  above 
all  these,  he  has  understanding  and  a  free  will.  He  is  a  rational  animal, 
and  as  such,  as  Mivart  has  said,  more  above  the  highest  animal  than  the 
latter  is  above  a  stone.  It  follows  directly  that  man  has  been  the  result  of 
an  act  of  creation.  An  immortal  spiritual  soul  can  by  no  possibility  have 
been  gradually  evolved  from  the  vital  principle  of  a  lower  being,  nor  sud- 
denly formed  by  any  action  of  physical  forces. 

But  the  question  must  be  studied  from  the  physical  side  also.  What 
do  anatomy  and  anthropology  say  to  the  claims  of  revelation  ?  Surely 
since  if  is  the  soul  that  makes  the  human  composite  what  it  is,  the  material 
side  is  of  secondary  consequence ;  but  even  on  this  lower  plane  any  true 
conflict  between  revelation  on  one  side  and  anatomy  on  the  other,  must  be 
fatal  to  one  or  both.  Should  science  ever  show  by  analogy  so  strong  as  to 
.ompel  conviction,  that  man's  body  has  risen  from  lower  animals  till  God 
made  it  human  by  informing  it  with  a  spiritual  soul,  revelation  would  have 
nothing  to  take  back,  nothing  to  fear. 

But  there  is,  undoubtedly,  a  system  of  evolution,  which  is  in  absolute 
opposition  to  religion.  The  scheme  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows:  In 
the  beginning  was  matter  and  force.  By  some  law  of  unknown  origin,  the 
nebulous  matter  formed  worlds.  On  this  one,  somehow,  organic  life 
appeared.  Cells  developed  into  plants  of  successively  greater  complexity, 
plants  into  animals.  Animals  rose  from  the  simple  to  the  complex  and 
finally  to  man,  by  gradual  changes.  Instinct  is  the  result  of  the  inheritance 
of  accumulated  ancestral  experience.  There -is  no  essential  difference 
between  it  and  reason.  Ethical  and  moral  ideas  are  simply  developments. 
Plan  does  not  exist.  Free  will  and  accountability  are,  therefore,  impossible. 
The  original  atoms  can  have  had  no  choice  but  to  obey  the  original  forces. 
How  or  when  can  so  essentially  foreign  a  power  as  that  of  freedom  to 
choose,  have  first  appeared  ?  It  cannot  have  been  in  germ  in  the  primeval 
atoms,  neither  can  it  of  itself  have  come  out  of  nothing.  It  therefore  can- 
not exist.  If  there  be  no  free  will,  there  is  no  accountability,  no  right,  no 
wrong,  conscience  is  a  delusion,  law  a   tyranny.     Any  system  of  religion, 


DWIGHT:    MAN'S    PLACE    IN    NATURE.  953 

any  probation,  any   future   reward  or  punishment  on  these  premises  is  self- 
evidently  absurd. 

Between  any  such  system  and  revelation  there  can  be  no  agreement. 
If  one  is  right,  the  other  is  wrong.  Vfz  deny  these  doctrines  because  they 
are  false.  Philosophy,  indeed,  shows  their  falsehood  most  clearly.  Mine  is 
the  more  humble  task  of  showing  how  unsupported  they  are  by  evidence  in 
the  physical  domain. 

To  return  to  the  study  of  the  body  of  man.  As  has  been  shown,  man  as 
a  whole  so  far  transcends  all  animals  that  the  shape  of  his  body  is  of  little 
more  importance  than  the  cut  of  his  coat,  as  the  criterion  of  his  position  in 
the  universe.  None  the  less  his  body  must  be  classified  on  precisely  the  same 
principles  that  guide  us  in  the  case  of  non-rational  animals.  Zoologically  he 
is  evidently  a  mammal,  constituting  the  family  of  the  Hominidae  of  the  sub- 
order Anthropoidae  of  the  order  of  Primates.  The  other  families  of  that  sub- 
order are  various  kinds  of  apes  and  monkeys,  the  one  nearest  to  man  being 
that  of  the  simiidae,  which  comprises  the  larger  apes  of  Asia  and  Africa — the 
long-armed  apes,  the  orang,  gorilla  and  chimpanzee.  All  of  these  are  tail- 
less, and  to  the  superficial  observer  evidently  nearest  to  man.  The  scientific 
student  reaches  the  same  conclusion,  but  none  the  less  he  recognizes  points  of 
similarity  with  species  of  the  families  of  smaller  monkeys  which  the  larger 
apes  do  not  show.  Further,  and  this  point  is  of  vital  importance,  the  series 
of  the  great  apes  does  not  lead  up  to  man  by  regular  gradations.  In  some 
respects  the  chimpanzee  most  nearly  resembles  man,  in  others,  the  gorilla, 
and,  although  we  may  admit  that  on  the  whole  these  two  approach  the  near- 
est to  man's  body,  yet  in  other  respects  the  orang  and  the  long-armed  apes 
surpass  them.  The  skull  and  teeth  of  the  chimpanzee  approach  nearest  to 
those  of  man,  but  the  siamang  is  the  only  ape  with  a  forward  projection  of 
the  lower  jaw  like  the  human  chin.  The  orang  has  twelve  ribs  like  a  man, 
while  the  chimpanzee  and  gorilla  have  thirteen. 

A  very  important  and  curious  chapter  in  this  connection  is  that  of  anoma- 
lies of  structure.  There  are  occasionally  structures,  or  arrangements  of  struc. 
tures,  which  are  not  normal  in  the  species  in  which  they  occur,  but  in  others. 
They  are  seen  frequently  in  man.  They  have  been  made  to  bear  evidence  for 
his  descent  from  lower  animals,  and  have  been  called  "  reversions."  There  are 
reasons  for  debating  these  claims  very  seriously.  To  hold  that  a  certain 
anomaly  of,  say  a  bone,  in  man  is  a  reversion  to  the  condition  of  a  primitive 
type,  is  not  to  say  that  every  other  animal  possessing  it  is  an  ancestor  of 
man,  for  they  may  be  side  branches  of  the  genealogical  tree  ;  but  it  is  neces- 
sary that  a  common  origin  should  be  shown  for  both.  When  we  come  to 
put  this  into  practice  very  great  difficulties  arise.  Let  us  take  some  common 
instances  in  illustration.  First,  the  supra-condyloid  process  of  the  humerus. 
This  is  a  little  spur  of  bone  found  in  some  three  per  cent,  of  our  dissecfting- 
room  subjects.  A  band  of  fibrous  tissue  running  to  it  makes  a  bridge  over  a 
hole  called  a  supra-condyloid  foramen.     It  is  not  found  in  any  of  the  higher 


954  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

apes,  but  in  many  American  monkeys  and  in  most  of  the  lemurs.  It  is  found 
in  certain  carnivora,  notably  those  of  the  cat  tribe,  in  most  of  the  insectivora, 
but  never  in  the  ungulata,  or  hoofed  animals;  it  is  generally  found  in  the 
edentata  and  marsupials.  This,  therefore,  is  so  widely  distributed  a  structure 
that  it  is  a  more  plausible  instance  than  most,  and  if  it  stood  alone  would  be 
hard  to  refute.  But  it  is  the  very  diversity  of  these  anomalies  that  is  fatal  to 
the  theory  that  they  are  reversions.  Another,  probably  more  common  one  in 
man,  though  less  widespread  among  mammals,  is  a  projection  known  as  the 
third  trochanter  of  the  thigh  bone,  which  is  normal  in  the  odd-toed  ungulates 
and  in  some  rodents  and  edentates.  .  A  very  uncommon  one  is  the  union  of 
the  pieces  of  the  breast-bone  after  the  fashion  of  the  long-armed  apes.  Still 
another  very  rare  peculiarity  is  the  fossa  prsenasalis,  a  little  hollow  in  the 
skull  just  below  the. opening  of  the  nose.  It  is  met  with  only  in  low  class 
skulls.  Among  animals  it  has  been  seen  poorly  marked  at  times  (not  as  a 
rule)  in  the  gorilla ;  bot  its  best  representation  is  seen  in  the  seal  tribe. 

Now,  no  one  claims  that  man  came  from  either  the  carnivora  or  the 
ungulata,  certainly  not  from  both.  If  then  we  see  a  feature  in  man  appear- 
ing occasionally  which  is  normal  in  hoofed  animals,  from  which  he  did  not 
descend,  according  to  the  theory  of  heredity,  it  must  have  existed  in  a  com- 
mon ancestor.  As  we  go  on  from  one  feature  of  this  kind  to  many  the 
difficulty  is  increased,  for  we  have  to  includ?  the  carnivora  and,  worse  still,  a 
higher  specialized  group,  the  seal  tribe.  This  being  obviously  impossible, 
we  have  to  go  further  back  still  and  seek  a  still  earlier  common  ancestor 
from  whom  we  are  to  inherit  the  characteristics  of  both.  This  very  soon 
reaches  a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  for  the  primitive  parent  must  have  been  an 
anatomical  curiosity  ot  the  greatest  complication.  What  are  we  then  to  do 
with  such  facts  ?  It  will  not  do  to  ignore  them.  They  undoubtedly  have  a 
cause,  seeming  to  point  to  a  similarity  of  plan  and  tendencies.  It  allows 
us  to  formulate  the  proposition,  that  points  of  resemblance  between  two 
families  of  animals  are  no  evidence  of  the  descent  of  one  from  the  other  or 
of  both  from  a  common  ancestor.  It  brings  law  and  plan  into  the  fore- 
ground. From  being  first  used  as  an  argument  for  chance,  it  on  the  con- 
trary, is  found  to  point  to  law,  though  to  which  one  which  we  do  not  yet 
grasp. 

Let  us  now  study  living  man,  considered  merely  as  an  animal.  For 
roaming  through  forests,  how  inferior  to  the  long-armed  ape  who  swings 
in  flying  leaps  from  tree  to  tree  with  a  grace  and  certainty  which  no  trained 
acrobat  can  approach.  For  defence  or  attack  how  much  below  the  gorilla-. 
As  a  mere  animal,  how  unfitted  for  anything.  Not  very  swift  of  foot,  far 
from  strong  of  arm,  with  neither  claw  nor  tusk,  without  great  sharpness  of 
sight  or  of  hearing,  with  very  limited  powers  of  scent,  without  protective 
panoply  or  weapon  of  defense,  man,  as  an  animal  and  as  nothing  more,  can 
be  ranked  only  as  a  failure.  But,  if  grown  man  be  such,  how  much  more  is 
he  trammelled  by  the  necessary  care  of  infant  and  child  through  the  long 


DWIGHT:    MAN'S    PLACE    IN    NATURE.  955 

period  of  helplessness.  Yet  do  not  his  powers  of  instinct  place  him  far 
above  other  animals?  Undoubtedly  it  might  have  been  so,  equally 
undoubtedly  it  is  not.  His  instinct  is  far  inferior  to  that  of  many  lower 
animals.  As  well  as  we  can  decide  by.  our  own  mental  processess  we 
know  that  it  is  by  reason  that  man  is  guided.  The  body  is  inadequate  and 
strong  instinct  is  wanting.  How  then  account  .for  the  existence  and  per- 
petuation of  so  badly  dowered  a  race  ?  It  is  clear  that  it  is  only  because 
man  has  reason  that  he  is  what  he  is. 

We  pass  to  anthropology.  We  see  many  races  of  men  ;  but  with 
advancing  knowledge  old  plans  of  classification  have  lost  their  value.  We 
find  again  curious  cross-relationships  in  different  races.  This  much  is  cer- 
tain, namely,  that  they  are  all  men.  '  The  differences  between  them,  indeed, 
are  great,  in  capacity  of  skull,  in  stature,  in  proportion,  but  the  very  lowest 
are  unmistakably  men,  considered  merely  from  the  anatomical  standpoint. 
The  missing  link  fails  to  appear.  Low  forms  of  structure  are,  indeed,  pre- 
sented by  some  very  ancient  skeletons,  but  it  were  idle  to  claim  that  they 
bear  evidence  of  even  a  distinct  species  of  man. 

The  gap  between  even  the  body  of  man  and  that  of  the  ape  is  a  great 
one,  though  the  difference  is  in  degree,  not  in  kind.  From  the  physical 
side  there  are  insurmountable  difficulties  in  the  ordinary  theory  that  man  as 
a  whole,  body  and  soul,  was  evolved  gradually  from  a  monkey  or  an  ape. 
It  is  beyond  question  thait  such  a  process  must  have  taken  a  very  long 
time.  Scores,  perhaps  hundreds,  of  thousands  of  years  must  have  witnessed 
its  progress.  It  is  well-nigh  incredible  that  no  race  of  the  man-like  beast 
and  his  follower  the  beast-like  man  should  have  come  to  light.  The  race 
cannot  have  been  a  small  one,  nor  have  done  its  work  in  a  corner.  To  have 
survived  during  the  long  period  necesssary  for  its  success  it  must  have 
spread  vastly.  Yet  of  this  great  series  of  multitudes  between  man  and' 
apes  we  do  not  find  a  trace.  More  than  this,  if  some  of  the  lowest  savage 
races  which  we  now  know  are  such  pitiable  objects,  how  much  more  so  must 
have  been  this  being  who  was  gradually  losing  the  physical  advantages  of 
apes,  and  had  not  as  yet  acquired  reason,  without  which  man  as  an  animal 
is  so  worthless.  It  is  in  direct  defiance  of  the  laws  of  evolution,  for  every 
step  is  marked  by  the  survival  of  the  unfittest. 

It  is  said  that  low  races  of  men  have  been  arrested  in  their  upward 
course.  That  there  is  no  shadow  of  proof  that  they  have  not  fallen  from  a 
higher  estate.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  very  much  in  favor  of  the  theory 
that  they  have  done  so.  How  many  instances  have  we  seen  in  history  of 
the  wiping  out  of  great  civilizations  !  What  a  contrast  is  the  Egypt  of 
to-day  with  that  of  the  Pharaohs  I  The  language  of  some  very  low  tribes 
show  a  richness  which  is  conclu<;ive  of  passed  prosperity.  Herbert  Spencer 
admits  in  his  Sociology  the  probability  of  the  degradation  from  something 
higher  of  most,  if  not  all,  the  savage  tribes  of  to-day. 

Revelation  teaches  that  man  has  fallen ;  that  there  is  in  him  a  tendency 


956  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

to  evil.  What  is  the  cause  ?  It  is  foolish  to  pretend  that  it  is  in  the  per- 
sistence of  animal  passions.  Let  the  student  of  Sociology  consider  the 
refinement  of  vice  in  the  luxury,  lust  and  cruelty  of  the  decadence  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  or  of  Oriental  despotisms  ;  to  look  no  nearer  home,  to  see 
that  there  is  a  malice  in  it  very  different  from  mere  savageness.  There  is 
in  it  a  perverseness  in  evil  that  suggests  a  closer  resemblance  to  devils  than 
to  beasts.  It  is  not  a  return  to  a  lower  estate,  but  the  corruption  of  a 
higher. 

Thus  revelation  and  science  are  in  accord  concerning  man.  Philosophy 
shows  that  as  a  living  organism  he  must  have  a  vital  principle  or  soul,  and 
that  inasmuch  as  it  is  spiritual  it  differs  radically  from  that  of  brutes.  Anat- 
omy and  anthropology  proclaim  that  there  is  no  evidence  in  favor  of  the 
gradual  evolution  of  man  both  soul  and  body,  which  philosophy  pronounces 
impossible,  and  wh  ch  cannot  be  reconciled  with  revelation.  Variations 
themselves  point  to  law  in  contradistinction  to  chance.  Observation. and 
common  sense  show  but  too  clearly  the  evidence  of  corruption  in  human 
nature,  which  is  neither  an  inheritance  from  lower  animals,  nor  the  natural 
endowment  of  man  created  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God. 


WHAT    CONSTITUTES    A    RELIGIOUS    AS    DISTIN- 
GUISHED FROM  A  MORAL    LIFE. 

By  Rev.  Sylvester  F.  Scovel,  D.D.,  President  of  Wooster  College. 

What  we  happily  emphasize  in  this  Congress  of  Religions  is  simply 
Religion.  That  we  write  out  in  large  letters  and  trumpet  the  great  fact 
of  it  in  all  the  tongues  of  men.  We  believe  there  must  be  more  of  it  in  the 
world  when  men  come  to  understand  how  much  there  is  of  it  already.  What 
the  world  wants  is  the  best  religion.  It  wants  it  with  a  deeper  thirst  than  it 
wants  silver  or  gold,  or  knowledge  or  science.  And  I  believe  this  Congress 
will  help  the  world  to  get  just  what  it  wants  and  needs — more  and  more 
genuine  religious  life.  From  this  point,  then,  is  the  place  to  go  forward  in 
the  recital  of  the  infinite  positive  blessings  the  religious  life  brings  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  moral   life. 

The  religious  life  alone  has  creative  power.  The  moral  can  never 
create  the  religious,  while  the  religious  will  always  create  the  moral  life. 
The  moral  life  is  (roughly)  as  the  mineral  kingdom  to  the  vegetable.  The  first 
can  feed  the  life  of  the  second,  but  cannot  kindle  it.  The  religious  life 
develops  more  continuity,  more  fibre  and  more  propagative  power  than  a 
moral  life. 

In  it  there  is  the  glory  of   the  unseen.     There  is  the   hush   and   awe 

Coypright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


SCOVEL:   THE    RELIGIOUS    LIFE.  957 

of  the  Omnipotent  and  Eternal.    There  is  the  unseen  holy,  there  is  an  exten- 
sion of  the  being  upward  and  forward  immeasurable  in  the  feeling  of  it. 

But  contrast  the  merely  moral  life.  All  that  concerns  the  future,  its 
opening  and  attractions,  its  glories  and  gleams,  has  no  power  for  him  who 
aims  only  to  do  his  duty  to  his  fellow-men.  How  much  the  man  must  miss; 
what  a  calamity  if  all  men  should  thus  deny  the  uppermost  realm  of  being. 
The  whole  world  is  one  thing,  if  men  are  immortal,  and  another  if  they  are  not. 
Guizot  shows,  you  remember,  that  society  is  the  means  and  mkn  is  the 
end  in  civilization,  because  man  is  immortal.  Laws  and  language  and  liter- 
ature and  government  and  economics,  are  the  things  they  are,  and  which  they 
are  coming  to  be  felt  to  be  in  the  newer  political  economy  and  sociology 
because  man  is  immortal.  Education  is  coming  to  have  its  own  true  sacred- 
ness  because  it  is  immortal  material  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  And  I  dare 
say  it  now  and  here,  that  no  man  is  fit  to  be  an  educator,  in  the  just  sense  of 
the  term,  who  so  fearfully  and  fatally  mistakes  the  nature  with  which  he  is  to 
deal,  as  to  deny  its  immortality.  Without  the  religious  life  as  allied  to  the 
supernatural,  I  do  not  believe  any  severe  morality  can  be  maintained  among 
men. 

Who  doubts  the  flexibility  of  religious  motives?  They  are  as  elastic 
as  the  atmosphere,  as  divisible  and  equally  constant  in  their  pressure. 
And  what  might  not  be  said,  what  is  not  every  pious  heart  saying,  of  the 
religious  life  as  containing  a  communion  with  God,  which  the  merely  moral 
life  —  alasl  —  either  ignores  or  denies. 

What  is  prayer  ?  The  outbreathing  of  innermost  life  into  the  closest 
contacts.  "Speak  to  him,"  for  spirit  with  spirit  may  meet.  "  He  is  closer 
than  breathing."  Prayer !  It  is  the  eloquence  of  the  need,  perceived  rather 
by  the  Infinite  Listener  than  by  the  soul  which  so  imperfectly  at  best  under- 
stands its  own  need.  Prayer !  It  is  the  sob  of  a  broken  heart  (whether  by 
sin  or  by  sorrow)  heard  by  God  and  hymned  by  angels. 

What  is  praise  ?  What  are  the  sacraments  ?  Public  worship  ;  church- 
fellowships  ?  Nothing  can  properly  express  the  importance  to  us,  of  the 
upward  extension  of  our  being  by  communion  with  God.  It  is  of  the  same 
range  with  outward  extension  of  the  religious  life  into  duty,  or  its  forward 
extensions  into  immortality. 

And  when  man's  whole  nature  is  considered  it  is  found  that  the  moral 
life  is  most  distinctly  related  to  the  intellectual  arid  volitional  activities  and 
is  deficient  on  the  emotional  side.  But  just  here  the  religious  life  is  full  and 
powerful.  Not  that  we  propose  to  accept  the  half-humorously  proposed 
distribution  of  the  soul  territory  which  would  give  the  intellect  to  science 
and  the  will  to  ethics  and  surrender  the  emotions  to  religion.  No,  sirs. 
Religion  will  not  forget  other  things,  but  she  does  accept  the  dominion  of 
the  heart. 

There  is  no  such  apostasy  in  religion  as  the  apostasy  from  love.  Now 
what  would  the   heart-life  of  the  race  become  without  religion?     Whither 


958  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINTH    DAY. 

should  we  go  without  the  mercy  of  God,  the  Father's  pity  ;  without  the 
boundless  compassion  of  a  dying  Christ?  To  what  utter  hardness  are  we  left 
by  law  and  morals  considered  only  in  themselves?  In  the  emotions  and 
affections  are  the  springs  of  action.  How  shall  the  world  do  its  work  with- 
out the  religious  life  to  cultivate  and  enlarge  them?  In  this  great  tract  of 
the  soul  lies  far  the  largest'  part  of  the  common  life  of  all  men.  How  shall 
it  be  made  the  source  of  happiness  it  ought  to  become?  Here  are  the 
materials  of  character.  How  is  Heaven  to  be  peopled  and  days  of  Heaven 
to  come  upon  the  earth  unless  the  strong  forces  of  religion  control  here? 
Men  are  stirred  to  their  best  deeds  and  wrought  to  their  best  permanent 
shapes  through  the  affections.  And  all  men  concede  to  the  religious  life 
special  power  in  the  emotional  tract. 

All  that  is  in  us,  then,  all  the  fundamental  departments  of  the  microcosm 
we  call  man  demand  the  religious  life.  The  intellect  reaches  its  highest 
principles  when  it  thinks\God's  thoughts  after  him,  and  finds  mind  every- 
where in  the  universe.  The  affections  and  emotions  find  their  true  objects 
in  divine  things,  and  from  these  run  out  exuberantly  and  beneficently  to  all 
human  needs.  The  will  finds  its  freedom  steadied  and  the  man  back  of  the 
will  certified  by  the  infinite  personality  of  God.  The  conscience  whispers 
approval  of  them  and  rebukes  us. .  The  spiritual  aspirations  find  their  true 
direction  only  in  the  religious  life.  How  much  of  man  is  denied  or  docked 
by  moral  ism? 

And  now  we  come  to  the  religious  life  as  concerned  with  sin. 

Here  we  find  the  distinguishing  element  of  Repentance,  which  has  no 
place  whatever  in  the  moral  life.  In  the  latter  there  may  be  regret  or 
remorse  (if  the  evil  consequences  of  sin  have  become  evident  or  have  gone 
beyond  our  power  to  arre'st).  But  the  religious  life  can  know  repentance. 
It  is  made  up  of  elements  which  do  not  appear  in  the  moral  life. 

Can  I  be  wrong  in  saying  that  the  moral  life  misses  the  greatest  pos- 
sible joy  of  man  when  it  fails  of  repentance?  Did  not  all  divine  interposi- 
tions in  the  world,  from  the  first  voice  to  Cain,  to  the  last  pleading  of  the 
risen  Christ  seek  to  awaken  it  ?  Does  not  the  tear  of  repentance  (as  in  Tom 
Moore's  exquisite  fiction)  move  the  crystal  bars  of  Paradise  ?  And  does  not 
every  true  act  of  repentance  awaken  the  praises  of  intelligent  spirits — sinless, 
themselves,  in  the  presence  of  God  ? 

This  evangelical  repentance  refreshes  the  whole  world  of  sin  by  its  real 
sorrow.  There  is  a  "repentance  unto  life,"  and  there  are  "fruits  meet  for 
repentance."  In  the  nature  and  fruits  of  it  is  'a  greater  thing  than  the 
merely  moral  man  can  ever  know. 

Hold  it  closely,  then,  this  distinguished  character  of  the  religious  life. 
The  forgiven  are  forgiving  ;  the  elder  son  is  implacable.  For  sinners  the 
religious  life  can  answer.  Ethics,  as  a  means  to  salvation,  must  be  left  to 
angels.  Repentance  is  moral  sanity.  It  is  the  truth  of  things.  It  sees  God's 
frown  and  seeks  his  favor.    It  stops  sinning.    It  puts  the  stoniest  barriers  in 


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960  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY.. 

the  way  of  sinning  again.  It  looks  to  what  we  must  be  as  well  as  to  what 
we  have  been.  It  bears  the  noblest  fruitage  in  a  hundred-fold  of  good  deeds, 
and  turns  blasphemers  into  apostles.     And  the  moralist  cannot  know  it. 

The  religious  life  is  sundered  wholly  from  the  moral  life  and  elevated 
above  it  by  the  initial  fact  of  Regeneration. 

Here  is  a  "  new  life  ""  indeed.  It  is  a  "  new  man  "  with  whom  we  have 
to  deal.  It  is  an  implanted  principle  which  goes  on  to  consequences  of 
greatest  moment  exactly  in  line  with  the  initial  impulse.  At  once  it  claims 
to  be  more  than  the  moral  life,  introducing  new  reasons  for  obedience  even 
to  what  was  obeyed  before  from  lower  considerations.  This  is  divine  energy 
received  into  the  almost  passive  soul  of  man,  but  lifting  it  into  a  permanent 
partaking  of  the  divine  life. 


HOW    CAN    PHILOSOPHY    AID    THE    SCIENCE    OF 

RELIGION? 

By  Prof.  J.  P.  Laxdis,  D.D.,  Ph.D.,  of  Dayton,  O. 

We  shall  have  to  begin  by  defining  the  terms  "  Science  of  Religion," 
and  "  Philosophy,"  and  determining  the  scope  of  both.  Schleiermacher 
defined  religion  as  "  a  sense  of  absolute  dependence."  But  it  includes  more 
than  this  feeling,  namely,  the  apprehension  of  a  supreme  or  at  least  super- 
ior being,  i,  <?.,  it  includes  knowledge, 

Even  in  the  feeling  itself  there  is  more  than  a  mere  sense  of  dependence, 
namely,  reverence,  fear,  love.  An  eminent  philosophical  Christian  writer 
says  :  "  Religion  is  the  union  of  man  with  God,  of  the  finite  with  the  I-nfin- 
ite,  expressed  in  conscious  love  and  reverence."  James  Freeman  Clark, 
seeking  for  a  simple  and  comprehensive  expression,  says ;  "  Religion  is 
the  tendency  in  man  to  worship  arid  serve  invisible  beings  like  himself,  but 
above  himself."  This  is  purposely  comprehensive,  so  that  it  may  include 
"Animism,"  "Fetichism,"  and  many  forms  of  Pantheism,  like  that  of  Spin- 
oza who  declared  that  we  must  "  love  God  as  our  supreme  good."  There 
have  been  and  there  are  many  religions,  and  however  much  they  may  differ 
in  other  respects  in  this  they  agree,  "  that  man  has  a  natural  faith  in 
supernatural  powers  with  whom  he  can  commune,  to  whom  he  is  related, 
and  that  this  life  and  this  earth  are  not  enough  to  satisfy  his  soul." 

What  is  science  ?  In  its  broadest  definition,  science  is  systematized 
knowledge.  This,  however,  implies  more  than  an  orderly  arrangement  of 
facts.  It  includes  the  discovery  of  the  principles  and  laws  which  underlie 
and  pervade  the  facts.  Science  seeks  to  reach  the  highest  principles,  those 
which  have  given  shape  and  character  to  the  facts,  and  among  these  princi- 
ples even  aspires  to  grasp  the  central  one,  so  as  to  give  rational  unity  to  the 


LANDIS:    PHILOSOPHY    AND    RELIGION.  96 1 

subject.  Now,  is  there,  or  may  there  be  a  Science  of  Religion  ?  It  is  a 
gratuitous  assumption  to  claim  that  there  is  no  science  but  natural  science. 
This  assumption  would  exclude  grammar,  rhetoric,  logic,  political  economy, 
ethics,  psychology,  and  even  mathematics.  The  truth  is'  there  are  various 
kinds  of  science,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  truth  to  be  investigated. 
"  Each  science,  "  says  Aristotle,  "  takes  cognizance  of  its  peculiar  truths." 
"  .\ny  facts,"  says  John  Stuart  Mill,  "  are  fitted,  in  themselves,  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  a  science,  which  follow  one  another  according  to  constant  laws ; 
although  those  laws  may  not  have  been  discovered,  nor  even  be  discover- 
able by  our  existing  resources."  The  religious  phenomena  of  the  world 
and  human  experience  are  just  as  real  as  any  with  which  physical  science 
has  to  deal.  In  the  sense  in  which  he  means  it,  James  Freeman  Clark  is 
right  when  he  says.  "  The  facts  of  consciousness  constitute  the  basis  of 
religious  science.  These  yar/^  are  as  real  and  as  constant  as  those  which 
are  perceived  through  the  senses.  Faith,  Hope,  and  Love  are  as  real  as 
form,  sound  and  color.  The  moral  laws  also,  which  may  be  deduced 
from  such  experience  are  real  and  permanent,  and  these  laws  can  be  veri- 
fied in  the  daily  course  of  human  life.  The  whole  realm  of  spiritual  exer- 
cises may  and  ought  \.o  be  carefully  examined,  analyzed  and  verified." 

To  construct  a  science  of  religion  requires  the  collocation  of  vast  his- 
torical data,  an  exhaustive  and  true  analysis  of  the  facts  of  consciousness  ; 
the  discovery  of  the  relations  of  these  facts  to  one  another,  of  the  principles 
which  underlie  and  pervade  them,  Jind  the  laws  by  which  they  are  gov- 
erned ;  and  the  logical  arrangement  or  systemization  of  these  elements  or 
data. 

The  science  of  religion  as  above  defined,  is  broader  than  systematic 
theology,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  by  Christians  ;  but  if  the  term 
theology  be  used  in  a  somewhat  Aristotelian  sense,  it  may  stand  to  desig- 
nate our  science  of  religion.  Pherecydes  and  Plato,  who  wrote  philo- 
sophically on  the  gods  and  their  relations  to  the  material  universe  and  to 
man,  were  called  theologians.  Aristotle  divided  all  speculative  science  into 
mathematical,  physical,  and  theological.  He  says,  "  There  is  another 
science  which  treats  of  that  which  is  immutable  and  transcendental,  if 
indeed  there  exists  such  a  substance,  as  we  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  there 
does.  This  transcendental  and  permanent  substance,  if  it  exist  at  all,  must 
surely  be  the  sphere  of  the  Divine — it  must  be  the  first  and  highest  prin- 
ciple." This  he  calls  theology.  But  it  is  still  better  to  take  the  phase  in 
the  broad  sense  as  oAoyos  rovOtov  kcll  Trepl  twv  OeioiV. 

What  is  the  scope  of  this  science  ?  Whatever  else  theology  or  the 
science  of  religion  must  consider,  the  three  most  prominent  subjects  must 
be,  first,  God,  his  being  and  attributes,  the  sources  of  our  idea  of  God,  proofs 
of  his  existence,  his  rulership  over  the  world,  etc.  Second.  Nature,  or  the 
works  of  God.  Third.  Man  in  his  relation  to  the  Deity.  The  fact  of  sin, 
its  nature,   and  consequences,   the  question    as   to  the  possibility  of  man's 

6( 


962  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINTH    DAY. 

recovery  from  sin,  and  man's  destiny  or  the  question  of  immortality  are  also 
prominent  subjects  for  consideration. 

Having  taken  a  glance  at  the  definition  and  scope  of  the  science  of 
religion,  let  us  do  the  same  for  philosophy.  Definitions  have  been  very 
various  from  the  days  of .  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  the  present  time.  With 
Aristotle  philosophy  is  the  systematic  and  critical  knowledge  of  the  first  or 
ultimate  principles  of  being,  essentially  what  now  is  usually  called  meta- 
physics or  ontology.  Herbert  Spencer  calls  it  "  knowledge  of  the  highest 
degree  of  generality,"  and  adds,  "  Science  is  partially  unified  knowledge  ; 
philosophy  is  completely  unified  knowledge." 

Philosophy  strives  to  comprehend  in  unity  and  to  understand  the  ground 
and  causes  of  all  reality.  This  necessarily  includes  life  in  all  its  aspects  and 
relations.  I  should  give  the  scope  of  philosophical  inquiry,  or  the  Philosophical 
Encyclopedia,  as  follows  :  Metaphysics  or  ontology,  psychology,  logic,  ethics, 
religion,  aesthetics,  politics.  These  divisions  partly  overlap  one  another.  Oa 
comparing  the  scope  of  both  the  science  of  religion  and  philosophy,  it  is 
seen  that  in  part  they  cover  the  same  ground.  The  two  disciplines  may  be 
represented  by  two  intersecting  circles,  the  space  included  within  each  of  the 
circles  being  in  part  the  same.  The  ultimate  objects  about  which  they  both 
treat  are  God,  nature,  and  man.  The  relations  of  philosophy  therefore,  to  the 
science  of  religion  are  of  necessity  very  intimate.  We  can  not  separate  them 
entirely,  try  we  never  so  hard.  While  the  ultimate  aim  of  religion  is  practi- 
cal, and  that  of  philosophy  speculative,  no  serious  or  thoughtful  mind  can 
rest  in  the  contemplation  of  the  practical  or  ultilitarian  elements  of  religion. 
Moreover,  when  the  speculative  or  rational  elements  in  religion  everywhere 
underlie  the  practical,  religion  must  meet  the  demands  of  the  intellect  as 
well  as  of  the  heart,  that  is,  religion  must  be  rational.  But  the  consideration 
of  these  rational  elements  brings  her  within  the  domain  of  philosophy. 
Rational  theology  is  indeed  a  part  of  philosophy. 

What  is  the  material  and  formal  aid  of  philosophy  to  the  science  of  reli- 
gion ?  Man  finds  himself  to  be  a  religious  being.  He  has  a  sense  of  depen- 
dence on  a  superior  being.  There  are,  we  may  say,  deposits  in  his  feelings 
themselves  which  are  peculiar  and  may  turn  out  to  be  very  significant  and 
lead  to  the  discovery  of  very  important  truths.  There  are  in  all  men  certain 
spontaneous  religious  beliefs.  But  as  man  advances  in  intellectual  growth 
and  in  intelligence  he  begins  to  reflect  on  these  phenomena.  He  will  ask 
into  the  meaning  and  ground  of  these  feelings,  and  the  significance  of  his 
beliefs.  He  will  necessarily  inquire  how  far  these  feelings  and  beliefs  are 
justifiable,  whether  they  are  mere  fancies  of  the  imagination,  or  grounded  in 
realities  and  supported  by  reason,  and  how  far  they  involve  real  knowledge. 
He  believes  in  God.  Have  we  any  true  or  real  knowledge  of  such  a  being, 
if  he  exists  ?  What  are  the  sources  of  this  knowledge  ?  How  far  may  we 
know  him,  and  of  what  character  is  our  knowledge  of  him  ?  These  are  all 
({uestions  which    must   be   answered,  if  there  is  to  be   any  such  thing  as 


LANDIS:    PHILOSOPHY   AND    RELIGION.     '  963 

scientific  theology  or  a  science  of  religion  at  all.  But  all  these  are  also 
questions  of  philosophy.  The  attempt  to  answer  these  questions,  if  we  are 
not  willing  to  be  content  with  a  very  partial  and  unscientific  inquiry,  will 
necessarily  conduct  to  others  which  will  land  us  in  the  very  profoundest 
depths  of  human  thought,  in  the  very  realm  of  inquiry  in  which  philosophy 
as  such  lives  and  has  its  being. 

As  m  the  case  of  other  subjects,  religion  must  come  to  philosophy  to 
settle  for  it  all  the  problems  which  are  purely  rational.  Many  of  the 
objects  of  religion,  of  ail  the  great  religions  at  least,  are  usually  historical, 
given  in  sacred  books  or  traditions,  yet  every  religion  which  ignores  philo- 
sophy is  extremely  liable  to  superstition  and  fanaticism.  The  sources  of 
materials  for  the  science  of  religion,  as  of  the  Christian  religion,  are 
partly  historical  and  partly  philosophical.  Of  the  historical,  the  primary 
source  is  the  sacred  books ;  the  materials  yielded  by  philosophy  may,  on 
the  other  hand,  be  called  fundamental. 

Philosophy  must  furnish  the  ultimate  data,  the  basal  truths,  though  not 
the  historical  facts,  upon  which  a  great  part  of  religious  doctrine  rests. 
Natural  Theology  is  constantly  assuming  a  more  metaphysical  or  philosoph- 
ical character. 

I.  The  Existence  of  God.  The  sacred  books,  as  the  Bible  of  the  Jews 
and  Christians,  proceed  upon  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of  a  Divine 
Being.  If  there  is  no  such  being,  there  is  no  religion.  The  question,  then, 
which  at  once  confronts  us  in  inquiring  into  the  reality  of  religion  itself 
relates  to  the  existence  of  God.  This  is  the  fundamental  question,  but  it  is 
philosophical  in  its  nature  and  its  solution  belongs  to  the  realm  of  philoso- 
phy. Whence  is  our  conviction  of  the  existence  of  God  ?  It  is  not  my 
purpose  to  enter  further  into  this  question  than  to  show  its  relation  to  phil- 
osophy, that  the  answer  must  come  from  philosophy.  Some  say  the  knowl- 
edge or  the  conviction  of  the  existence  of  God  is  innate,  and  that  it  cannot 
be  proved,  as  Dr.  Calderwood ;  others  as  Prof.  Flint  in  his  Theism,  and  Dr. 
Caird  in  his  Philosophy  of  Religion,  and  Dr.  Knapp,  hold  that  it  is  not 
at  all  innate,  but  is  a  matter  of  proof ;  others  still  hold  that  it  is  a  matter  of 
revelation;  while  still  others  maintain  that  it  is  both  innate  and  the  subject 
of  proof.  Kant  held  that  metaphysics  can  neither  prove  nor  disprove  the 
existence  of  God.  Dr.  McCosh  does  not  admit  that  we  have  an  intuitive 
knowledge  of  God,  but  that  "  our  intuitions,  like  the  works  of  nature,  carry 
us  up  to  God,  their  author."  Yet  he  says  :  "The  idea  of  God,  the  belief 
in  God,  may  be  justly  represented  as  native  to  man."  Many 'writers  go  so 
far  as  to  speak  of  a  God-consciousness.  Prof.  Fishet  says  :  "We  are  con- 
scious of  God  in  a  more  intimate  sense  than  we  are  conscious  of  finite  things." 
Prof.  Luthardt  of  Leipzig  says  :  "Consciousness  of  God  is  as  essential  an 
element  of  our  mind  as  consciousness  of  the  world  or  self-consciousness." 
The  names  of  many  other  writers,  philosophical  and  theological,  who  teach 
that   the  idea  of  God   is  innate,  might  be  added,  such  as   Descartes,  Dr. 


964        '         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

Julius  Miiller,  Prof.  Dr.  Dorner,  Prof.  Bowen  of  Harvard  University,  Prof. 
Harris  of  Yale  University.  Dr.  McCosh  says :  "Among  metaphysicians 
of  tlie  present  day  it  is  a  very  common  opinion  that  our  belief  in  God  is 
innate."  Their  doctrine  may  be  expressed  thus  :  We  have  an  intuitive,  nec- 
essary belief  in  the  Divine  existence.  But  belief  implies  knowledge  more 
or  less  clear ;  "  necessary  belief  involves  necessary  cognition."  Hence, 
God  as  the  object  of  our  intuitive  belief,  becomes,  in  some  sense,  the  object  of 
intuitive  knowledge.  This  knowledge  may  be  exceedingly  dim,  requiring 
to  be  brought  up  into  clearer  consciousness  and  developed  by  observation 
and  reflection,  upon  the  psychological  principle  so  w^ell  stated  by  Sir  Will- 
iam Hamilton:  "The  notions  or  cognitions  which  are  primitive  facts  are 
given  us ;  they  are  not  indeed  obtrusive,  they  are  not  even  cognizable  of 
themselves.  They  lie  hid  in  the  profundities  of  the  mind  until  drawn  from 
their  obscurity  by  the  mental  activity  itself  employed  upon  the  materials  of 
experience."  They  belong  to  the  natural  furniture  of  the  mind,  and  when 
called  into  consciousness  by  the  appropriate  occasions,  they  have  all  the 
force  and  authority  of  self-evident  truths.  For  instance  :  («)  .If  one  ask  for 
an  explanation  of  finite  existence,  "  the  belief  in  the  One  Infinite  Being  "  at 
once  and  intuitively  presents  itself.  {l>)  Especially  let  the  conscience  be 
fully  roused,  and  the  idea  of  a  Divine  Being  instantly  appears,  it  may  be 
with  fearful  force  and  authority.  Says  Luthardt :  "  There  is  nothing  of 
■which  man  has  so  intuitive  a  conception  as  he  has  of  the  existence  of  God." 
"  We  can  by  no  means  free  ourselves  from  the  notion  of  God."  The  emi- 
nent Max  Miiller  puts  the  statement  thus  :  "As  soon  as  man  becomes  con- 
scious of  himself  as  distinct  from  all  other  things  and  persons,  he  at  the 
same  time  becomes  conscious  of  a  higher  self ;  a  power  without  which  he 
feels  that  neither  he  nor  anything  else  would  have  any  life  or  reality.  This 
is  the  first  sense  of  the  godhea.d,sensus  nttmtnisz.s  it  has  been  called  ;  for  it  is 
a  sensus,  an  immediate  perception,  not  the  result  of  reasoning  or  of  general- 
izing, but  an  intuition  as  irreversible  as  the  impression  of  our  senses.  This 
sensus  numinis  is  the  source  of  all  religion.  It  is  that  without  which  no 
religion,  true  or  false,  is  possible." 

When  objections  are  raised  to  this  doctrine  the  examination  of  its 
validity  can  be  determined  only  within  the  field  of  philosophy.  This  is 
done  by  appealing  to  the  criteria  of  intuition,  (i)  It  is  said  to  be  necessary. 
It  is  necessary  to  our  nature,  so  that,  when  the  problem  is  put  before  the 
mind,  the  opposite  can  not  be  believed.  Its  denial  does  violence  to  our 
whole  nature,  and  is  forced.  As  soon  as  the  laws  of  nature  act  unrestrained, 
the  belief  in  Deity  asserts  itself.  It  is  necessary  somewhat  in  the  same  sense 
as  our  conviction  of  the  moral  law,  or  of  right,  is  necessary, — we  can  not  rid 
ourselves  of  it.  This  is  not  disproved  by  the  fact  that  some  men  have 
doubted  the  existence  of  God.  Men  may  do  violence  to  their  mental  con- 
stitution, either  by  wrong  metaphysics  or  by  sin.  A  man  may  so  cauterize 
his  hand  that  he  loses  the  sense  of  touch.     Men  may  have  been  born  blind 


REV.  JAMES  RRAND. 
MAFIOMMKU  K.  A.  WKIII'., 
I'ROK.  WALDO  S.  PRATT. 


PROF.  C.  H.  TOY. 

RKV  11;  \  c.  iiri.r[\. 

Ki:V.  H.  KAV   MILLS. 


966  PARLlAMDNr    I'Al'LRS:    NINTH    DAY. 

or  deaf,  but  this  does  not  prove  that  sight  and  hearing  are  not  native  to 
man.  Some  have  doubted  whether  there  is  an  external  world  at  all,  as 
Bishop  Berkeley ;  others,  whether  there  is  any  such  a  thing  as  spirit,  as 
Auguste  Comte.  Some  have  denied  the  reality  of  the  moral  law,  but  all 
the  world  believes  in  the  existence  of  spiritual  natures  and  the  reality  of  the 
material  world,  in  spite  of  metaphysical  subtleties  and  learned  arguments. 
(2)  This  belief  in  a  divine  being  is  universal  ;  /.  e.,  (a)  It  is  held  in  some 
forms  by  all  nations,  tribes  and  tongues.  The  claim  has  in  a  few  instances 
been  set  up  that  some  small  tribes  have  been  discovered  who  had  no  idea 
whatever  of  God,  but  when  the  case  was  narrowly  inquired  into,  the  state- 
ment was  found  to  be  incorrect.  Even  Prof.  De  Quatrefages,  professor  of 
anthropology  in  unbelieving  Paris,  writes  :  "  Obliged  in  the  course  of  my 
investigation  to  review  all  races,  I  have  sought  atheism  in  the  lowest  as 
well  as  the  highest.  I  have  nowhere  met  it  except  ia  individuals,  or  in 
more  or  less  limited  schools,  such  as  those  which  existed  in  Europe  in  the  last 
century  or  which  may  still  be  seen  at  the  present  day." 

The  statement  of  the  doctrine  above,  namely,  that  this  is  in  the  first 
instance  an  intuitive  belief,  which  however  involves  knowledge,  also  leads 
to  the  question  as  to  the  relation  of  faith  and  knowledge,  a  question  which 
has  been  much  discussed  ever  since  the  days  of  Origen.  He  uttered  the 
dictum, yfaVj  pracepit  intellectum.  This  was  also  held  by  Augustine,  Anselm 
Calvin,  Pascal,  Anselm's  motto  was.  Credo  ut  intelligam.  The  doctrine 
thus  expressed  by  these  eminent  thinkers  has  been  much  discussed  by  phil- 
osophers and  theologians,  but  its  solution  belongs  to  the  domain  of  philoso- 
phy. 1  need  only  mention  Calderwood,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Victor 
Cousin,  Schleiermacher,  Jacobi,  Christlieb. 

3.  But,  in  the  next  place,  can  the  existence  of  God  be  proved  ?  Or  do 
we  rest  solely  on  this  innate  conviction  ?  This  were  really  sufficient ;  but 
in  addition  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  cumulative  proof  which  is  as  a  large 
reserve  to  support  the  inner  conviction.  Some  writers,  as  Jacobi,  Kant, 
Hartmann,  Dr.  Calderwood,  Lotze,  disparage  these  so-called  proofs  ;  but  the 
mass  of  theists,  from  Socrates  to  the  present  time,  both  philosophers  and 
theologians,  have  acknowledged  them  to  be  valid  and  of  great  service. 

The  well-known  classification  of  these  proofs  is  into  the  ontological, 
the  cosmological,  teleological,  and  the  anthropological.  Without  discussing 
these,  the  mere  statement  of  them  itself  will  determine  their  character  as 
philosophical.  The  determination  of  their  validity  and  force  belongs  to 
philosophy. 

I.  The  ontological  argument  is  purely  metaphysical.  Anselm  was  the 
first  to  put  into  form,  Descartes  constructed  another,  and  after  him  Dr. 
Samuel  Clarke,  and  still  later,  Victor  Cousin.  Anselm's  argument  is  in 
substance  this :  That  which  exists  in  reality  is  greater  than  that  which 
exists  only  in  the  mind.  There  exists  in  the  human  intellect  the  conception 
of  an  infinitely  perfect  being.     In  infinite  perfection,  necessary  existence  is 


LANDIS:   PHILOSOPHY   AND    RELIGION.  967 

included;  necessary  existence  implies  actual  existence,  for  if  it  must  be  it  is. 
If  the  perfect  Being  of  whom  we  have  conception  does  not  exist  we  can  con- 
ceive of  one  still  more  perfect,  i.  e.,  of  one  who  does  of  necessity  exist. 
Therefore,  necessity  of  being  belongs  to  perfection  of  being.  Hence  an  abso- 
lutely perfect  being  exists,  which  is  God.  Gaunilo,  a  contemporary  of  Anselm, 
sought  to  show  that  there  is  a  paralogism  in  this  argument.  We  have,  for 
instance,  an  idea  of  a  centaur,  but  this  does  not  prove  that  a  centaur  ever 
existed.  Indeed  this  argument,  it  is  sometimes  said,  is  now  not  much  in 
repute.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find  the  essence  of  it,  in  Plato;  hints  of  it 
in  Aristotle,  Athanasius,  Augustine,  and  Bcethius.  Anselm  first  developed 
it.  Descartes  adopted  it  with  some  changes.  Leibnitz  followed.  The 
great  theologians,  Cudworth,  Stillingfleet,  Howe  and  Henry  More  adopted 
it  in  their  debates  with  the  infidelity  of  their  time.  Cousin  developed  still 
another  form  of  it.  Validity  is  allowed  to  it  by  Luthardt,  Dr.  Dorner, 
Henry  B.  Smith,  Dr.  Caird,  Prof.  Shedd,  Ulrici,  .Thompson,  Tulloch  and 
others.  John  Stuart  Mill  advised  theologians  to  adhere  to  it.  Yet  it  has 
been  vehemently  attacked  in  our  times.  Kant,  although  he  professed 
respect  for  it,  regarded  it  as  inadequate,  and  so  does  Herman  Lotze,  both  in 
his  Microcosmus  and  Religions- Philosophic.  John  Stuart  Mill,  on  the  other 
hand,  says,  "  I  think  it  must  be  allowed  that  in  our  present  state  of  knowl- 
edge, the  adaptations- of  nature  afford  a  large  balance  of  probability  in 
favor  of  creation  by  intelligence.."  Janet's  Final  Causes  is  an  admirable 
exposition  of  the  subject.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  moral  proof  is  not 
mathematical  demonstration ;  that  no  one  line  of  argument  is  to  be  taken 
by  itself  alone  ;  that  taken  together,  the  ontological,  the  cosmological,  the 
teleological  and  the  anthropological  arguments  are  like  so  many  converging 
lines  all  pointing  toward,  even  if  they  do  not  in  strict  demonstration  reach, 
the  common  centre — God.  Dr.  Carpenter  speaks  of  some  departments  of 
science  "  in  which  our  conclusions  rest,  not  on  any  one  set  of  experiences, 
but  upon  our  unconscious  coordination  of  the  whole  aggregate  of  our  experi- 
ence; not  on  conclusions  of  any  one  train  of  reasoning,  but  on  the  conver- 
gence of  all  our  lines  of  thought  toward  one  center." 

4.  In  connection  with  these  arguments  philosophy  must  explain  the 
meanmg  and  vindicate  the  reality  of  Cause. 

5.  Religion  says  God  is  infinite  and  absolute.  But  can  the  infinite  and 
absolute  be  known  by  the  finite  ?  Can  there  be  any  relation  between  the 
absolute  and  the  finite  ?  This  is  an  important  question  for  religion,  but 
philosophy  must  give  us  the  solution,  if  a  solution  is  possible.  Says  Herbert 
Spencer  in  his  First  Principles  ;  "The  axiomatic  truths  of  physical  science 
unavoidedly  postulate  absolute  being  as  their  common  basis.  The  persistence 
of  the  universe  is  the  persistence  of  that  unknown  cause,  power,  or  force 
which  is  manifested  to  us  through  all  phenomena.  Such  is  the  foundation 
of  any  system  of  positive  knowledge.  Thus  the  belief  which  this  datum  con- 
stitutes has  a  higher  warrant  than  any  other  whatever."  He  is  here  sub- 
stantially on  Aristotelian  ground. 


96g 


PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINTH    DAY. 


6.  Again :  Can  personality  bo  postulated  of  the  infinite  or  absolute  ? 
Philosophy  must  both  explain  personality  and  how  this  can  be  consistent 
with  the  infinite  and  absolute. 

The  deepest  revelation  of  consciousness,  is  the  ego  and  the  non-ego.  In 
consciousness  we  become  aware  at  once  of  self,  a  modification  of  self,  which 
is  a  mental  state  or  act,  and  the  not-self.  We  find  here  sensations,  percep- 
tions, memories,  imaginations,  beliefs,  volitions,  etc.,  but  in  connection  with 
each  and  all  of  these  is  also  invariably  given  the  self,  and  its  antithesis,  the 
not-self. 

This  conscious  self  thus  experiencing  or  exercising  sensations,  judgments, 
volitions,  is  what  we  call  a  person.  If  we  should  here  adopt  the  theory  of 
James  Mill  and  his  son  John  Stuart, that  self  is  only  a  "permanent  possibility 
of  feeling,"  all  proper  notion  of  self-hood  or  personality  vanishes.  The  self, 
with  these  powers  of  thought,  feeling  and  self-determination,  we  call  a  spirit. 
From  consciousness  then  we  have  the  idea  of  spirit,  and  are  prepared  to  under- 
stand the  doctrine,  "  God  is  Spirit ;"  and  a  knowledge  of  our  own  personality 
prepares  us  for  the  idea  of  the  personality  of  God,  As  Dr.  Fisher  truly  says  : 
"  Belief  in  the  personality  of  man,  and  belief  in  the  personality  of  God,  stand 
or  fall  together." 


HINDUISM. 

By  SWAMI  ViVEKANANDA. 


Three  religions  stand  now  in  the  world  which  have  come  down  to  us 
from  time  pre-historic  —  Hinduism,  Zoroastrianism,  and  Judaism. 

They  all  have  received  tremendous  shocks  and  all  of  them  prove  by 
their  survival  their  internal  strength ;  but  while  Judaism  failed  to  absorb 
Christianity,  and  was  driven  out  of  its  place  of  birth  by  its  all-conquering 
daughter,  and  a  handful  of  Parsees,  are  all  that  remains  to  tell  the  tale  of  his 
grand  religion,  sect  after  sect  have  arisen  in  India  and  seemed  to  shake 
the  religion  of  the  Vedas  to  its  very  foundation,  but  like  the  waters  of  the 
seashore  in  a  tremendous  earthquake,  it  receded  only  for  a  while,  only  to 
return  in  an  all-absorbing  flood,  a  thousand  times  more  vigorous,  and  when 
the  tumult  of  the  rush  was  over,  they  have  been  all  sucked  in,  absorbed  and 
assimilated  in  the  immense  body  of  another  faith. 

From  the  high  spiritual  flights  of  Vedantic  philosophy,  of  which  the 
latest  discoveries  of  science  seem  like  the  echoes,  the  agnosticism  of  the 
Buddhas,  the  atheism  of  the  Jains,  and  the  low  ideas  of  idolatry  with  the 
multifarious  mythology,  each  and  all  have  a  place  in  the  Hindu's  religion. 

Where  then,  the  question  arises,  where  is  the  common  center  to  which 
all  these  widely  diverging  radii  converge ;  where  is  the  common  basis  upon 
Coyprighe,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


VIVEKANANDA:    HINDUISM.  9^9 

whicli  all  tliese  seemingly  hopeless  contradictions  rest?  And  this  is  the 
question  I  shall  attempt  to  answer. 

The  Hindus  have  received  their  religion  through  their  revelation,  the 
V'edas.  They  hold  that  the  Vedas  are  without  beginning  and  without  end. 
It  mav  sound  ludicrous  to  this  audience,  how  a  book  can  be  without  begin- 
ning or  end.  But  by  the  Vedas  no  books  are  meant.  They  mean  the 
accumulated  treasury  of  spiritual  law  discovered  by  different  persons  in  dif- 
ferent times.  Just  as  the  law  of  gravitation  existed  before  its  discovery,  and 
would  exist  if  all  humanity  forgot  it,  so  with  the  laws  that  govern  the 
spiritual  world.  The  moral,  ethical  and  spiritual  relation  between  soul  and 
souls  and  between  individual  spirits  and  the  Father  of  all  spirits  were  there 
before  their  discovery  and  would  remain  even  if  we  forgot  them. 

The  discoverers  of  these  laws  are  called  Rishis,  and  we  honor  them  as 
perfected  beings,  and  I  am  glad  to  tell  this  audience  that  some  of  the  very 
best  of  them  were  women. 

Here  it  may  be  ,said  that  the  laws  as  laws  may  be  without  end,  but 
they  must  have  had  a  beginning.  The  Vedas  teach  us  that  creation  is 
without  beginning  or  end.  Science  has  proved  to  us  that  the  sum  total  of 
the  cosmic  energy  is  the  same  throughout  all.  Then  if  there  was  a  time 
when  nothing  existed,  where  was  all  this  manifested  energy  ?  Some  say 
it  was  in  a  potential  form  in  God.  But  then  God  is  sometimes  potential 
and  sometimes  kinetic,  which  would  make  him  mutable,  and  everything 
mutable  is  a  compound,  and  everything  compound  must  undergo  that 
change  which  is  called  destruction.  Therefore  God  would  die.  Therefore 
there  never  was  a  time  when  there  was  no  creation.  If  I  may  be  allowed 
to  apply  a  simile,  creation  and  creator  are  two  lives,  without  beginning 
and  without  end,  running  parallel  to  each  other,  and  God  is  power,  an  ever- 
active  providence,  under  whose  power  systems  after  systems  are  being 
evolved  out  of  chaos,  —  made  to  run  for  a  time  and  again  destroyed.  This 
is  what  the  Hindu  boy  repeats  every  day  with  his  guru:  "  The  sun  and 
the  moon,  the  Lord  created  after  other  suns  and  moons."  And  this 
agrees  with  science. 

Here  I  stand,  and  if  I  shut  my  eyes  and  try  to  conceive  my  existence, 
I,  I.  I — what  is  the  idea  before  me  ?  The  idea  of  a  body.  Am  I,  then, 
nothing  but  a  combination  of  matter  and  material  substances  ?  The  Vedas 
tleclare  "  No,"  I  am  a  spirit  living  in  a  body.  I  am  not  the  body.  The 
body  will  die,  but  I  will  not  die.  Here  am  I  in  this  body,  and  when  it  will 
fail,  still  I  will  go  on  living,  and  also  I  had  a  past.  The  soul  was  not  cre- 
ated from  nothing,  for  creation  means  a  combination,  and  that  means  a  cer- 
tain future  dissolution.  If,  then,  the  soul  was  created,  it  must  die.  There- 
fore it  was  not  created.  Some  are  born  happy,  enjoying  perfect  health, 
beautiful  body,  mental  vigor,  and  with  all  wants  supplied.  Others  are 
born  miserable  ;  some  are  without  hands  or  feet,  some  idiots,  and  only  drag 
on  a  miserable  existence.     Why,  if  they  are  all  created,  does  a  just  and 


970  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINTH    DAY. 

merciful  God  create  one  happy  and  the  other  unhappy  —  wliy  is  he  so  par- 
tial ?  Nor  would  it  mend  matters  in  the  least  by  holding  that  those  that 
are  miserable  in  this  life  wdl  be  perfect  in  a  future.  Why  should  a  man  be 
miserable  here  in  the  reign  of  a  just  and  merciful  God  ?  In  the  second 
place,  it  does  not  give  us  any  cause,  but  simply  a  cruel  act  of  an  all-power- 
ful being,  and  therefore  uftscientific.  There  must  have  been  causes,  then, 
to  make  a  man  miserable  or  happy  before  his  birth,  and  those  were  his  past 
actions.  Are  not  all  the  tendencies  of  the  mind  and  those  of  the  body 
answered  for  by  inherited  aptitude  from  parents  ?  Here  are  the  two  par- 
allel lines  of  existence — one  that  of  the  mind,  the  other  that  of  matter.  If 
matter  and  its  transformation  answer  for  all  that  we  have,  there  is  no  neces- 
sity of  supposing  the  existence  of  a  soul.  But  it  cannot  be  proved  that 
thought  has  been  evolved  out  of  matter,  and  if  a  philosophical  monism  is 
inevitable,  a  spiritual  monism  is  certainly  logical  and  no  less  desirable, 
but  neither  of  these  is  necessary  here. 

We  cannot  deny  that  bodies  inherit  certain  tendencies  from  heredity, 
but  these  tendencies  only  mean  the  secular  configuration,  through  which  a 
peculiar  mind  alone  can  act  in  a  peculiar  way.  The  cause  of  those  pecu- 
liar tendencies  in  that  soul  have  been  caused  by  his  past  actions,  and  a  soul 
with  a  certain  tendency  would  go  and  take  birth  in  a  body  which  is  the 
fittest  instrument  of  the  display  of  that  tendency  by  the  laws'of  affinity. 
And  this  is  in  perfect  accord  with  science,  for  science  wants  to  explain 
everything  by  habit,  and  habit  is  got  through  repetitions.  So  these  repeti- 
tions are  also  necessary  to  explain  the  natural  habits  of  a  new-born  soul  — 
and  they  were  not  got  in  this  present  life  ;  therefore  they  must  have  come 
down  from  past  lives. 

But  there  is  another  suggestion ;  taking  all  these  for  granted,  how  Is  it 
that  I  do  not  remember  anything  of  my  past  life  ?  This  can  be  easily 
explained.  I  am  now  speaking  English.  It  is  not  my  mother  tongue,  in 
fact  no  words  of  my  mother  tongue  are  present  in  my  consciousness,  but 
let  me  try  to  bring  them  up,  they  rush  into  my  consciousness.  That  shows 
that  consciousness  is  the  name  only  of  the  surface  of  the  mental  ocean,  and 
within  its  depths  is  stored  up  all  our  experiences.  Try  and  struggle  and 
they  will  come  up  and  you  would  be  conscious. 

This  is  the  direct  and  demonstrative  evidence.  Verification  is  the 
perfect  proof  of  a  theory  and  here  is  the  challenge,  thrown  to  the  world  by 
the  Rishis.  We  have  discovered  precepts  by  which  the  very  depths  of  the 
ocean  of  memory  can  be  stirred  up  —  try  it  and  you  would  get  a  complete 
reminiscence  of  your  past  life. 

So  then  the  Hindu  believes  that  he  is  a  spirit. 

Him  the  sword  cannot  pierce — him  the  fire  cannot  burn — him  the 
water  cannot  melt — him  the  air  cannot  dry.  And  that  every  soul  is  a  circle 
whose  circumference  is  nowhere,  but  whose  center  is  located  in  a  body,  and 
death  means  the  change  of  this  center  from  body  to  body.     Nor  is  the  soul 


VIVEKANANDA:    HINDUISM.  9/1 

bound  by  the  conditions  of  matter.  In  its  very  essence,  it  is  free,  unbounded, 
holy  and  pure  and  perfect.  But  some  how  or  other  it  has  got  itself  bound  down 
by  matter,  and  thinks  itself  as  matter?  Why  should  the  free,  perfect  and 
pure  being  be  under  the  thraldom  of  matter,  is  the  next  question.  How 
can  the  perfect  be  deluded  into  the  belief  that  he  is  imperfect,  is  the  ques- 
tion. We  Have  been  told  that  the  Hindus  shirk  the  question  and  say  that 
no  such  question  can  be  there,  and  some  thinkers  want  to  answer  it  by  the 
posing  of  one  or  more  quasi  perfect  beings,  and  big  scientific  names  to  fill 
up  the  gap.  ^  But  naming  is  not  explaining.  The  question  remains  the 
same.  How  the  perfect  becomes  the  quasi  perfect ;  how  can  the  pure,  the 
absolute,  change  even  a  microscopic  particle  of  its  nature  ?  But  the  Hindu 
is  more  sincere.  He  does  not  want  to  take  shelter  under  sophistry.  He  is 
brave  enough  to  face  the  question  in  a  manly  fashion.  And  his  answer  is, 
I  do  not  know.  I  do  not  know  how  the  perfect  being,  the  soul  came  to 
think  itself  as  imperfect,  as  joined  to  and  conditioned  by  matter.  But  the 
fact  is  a  fact  for  all  that.  It  is  a  fact  in  everybody's  consciousness  that  he 
thinks  himself  as  the  body.  We  do  not  attempt  to  explain  why  I  am  in 
this  body.  The  answer  that  it  is  the  will  of  God,  is  no  explanation.  It  is 
nothing  more  than  what  they  say  themselves.     "We  do  not  know." 

Well,  then,  the  human  soul  is  eternal  and  immortal,  perfect  and  infinite, 
and  death  means  only  a  change  of  center  from  one  body  to  another. 
The  present  is  determined  by  our  past  actions,  and  the  future  will  be  by 
the  present;  that  it  will  go  on  evolving  up  or  reverting  back  from  birth  to 
birth  and  death  to  death.  But  here  is  another  question ;  is  man  a  tiny  boat  in 
a  tempest,  raised  one  moment  on  the  foaming  crest  of  a  billow  and  dashed 
down  into  a  yawning  chasm  the  next,  rolling  to  and  fro  at  the  mercy  of 
good  and  bad  actions — a  powerless,  helpless  wreck  in  an  ever-raging,  ever- 
rushing,  uncompromising  current  of  cause  and  effect  —  a  little  moth  placed 
under  the  wheel  of  causation,  which  rolls  on  crushing  everything  in  its  way, 
and  waits  not  for  the  widows'  tears  or  the  orphans'  cry?  The  heart  sinks  at 
the  idea,  yet  this  is  the  law  of  nature.  Is  there  no  hope  ?  Is  there  no  escape  ? 
was  the  cry  that  went  up  from  the  bottom  of  the  heart  of  despair.  It  reached 
the  throne  of  mercy,  and  words  of  hope  and  consolation  came  down  and 
inspired  a  Vedic  sage,  and  he  stood  up  before  the  world  and  in  trumpet  voice 
proclaimed  the  glad  tidings  to  the  world.  "  Hear  ye  children  of  immortal  bliss, 
even  ye  that  reside  In  higher  spheres.  I  have  found  the  Ancient  One,  who  is 
beyond  all  darkness,  all  delusion,  and  knowing  him  alone  you  shall  be  saved 
from  death  over  again.  Children  of  immortal  bliss,  what  a  sweet, .what  a 
hopeful  name."  Allow  me  to  call  you,  brethren,  by  that  sweet  name,  heirs  of 
immortal  bliss — yea,  the  Hindu  refuses  to  call  you  sinners.  Ye  are  the 
children  of  God,  the  sharers  of  immortal  bliss,  holy  and  perfect  beings,  ye  are 
divinities  on  earth.  Sinners?  It  is  a  sin  to  call  a  man  so ;  it  is  a  standing 
libel  on  human  nature.  Come  up.  Oh,  live  and  shake  off  the  delusion  that 
you  are  sheep ;  you  are  souls  immortal,  spirits  free  and  blest  and  eternal ;  ye 


97^  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

are  not  matter,  ye  are  not  bodies  ;  matter  is  your  servant,  not  you  the  servant 
of  matter. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  Vedas  proclaim  not  a  dreadful  combination  of  unfor- 
giving lavt^s,  not  an  endless  prison  of  cause  and  effect,  but  that  at  the  head  of 
all  these  laws,  in  and  through  every  particle  of  matter  and  force,  stands  one 
through  whose  command  the  wind  blows,  the  fire  bums,  the  clouds  rain,  and 
death  stalks  upon  the  earth.     And  what  is  his  nature  ? 

He  is  everywhere  the  pure  and  formless  one.  The  Almighty  and  the 
All-merciful.  "Thou  art  our  father,  thou  art  our  mother;  thou  art  our 
beloved  friend  ;  thou  art  the  source  of  all  strength  ;  give  us  strength.  Thou 
art  he  that  bearest  the  burdens  of  the  universe :  help  me  bear  the  little  bur- 
den of  this  life."  Thus  sang  the  Rishis  of  the  Veda ;  and  how  to  worship 
him — through  love.  "  He  is  to  be  worshiped  as  the  one  beloved,"  "  dearer 
than  everything  in  this  and  the  next  life." 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  love  preached  in  the  Vedas,  and  let  us  see  how 
it  is  fully  developed  and  preached  by  Krishna,  whom  the  Hindus  believe  to 
to  have  been  God  inckmate  on-earth. 

He  taught  thaTaTnan  ought  to  live  in  this  world  like  a  lotus  leaf,  which 
grows  in  water  but  is  never  moistened  by  water — so  a  man  ought  to  live  in 
this  world — his  heart  to  God  and  his  hands  to  work.  It  is  good  to  love  God 
for  hope  of  reward  in  this  or  the  next  world,  bat  it  is  better  to  love  God  for 
love's  sake,  and  the  prayer  goes:  "Lord,  I  do  not  want  wealth,  nor  chil- 
dren, nor  learning.  If  it  be  thy  will  I  will  go  to  a  hundred  hells,  but  grant  me 
this,  that  I  may  love  thee  without  the  hope  of  reward — unselfishly  love  for 
love's  sake."  One  of  the  disciples  of  Krishna,  the  then  Emperor  of  India, 
was  driven  from  his  throne  by  his  enemies,  and  had  to  take  shelter  in  a 
forest  in  the  Himalayas  with  his  queen,  and  there  one  day  the  queen  was 
asking  him  how  it  was  that  he,  the  most  virtuous  of  men,  should  suffer 
so  much  misery  ;  and  Yuohistera  answered  :  "  Behold,  my  queen,  the  Hima- 
layas, how  beautiful  they  are ;  I  love  them.  They  do  not  give  me  anything, 
but  my  nature  is  to  love  the  grand,  the  beautiful,  therefore  I  love  them. 
Similarly,  I  love  the  Lord.  He  is  the  source  of  all  beauty,  of  all  sublimity. 
He  is  the  only  object  to  be  loved  ;  my  nature  is  to  love  him,  and  therefore  I 
love.  I  do  not  pray  for  anything  ;  I  do  not  ask  for  anything.  Let  him 
place  me  wherever  he  likes.  I  must  love  him  for  love's  sake.  I  cannot 
trade  in  love." 

The  Vedas  teach  that  the  soul  is  divine,  only  held  under  bondage  of 
matter,  and  perfection  will  be  reached  when  the  bond  shall  burst,  and  the 
word  they  use  is  therefore  Mukto  —  freedom,  freedom  from  the  bonds  of 
imperfection,  freedom  from  death  and  misery. 

And  this  bondage  can  only  fall  off  through  the  mercy  of  God,  and 
this  mercy  comes  on  the  pure,  so  purity  is  the  condition  of  his  mercy.  How 
that  mercy  acts.  He  reveals  himself  to  the  pure  heart,  and  the  pure  and 
stainless  man    sees  God,  yea  even  in  this  life,  and  then,  and  then  only. 


S'.VAMI   VIVIIKAXAN'DA,  INDIA. 


"THE  rARLIAMICNT- or-  KKLIGIONS  HAS  l-KOV  El)  TO  THfvWOKLD  THAT  HOLINESS,  I'LRITV 
AND  CHAKITY  ARE  NOI  THE  RXCl.lSIVE  rOSSKSSIfJNR  f)r--  ANY  CIUUCII  IN  THE  WOKLP,  AND  THAT 
KVEKV  SYSTEM  HAS  I'KODICED  MEN  AND  WOMEN  OITIIE  MOST  RXAI.TED  CHAKACTEK.  MY 
THANKS  II)  IMiiSK  Nom.E  SOri.S  WHOSE  I.AKCE  HEARTS  AND  I.O\  E  ol-  TRUTH  FIRST  DREAMED 
THIS  UONDEUl  IT.  DK|.:\.\I,  AND   IIIEN   RICAI.IZICD   IT."' 


974  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

all  the  crookedness  of  the  heart  is  made  straight.  Then  all  doubt 
ceases.  He  is  no  more  the  freak  of  a  terrible  law  of  causation.  So  this  is 
the  verj'  center,  the  very  vital  conception  of  Hinduism.  The  Hindu  does  not 
want  to  live  upon  words  and  theories  —  if  there  are  existences  beyond  the 
ordinary  sensual  existence,  he  wants  to  come  face  to  face  with  them.  If  there 
is  a  soul  in  him  which  is  npt  matter,  if  there  is  an  all-merciful  universal  soul, 
he  will  go  to  him  direct.  He  must  see  him,  and  that  alone  can  destroy  all 
doubts.  So  the  best  proof  a  Hindu  sage  gives  about  the  soul,  about  God,  is 
"  I  have  seen  the  soul ;  I  have  seen  God."  .  And  that  is  the  only  condition 
of  perfectiony/i  he  Hindu  religion  does  not  consist  in  struggles  and  attempts  ^ 
to  believe  a^ertain  doctrine/or  dogma,  but  in  realizing;  not  in  believing,  but 
in  being  and  becoming. // 

So  the  whole  struggle  in  their  system  is  a  constant  struggle  to  become 
perfect,  to  become  divine,  to  reach  God  and  see  God,  and  this  reaching  God, 
seeing  God,  becoming  perfect,  even  as  the  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,  con- 
stitutes the  religion  of  the  Hindus. 

And  what  becomes  of  man  when  he  becomes  perfect  ?  He  lives  a  life 
of  bliss,  infinite.  He  enjoys  infinite  and  perfect  bliss,  having  obtained  the 
only  thing  in  which  man  ought  to  have  pleasure,  God,  and  enjoys  the  bliss 
with  God.  So  far  all  the  Hindus  are  agreed.  This  is  the  common  religion 
of  all  the  sects  of  India ;  but  then  the  question  comes,  perfection  is  absolute, 
and  the  absolute  cannot  be  two  or  three.  It  cannot  have  any  qualities.  It 
cannot  be  an  individual.  And  so  when  a  soul  becomes  perfect  and  absolute, 
it  must  become  one  with  Brahma,  and  he  would  only  realize  the  Lord 
as  the  perfection,  the  reality,  of  his  own  nature  and  existence,  the  existence 
absolute,  knowledge  absolute,  and  life  absolute.  We  have  often  and  often 
read  about  this  being  called  the  losing  of  individuality  as  becoming  a  stock 
or  a  stone.     "  He  jests  at  scars  that  never  felt  a  wound." 

I  tell  you  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  If  it  is  happiness  to  enjoy  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  small  body,  it  must  be  more  happiness  to  enjoy  the  con- 
sciousness of  two  bodies,  so  three,  four,  five  ;  and  the  aim,  the  ultimate  of  hap- 
piness would  be  reached  when  it  would  become  a  universal  consciousness. 
Therefore,  to  gain  this  infinite  universal  individuality,  this  miserable  little 
prison  individuality  must  go.  Then  alone  can  death  cease  when  I  am  one 
with  life,  then  alone  can  misery  cease  when  I  am  one  with  happiness  itself; 
then  alone  can  all  errors  cease  when  I  am  one  with  knowledge  itself;  and  it 
it  is  the  necessary  scientific  conclusion,  science  has  proved  to  me  that  physi- 
cal individuality  is  a  delusion,  that  really  my  body  is  one  little  continuously 
changing  body,  in  an  unbroken  ocean  of  matter,  and  the  Adwaitam  is  the 
necessary  conclusion  with  my  other  counterpart,  mind. 

Science  is  nothing  but  the  finding  of  unity,  and  as  any  science  can  reach 
the  perfect  unity,  it  would  stop  from  further  progress,  because  it  would  reach 
the  goal,  thus  chemistry  cannot  progress  farther,  when  it  would  discover  one 
element  out  of  which  all  others  could  be  made.     Physics  would  stop  when  it 


VIVEKANANDA:    HINDUISM.  975 

would  be  able  to  fulfill  its  services  in  discovering  one  energy  of  which  all  the 
others  are  but  the  manifestations,  and  the  science  of  religion  become  perfect 
when  it  discovered  Him  who  is  the  one  life  in  a  universe  of  death ;  Him  who 
is  the  constant  basis  of  an  ever-changing  world;  One  who  is  the  only  soul  of 
which  all  souls  are  but  delusive  manifestations.  Thus  was  it,  through  mul- 
tiplicity and  duality,  the  ultimate  unity  was  reached,  and  religion  can  go  no 
farther,  and  this  is  the  goal  of  all,  again  and  again,  science  after  science, 
again  and  again. 

And  all  science  is  bound  to  come  to  this  conclusion  in  the  long  run. 
Manifestation,  and  not  creation,  is  the  word  of  science  of  to-day,  and  he  is 
only  glad  that  what  he  had  cherished  in  his  bosom  for  ages  is  going  to  be 
taught  in  some  forcible  language,  and  with  further  light  by  the  latest  con- 
clusions of  science. 

Descend  we  now  from  the  aspirations  of  philosophy  to  the  religion 
of  the  ignorant  ?  On  the  very  outset,  I  may  tell  you  that  there  is  no  poly- 
theism in  India.  In  every  temple,  if  one  stands  by  and  listens,  he  will  find 
the  worshipers  applying  all  the  attributes  of  God,  including  omnipresence, 
to  these  images.  It  is  not  polytheism,  neither  would  the  name  henotheism 
answer  our  question.  "The  rose  called  by  any  other  name  would  smell  as 
sweet."     Names  are  not  explanations. 

I  remember,  when  a  boy,  a  Christian  man  was  preaching  to  a  crowd  in 
India.  Among  other  sweet  things  he  was  telling  the  people  that  if  he  gave 
a  blow  to  their  idol  with  his  stick,  what  could  it  do  ?  One  of  his  hearers 
sharply  answered,  "  If  I  abuse  your  God  what  can  he  do  ?  "  "  You  would  be 
punished,"  said  the  preacher,  "when  you  die."  "So  my  idol  will  punish  you 
when  you  die,"  said  the  villager. 

The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits ;  and  when  I  have  seen  amongst  them 
that  are  called  idolatrous  men,  the  like  of  whom  in  morality  and  spirituality 
and  love,  I  have  never  seen  anywhere,  I  stop  and  ask  myself.  Can  sin  beget 
holiness  ? 

Superstition  is  the  enemy  of  man,  bigotry  worse.  Why  does  a  Chris- 
tian go  to  church,  why  is  the  cross  holy,  why  is  the  face  turned  toward  the 
sky  in  prayer?  Why  are  there  so  many  images  in  the  Catholic  Church,  why 
are  there  so  many  images  in  the  minds  of  Protestants,  when  they  pray  ?  My 
brethren,  we  can  no  more  think  about  anything  without  a  material  image 
than  it  is  profitable  for  us  to  live  without  breathing.  And  by  the  law  of 
association  the  material  image  calls  the  mental  idea  up  and  vice  versa. 
Omnipotent  to  almost  the  whole  world  means  nothing.  Has  God  superficial 
area  ?  if  not,  when  we  repeat  the  word  we  think  of  the  extended  earth ;  that 
is  all. 

As  we  find  that  somehow  or  other,  by  the  laws  of  our  constitution,  we 
have  got  to  associate  our  ideas  of  infinity  with  the  ideal  of  a  blue  sky,  or  a 
sea;  the  omnipresence  covering  the  idea  of  holiness  with  an  idol  of  a  church 
or  a  mosque,  or  a  cross;  so  the  Hindus  have  associated  the  ideas  of  holiness, 


9/6  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    NINIH    DAY. 

purity,  truth,  omnipresence,  and  all  other  ideas  with  different  images  and 
forms.  But  with  this  difference  :  upon  certain  actions  some  are  drawn  their 
whole  lives  to  their  idol  of  a  church  and  never  rise  higher,  because  with 
them  religion  means  an  intellectual  assent  to  certain  doctrines  and  doing 
good  to  their  fellows.  The  whole  religion  of  the  Hindu  is  centered  in  real- 
ization. Man  is  to  become  divine,  realizing  ihe  divine,  and,  therefore,  idol 
or  temple  or  church  or  books,  are  only  the  supports,  the  helps  of  his  spiritual 
childhood,  but  on  and  on  he  must  progress. 

Me  must  not  stop  anywhere  ;  "  external  worship,  material  worship," 
says  the  Vedas  "  is  the  lowest  stage  ;  struggling  to  rise  higii,  mental  prayer  is 
the  next  stage,  but  the  highest  stage  is  when  the  Lord  has  been  realized." 
Mark  the  same  earnest  man  who  was  kneeling  before  the  idol  tell  you  here- 
after of  struggles,  "  Him  the  sun  cannot  express,  nor  the  moon  nor  the 
stars,  the  lightning  cannot  express  him,  nor  what  we  speak  of  fire ;  through 
him  they  all  shine."  But  with  this  difference,  he  does  not  abuse  the  images 
or  call  it  sin.  He  recognizes  in  it  a  necessary  stage  of  his  life.  "  The  child 
is  father  of  the  man."  Would  it  be  right  for  the  old  man  to  say  that  child- 
hood is  a  sin  or  youth  a  sin  ?     Nor  is  it  compulsory  in  Hinduism.    - 

But  if  a  man  can  realize  his  divine  nature  with  the  help  of  an  image, 
would  it  be  right  to  call  it  a  sin  ?  Nor  even  when  he  has  passed  that  stage 
that  he  should  call  it  an  error.  To  the  Hindu  man  is  not  traveling  from 
error  to  truth,  but  from  truth  to  truth,  from  lower  to  higher  truth.  To  him 
all  the  religions  from  the  lowest  fetichism  to  the  highest  absolutism  mean  so 
.many  attempts  of  the  human  soul  to  grasp  and  realize  the  Infinite,  deter- 
piined  by  the  conditions  of  its  birth  and  association,  and  each  of  these 
mark  a  stage  of  progress,  and  every  soul  is  a  child  eagle  soaring  higher  and 
higher;  gathering  more  and  more  strength  till  it  reaches  the  glorious  sun. 

Unity  in  variety  is  the  plan  of  nature,  and  the  Hindu  has  recognized  it. 
Every  other  religion  lays  down  a  certain  amount  of  fixed  dogma,  and  tries 
to  force  the  whole  society  through  it.  They  lay  down  before  society  one 
coat  which  must  fit  Jack  and  Job,  and  Henry,  all  alike.  If  it  does  not  fit 
John  or  Henry,  they  must  go  without  coat  to  cover  body.  They  have  dis- 
covered that  the  absolute  can  only  be  realized  or  thought  of  or  stated 
through  the  relative,  and  the  image,  cross  or  crescent  are  simply  so  many 
centers, —  so  many  pegs  to  help  the  spiritual  idea  on.  It  is  not  that  this 
help  is  necessary  for  every  one,  but  for  many,  and  those  that  do  not  need 
it,  have  no  right  to  say  that  it  is  wrong. 

One  thing  I  must  tell  you.  Idolatry  in  India  does  not  mean  a  horror.  It 
IS  not  the  mother  of  harlots.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  attempt  of  unde- 
veloped minds  to  grasp  high  spiritual  truths.  The  Hindus  have  their  own 
faults,  they  sometimes  have  their  exceptions  ;  but  mark  this,  it  is  always 
towards  punishing  their  own  bodies,  and  never  to  cut  the  throats  of  their 
neighbors.  If  the  Hindu  fanatic  burns  himself  on  the  pyre,  he  never 
lights  the   fire  of  inquisition ;  and  even  this  cannot  be  laid  at  the  door  of 


VIVEKANANDA:   HINDUISM.  977 

religion  any  more  than  the  burning  of  witches  can  be  laid  at  the  door  of 
Christianity. 

To  the  Hindu,  then,  the  whole  world  of  religions  is  only  a  traveling,  a 
coming  up,  of  different  men  and  women,  through  various  conditions  and 
circumstances,  to  the  same  goal.  Every  religion  is  only  an  evolving  a  God 
out  of  the  material  man  ;  and  the  same  God  is  the  inspirer  of  all  of,  them. 
Why.  then,  are  there  so  many  contradictions  ?  They  are  only  apparent,  says 
the  Hindu.  The  contradictions  come  from  the  same  truth  adapting  itself 
to  the  different  circumstances  of  different  natures. 

It  is  the  same  light  coming  through  different  colors.  And  these  little 
variations  are  necessary  for  that  adaptation.  But  in  the  heart  of  everything 
the  same  truth  reigns ;  the  Lord  has  declared  to  the  Hindu  in  his  incarna- 
tion as  Krishna,  '"  I  am  in  every  religion  as  the  thread  through  a  string  of 
pearls.  And  wherever  thou  seest  extraordinary  holiness  and  extraordinary 
power  raising  and  purifying  humanity,  know  ye  that  I  am  there."  And 
what  was  the  result !  Through  the  whole  order  of  Sanscrit  philosophy,  I 
challenge  anybody  to  find  any  such  expression  as  that  the  Hindu  only  would 
be  saved  and  not  others.  Says  Vyas,  "  We  find  perfect  men  even  beyond 
the  pale  of  our  caste  and  creed."  One  thing  more.  How  can,  then,  the 
Hindu  whose  whole  idea  centers  in  God  believe  in  the  Buddhist  who  is 
agnostic,  or  the  Jain  who  is  atheist  ?  _ 

The  Buddhists  do  not  depend  upon  God ;  but  the  whole  force  of  their 
religion  is  directed  to  the  great  central  truth  in  every  religion,  to  evolve  a 
God  out  of  man.  They  have  not  seen  the  Father,  but  they  have  seen  the 
.Son.  And  he  that  hath  seen  the  Son  hath  seen  the  Father.  This,  brethren, 
is  a  short  sketch  of  the  ideas  of  the  Hindus.  The  Hindu  might  have  failed 
to  carry  out  all  his  plans,  but  if  there  is  to  be  ever  a  universal  religion,  it 
must  be  one  which  would  hold  no  location  in  place  or  time,  which  would  be 
infinite  like  the  God  it  would  preach,  whose  sun  shines  upon  the  followers  of 
Krishna  or  Christ ;  saints  or  sinners  alike;  which  would  not  be  the  Brah- 
man or  Buddhist,  Christian  or  Mohammedan,  but  the  sum  total  of  all  these, 
and  still  have  infinite  space  for  development ;  which  in  its  catholicity  would 
embrace  in  its  infinite  arms  and  formulate  a  place  for  every  human  being, 
from  the  lowest  groveling  man  who  is  scarcely  removed  in  intellectuality 
from  the  brute,  to  the  highest  mind,  towering  almost  above  humanity,  and 
who  makes  society  stand  in  awe  and  doubt  his  human  nature. 

It  would  be  a  religion  which  would  have  no  place  for  persecution  or 
intolerance  in  its  polity,  and  would  recognize  a  divinity  in  every  man  or 
woman,  and  whose  whole  scope,  whose  whole  force  would  be  centered  in 
aiding  humanity  to  realize  its  divine  nature.  Offer  religions  in  your  hand, 
and  all  the  nations  must  follow  thee.  Asoka's  council  was  a  council  of  the 
Buddhist  faith.  Akbar's,  though  more  to  the  purpose,  was  only  a  parlor- 
meeting.  It  was  reserved  for  America  to  call,  to  proclaim  to  all  quarters  of 
the  globe  that  the  Lord  is  in  every  religion. 

62 


97^  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   NINTH    DAY. 

May  He  who  is  the  Brahma  of  the  Hindus,  the  Ahura  Mazda  of  the 
Zoroastrians,  the  lluddha  of  the  Buddhists,  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews,  the 
Father  in  Heaven  of  the  Christians,  give  strength  to  you  to  carry  out  your 
noble  idea.  The  star  arose  in  the  East ;  it  traveled  steadily  toward  the 
West,  sometimes  dimmed  and  sometimes  effulgent,  till  it  made  a  circuit  of 
the  world,  and  now  it  is  again  rising  on  the  very  horizon  of  the  East,  the 
borders  of  the  Tasifu,  a  thousand-fold  more  effulgent  than  it  ever  was  before. 
Hail  Columbia,  mother-land  of  liberty!  It  has  been  given  to  thee,  who 
never  dipped  her  hand  in  her  neighbor's  blood,  who  never  found  out  that 
shortest  way  of  becoming  rich* by  robbing  one's  neighbors,  it  has  been  given 
to  thee  to  march  on  at  the  vanguard  of  civilization  with  the  flag  of  harmony. 


SCIENCE  A  RELIGIOUS  REVELATION. 
By  Dr.  Paul  Carus. 

A  French  author  of  great  repute  has  written  a  book  entitled  Lirriligion 
de Pavenir,  "The  Irreligion  of  the  Future,"  in  which  he  declares  that  relig-' 
ion  will  eventually  disappear;  and  he  whose  opinion  is  swayed  by  the  dili- 
gent researches  of  such  historians  as  Buckle  and   Lecky  will  very  likely 
endorse  this  prediction. 

It  is  quite  true,  as  these  authors  assert,  that  the  theological  questions  of 
past  ages  have  disappeared,  but  it  is  not  true  that  religion  has  ceased  to  be 
a  factor  in  the  evolution  of  mankind.  On  the  contrary,  religion  has  so  pen- 
etrated bur  life  that  we  have  ceased  to  notice  it  as  an  independent  power. 

That  which  appears  to  men  like  Buckle,  Lecky,  and  Guyau  as  a  pro- 
gress to  an  irreligious  age  is  an  advance  to  a  purer  conception  of  religion. 

Religion  is  indestructible,  because  it  is  that  innermost  conviction  of  man 
which  regulates  his  conduct.  As  long  as  men  cannot  liv^  without  morality, 
so  long  religion  will  be  needful  to  mankind. 

Some  people  regard  this  view  of  religion  as  too  broad  ;  they  say  religion 
is  the  belief  in  God  ;  and  1  have  no  objection  to  their  dertnition  provided  we 
agree  concerning  the  words  belief  and  God.  God  is  to  me,  as  he  always  has 
been  to  the  mass  of  mankind,  an  idea  of  moral  import.  God  is  the  authority 
of  the  moral  ought.  To  conceive  God  as  a  person  is  a  simile,  and  to  think 
of  him  as  a  father  is  an  allegory.  God  is  not  a  person  like  ourselves  ;  he  is 
not  a  father  nor  a  mother  like  our  progenitors  ;  he  is  only  comparable  to  a 
father;  but  in  truth  he  is  much  more  than  that;  he  is  not  personal,  but  super- 
personal. 

Belief  must  mean  the  same  as  its  original  Greek  Tribrts  which  would  be 
better  translated  by  trust  or  faithfulness.  It  must  mean  the  same  as  its  cor- 
responding Hebrew  word  amimmah,  which  means  firmness  of  character. 
Belief  in  God  must  be  an  unswerving  obedience  to  the  moral  law. 


980  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS  :   NINTH    DAY.      . 

Science  is  a  revelation  of  God.  Science  gives  us  information  concern- 
ing the  truth,  and  the  truth  reveals  his  will. 

It  is  true  that  the  hieroglyphics  of  science  are  not  easy  to  decipher,  and 
they  sometimes  seem  to  overthrow  the  very  foundations  of  morality.  But 
such  mistakes  should  not  agitate  us  nor  shake  our  confidence  in  the  reliabil- 
ity of  science.  By  surrendering  science  you  degrade  man  ;  you  cut  him  off 
from  the  only  reliable  communication  with  God,  and  thus  change  religion 
into  superstition. 

Some  of  the  schoolmen  made  a  distinction  between  religious  truth  and 
scientific  truth,  declaring  that  a  proposition  might  be  true  in  religion  which 
is  utterly  false  in  philosophy,  and  vice  versa.  This  view  is  not  only  logically 
untenable,  but  it  is  also  morally  frivolous  ;  it  is  irreligious. 

The  nature  of  religious  truth  is  the  same  as  that  of  scientific  truth. 
There  is  but  one  truth.  There  cannot  be  two  truths  in  conflict  with  one 
another.  Contradiction  is  always,  in  religion  not  less  than  in  science,  a 
sign  that  there  is  somewhere  an  error. 

Religion  has  often,  in  former  ages,  by  instinct,  as  it  were,  found  truths, 
and  boldly  stated  their  practical  applications,  while  the  science  of  the  time 
was  not  sufficiently  advanced  to  prove  them.  The  re\rjgious  instinct  antici- 
pated the  most  important  moral  truths,  before  a  rational  argumentation 
could  lead  to  their  recognition.  This  instinctive  or  intuitive  apprehension 
of  truth  has  always  distinguished  our  great  religious  prophets. 

Almost  all  religions  have  drawn  upon  that  wondrous  resource  of  human 
insight,  inspiration,  which  reveals  a  truth,  not  in  a  systematic  and  scientific 
way,  but  at  a  glance,  as  it  were,  and  by  divination.  The  religious  instinct 
of  man  taught  our  forefathers  some  of  the  most  important  moral  truths, 
which,  with  the  limited  wisdom  of  their  age,  they  never  could  have  known 
by  other  means. 

In  almost  all  practical  fields  men  have  made  important  inventi6ns 
which  they  were  unable  to  understand.  Their  achievements  were  frequently 
in  advance  of  their  knowledge. 

Centuries  before  Christ,  when  ethics  as  a  science  was  yet  unknown, 
the  sages  of  Asia  taught  men  to  love  their  enemies.'  The  preachings  of 
Christ  appeared  bo  his  contemporaries  as  impractical  and  visionary,  while 
only  recently  we  have  learned  to  understand  that  the  fundamental  com- 
mands of  religious  morality  are  the  only  correct  applications  to  be  derived 
from  the  psychical  and  social  laws  oi  human  life. 

As  the  instinctive  inventions  of  prehistoric  ages  show  "by  the  side  of 
highly  ingenious  appliances  the  crudest  and  roughest  expedients,"  so  our 
religions,  too,  often  exhibit  by  the  side  of  the  loftiest  morality  a  most 
lamentable  lack  of  insight  into  the  nature  of  ethical  truth. 

«  We  quote  one  instance  only  selected  from  the  Dhammapada,  one  of  the  most  ancient 
books  of  the  Buddhist  cannn :  "  Hatred  does  not  cease  by  hatred  at  any  time;  hatred  ceases 
by  love,  this  is  an  old  rule." — Sac.  bks.  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  p.  5. 


f 


CARUS:   SCIENCE    AND    REVELATION.  98 1 

Tlie  science  of  mechanics  does  not  come  to  destroy  tiie  meclianic.il 
inventions  of  the  past,  but  on  the  contrary,  it  will  make  them  more 
available.  In  the  same  way  a  scientitic  insight  into  religious  truth  does  not 
come  to  destroy  religion  ;   it  will  purify  antl  broaden  it. 

The  dislike  of  religious  men  to  accept  lessons  from  science  is  natural 
and  excusable.  Whenever  a  great  religious  teacher  has  risen,  leaving  a 
deep  impression  upon  the  minds  of  his  surroundings,  we  find  his  disciples 
anxious  to  preserve  inviolate  not  only  his  spirit,  but  even  the  very  words  of 
his  doctrines.  Such  reverence  is  good,  but  it  must  not  be  carried  to  the 
extreme  of  placing  tradition  above  the  authority  of  truth. 

Reverence  for  our  master  makes  us  easily  forgetful  of  our  highest  duty, 
reverence  for  an  impartial  recognition  of  the  truth.  The  antipathy  of  a  cer- 
tain class  of  religious  men  toward  science,  although  natural  and  excusable, 
should  nevertheless  be  recognized  as  a  grievous  fault ;  it  is  a  moral  error 
and  an  irreligious  attitude. 

Our  religious  mythology  is  so  thoroughly  identified  with  religion  itself 
that  when  the  former  is  recognized  as  erroneous,  the  latter  also  will  unavoid- 
ably collapse.  - 

And  what  a  downfall  of  our  noblest  hopes  must  ensue  !  The  highest 
ideals  have  become  illusions  ;  the  purpose  of  life  is  gone,  and  desolation 
rules  supreme. 

The  destruction  of  dogmatism  appears  as'a  wreck  of  religion  itself,  but,- 
in  fact,  it  is  a  religious  advance.  We  must  pass  through  all  the  despair  of 
infidelity  and  of  a  religious  emptiness  before  we  can  learn  to  appreciate  the 
glory  and  grandeur  of  a  higher  stage  of  religious  evolution. 

Is  there  any  doubt  that  all  our  dogmas  are  truths  figuratively 
expressed  ?     Why  should  we  not  take  the  consequences  of  this  truth  ? 

Religious  parables,  if  taken  in  their  literal  meaning,  will  somehow 
always  be  foimd  irrational.  Says  an  old  Roman  proverb,  Omne  simile 
chiudicat,  every  comparison  limps ;  it  is  somewhere  faulty.  Why  should 
religious  similes  he  exceptions  ? 

Man's  reason  and  scientific  acumen  are  comparable  to  the  eyes  of  his 
body,  while  his  religious  sentiments  are  like  the  sense  of  touch.  The  sim- 
plicity and  inimediateness  of  our  feelings  of  touch  does  not  make  it  advisa- 
ble to  dispense  with  sight. 

That  conception  of  religion  which  rejects  science  is  inevitably  doomed. 
It  cannot  survive  and  is  destined  to  disappear  with  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion. Nevertheless,  religion  will  not  go.  Religion  will  abide.  Humanity 
will  never  be  without  religion;  for  religion  is  the  basis  of  morals,  and  man 
could  not  exist  without  morals. 

Religion  is  as  indestructible  as  science  ;  for  science  is  the  method  of 
searching  for  the  truth,  and  religion  is  the  enthusiasm  and  good  will  to  live 
a  life  of  truth. 


THE  HISTORY  AND  PROSPECT  OF  EXPLORATION 

IN    BIBLE   LANDS. 

By  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  E.  Post,  Beirut. 

[Speaking  first  of  the  Prospects  of  Exploration,  we  ask,  "  What  remains 
to  be  done?"] 

1.  The  complete  survey  and  mapping  of  Eastern  Palestine,  Sinai  and 
the  Wilderness  of  the  wanderings,  and  of  the  Lebanons,  and  the  Damascus 
Plateau,  and  the  mountains  of  Northern  Syria. 

2.  The  excavation  of  known  and  unknown  sites.  This  work  is  only 
begun.  It  is  fair  to  hope  that  the  most  essential  of  the  disputed  points  of 
the  typography  of  Jerusalem  can  be  settled  if  suitable  excavations  are  con- 
ducted by  capable  men.  Many  well-known  sites  will  be  far  better  known 
when  the  testimony  concealed  under  heaps  of  rubbish  is  brought  to  light. 
Then  there  are  tels,  never  yet  opened  by  the  pick,  which  may  contain 
records  not  less  important  than  the  Moabite  stone.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
hope  that  we  will  yet  unearth  libraries,  the  important  revelations  of  which 
are  hinted  to  us  by  the  Lachish  tablet  discovered  by  Mr.  F.  I.  Bliss.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  every  such  discovery  strengthens  conviction  as  to  the 
accuracy  of  the  Bible  story,-  and  the  genuineness  of  the  sacred  text. 

3.  A  complete  study  of  the  existing  races,  sects,  traditions,  folk-lore, 
and  customs,  and  an  exhaustive  comparison  of  the  same  with  the  text  of 
Scripture. 

4.  A  thorough  search  for  manuscript  of  Scripture  and  ecclesiastical 
history. 

5.  A  thorough  study  of  the  natural  history  and  meterology  of  the  land, 
such  as  will  finally  solve  all  problems  of  this  class  in  the  Bible  which  are 
capable  of  solution. 

6.  A  study  of  the  history  of  the  land  from  Arabic  and  other  Oriental 
sources. 

It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  ivork  already  accom- 
plished in  fortifying  our  faith  in  the  Bible.  We  have  in  our  hands  a  book 
consisting  of  a  collection  of  works,  historical,  poetical,  legal,  doctrinal, 
philosophical,  ethical  and  prophetical,  composed  during  a  period  of  fifteen 
hundred  years.  These  books  contain  allusions  to  sites  and  physical  feat- 
ures of  the  lands  in  which  they  were  written,  or  the  history  of  which  they 
treat.  Some  of  these  are  minute  descriptions  of  boundaries,  and  lists  of 
towns.  Some  are  allusions  to  rocks  or  ,caves,  or  mountain  peaks,  or  oases, 
or  marshes,  often  local  features,  never  heard  of  in  any  other  region,  or 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

g8a 


I'UST:    EXl'LOKATION    IN    BIBLE    LANDS.  983 

spuken  of  in  any  other  work.  They  are  introduced  into  the  text  as  things 
well  known,  and  requiring  no  gloss  or  explanation,  or  a  gloss  is  furnished 
in  a  manner  which  could  only  be  possible  to  one  familiar  with  every  local 
detail  from  personal  residence.  In  many  places,  as  in  Ezekiel  xlvii  (the 
Vision  of  the  Holy  Waters),  the  local  knowledge  of  the  reader  is  taken  for 
granted  in  a  manner  that  removes  the  possibility  of  supposing  that  the  pas- 
sage could  have  been  written  by  any  but  an  author  on  the  ground  and  for 
those  quite  at  home  there.  Names  of  persons,  allusions  to  customs,  the 
dependence  of  one  event  on  another,  are  introduced  in  a  way  that  tests  to 
the  most  crucial  point  the  question  of  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of 
the  writing. 

Now  we  'find  by  Biblical  exploration  the  long-forgotten  names  of 
obscure  towns  embalmed  in  the  often  unaltered  names  of  still  more  obscure 
modem  towns  or  shapeless  ruins.  Sometimes  these  names  are  somewhat 
altered,  but  none  the  less  easily  recognizable  to  one  familiar  with  Semitic 
philology,  or  the  laws  of  Semitic  transliteration  and  substitution.  We  find 
the  very  rock  or  cleft  in  a  rock  where  some  trivial  event  of  Hebrew  history- 
took  place,  corresponding  exactly  in  terms  of  Jieighborhood  and  distance, 
and  often  of  name,  to  the  necessities  of  the  ancient  narrative.  We  find  on 
excavation  a  complete  confirmation  of  the  representations  of  the  sacred 
writers  on  points  which  ignorant  critics,  who  have  only  studied  the  sur- 
face, have  disputed,  while  they  scoffed  at  the  statements  of  eye-witnesses 
whose  accuracy  in  these  local  details  give  a  strong  presumption  in  favor  of 
all  else  they  say.  We  find  in  a  local  tradition,  often  of  other  than  Christian 
parentage,  the  exact  reproduction  of  an  obscure  passage  in  the  sacred 
history.  We  find  in  a  local  custom,  preserved  through  long  troubled  ages, 
and  revolutions  such  as  no  other  land  has  undergone,  the  graphic  pre- 
sentment of  scenes  as  old  as  Abraham  and  Moses,  as  Caleb  and  Jephthah, 
as  David  and  Hezekiah. 

And  we  find  all  these  lines  of  evidence  converging  on  the  sacred  text, 
shedding  light  on  what  was  obscure,  making  more  vivid  that  which  was 
known,  and  gradually  establishing  the  certainty  of  the  volume,  on  the 
utterances  of  which  we  build  the  structure  of  our  civilization  in  this  world, 
and  our  hopes  of  eternal  life  in  the  next. 


THE  TENTH  DA  Y. 


CHRISTIAN  EVANGELISM  AS  ONE  OF  TK£  WORK^ 
ING  FORCES  IN  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  Rev.  James  Brand,  D.D.,  Oberlin,  Ohjo. 

My  purpose  is  to  examine  the  place  and  influence  in  the  development 
of  American  Christianity  of  special  evangelistic  movements  which  have 
appeared  from  time  to  time  in  our  history.  The  theme  will  thus  cover  what 
we  are  accustomed  to  call  general  revivals  or  special  Pentecostal  seasons  in 
the  progress  of  Christ's  kingdom. 

The  first  great  movejnent  which  really  molded  American  Christianity 
was  in  1740-1760,  called  "The  Great  Awakening,"  under  the  leadership  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  Whitefield,  Wesley,  and  the  Tennants,  of  New  Jersey. 
This  movement  was  probably  the  most  influential  force  which  has  ever  acted 
upon  the  development  of  the  Christian  religion  since  the  Protestant  reforma- 
tion. In  1740  the  population  of  New  England  was  not  more  than  250,000. 
and  in  ail  the  colonies  about  2,000,000.  Yet  it  is  estimated  that  more  than 
50,000  persons  were  converted  to  Christ  in  that  revival — a  far  greater  pro- 
portion than  at  any  other  period  of  our  histor)-.  The  movement  awakened  the 
public  mind  more  fully  to  the  claims  of  \\omc.  missions,  especially  among 
the  Indians.  It  likewise  gave  a  great  impulse  to  Christian  education.  The 
founding  of  Princeton  College  was  one  of  the  direct  fruits.  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege, founded  in  1769,  also  sprang  from  the  same  impulse.  The  great  doc- 
trines made  especially  prominent  in  this  religious  movement  were  those 
required  to  meet  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  times,  viz.,  the  sinfulness 
of  sin,  the  necessity  of  conversion,  and  justification  by  faith  in  Christ  alone. 

The  second  general  evangelistic  movement,  1787-18 10,  generally  called 
the  revival  vt  1800,  was  hardly  less  imixjrtaiit  as  a  factor  in  our  Christian 
life  than  its  predecessor.  It  followed  a  period  of  formalism  and  religious 
barrenness.  From  this  movement  sprang,  as  by  magic,  nearly  all  the  great 
national  leligious  institutions  of  to-day. 

All  religious  bodies  were  Cfjually  enriched  and  enlarged  by  the  stu- 
pendous impulse  given  to  religious  thought  and  activity  by  this  revival. 
The  leading  characteristic  of  this  movement,  so  far  as  doctrines  were  con- 
cerned, was  the  sovereignty  of  God.  'l"he  success  of  the  colonies  in  the 
Revolutionary  war;  the  establishment  of  national  independence;  the 
awakening  forces  of  material  and  industrial  development,  together  with  the 

984 


BRAND:    CHRISTIAN  EVANGELISM.  985 

prevailing  rationalistic  and  atheistic  influence  of  France,  had  produced  a 
spirit  of  pride  and  self-sufficiency  which  was  hostile  to  the  authority  of 
God,  and,  of  course,  antagonistic  to  the  Gospel.  To  meet  this  state  of  the 
public  mind,  evangelistic  leaders  were  naturally  led  to  lay  special  emphasis 
upon  the  absolute  and  eternal  dominion  of  God,  as  the  infinitely  wise  and 
benevolent  ruler  of  the  universe  and  man  as  his  subject,  fallen,  dependent, 
guilty,  to  whom  pardon  was  offered. 

The  third  great  movement  was  in  1830-1840.  The  tendency  of  the 
human  mind  is  to  grasp  certain  truths  which  have  proved  specially  effective 
in  one  set  of  circumstances,  and  to  press  them  into  service,  under  differ- 
ent circumstances,  to  the  neglect  of  other  truths.  Thus  the  sovereignty  of 
God,  which  had  needed  such  peculiar  emphasis  in  1800,  came  to  be  urged 
to  the  exclusion  of  those  truths  which  touch  the  freedom  and  responsibility 
of  man.  When,  therefore,  this  third  revival  period  began  the  truths  most 
needed  were  the  freedom  of  the  will,  the  nature  of  the  moral  law,  the  ability 
and  therefore  the  absolute  obligation  of  man  to  obey  God  and  make  him- 
self a  new  heart.  Accordingly  these  were  the  mighty  weapons  which  were 
wielded  by  the  great  leaders. 

The  fourth  "Pentecostal  season,  which  may  be  called  national  in  its 
scope,  was  in  1857-9.  At  that  time  inordinate  woridliness,  the  passion  for 
gain  and  luxury,  had  been  taking  possession  of  the  people.  The  Divine 
Spirit  seized  this  state  of  things  to  convict  men  of  their  sins.  The  result 
was  a  great  turning  to  God  all  over  the  land.  In  this  wakening  no  great 
leaders  seem  to  stand  out  preeminent:  But  the  plain  lessons  of  the  revival 
are  God's  rebuke  of  woridliness,  the  fact  that  it  is  better  to  be  righteous 
than  to  be  rich,  and  that  nations  like  individuals  are  in  his  hands. 

The  latest  evangelistic  movements  which  are  meeting  this  new  era,  and 
are  destined  to  be  as  helpful  to  American  Christianity  as  any  preceding 
ones,  are  those  under  the  present  leadership  of  men  like  Messrs.  Moody,  Mills, 
and  their  confreres.  These  revivals,  though  perhaps  lacking  the  tremend- 
ous seriousness  and  profundity  of  conviction  which  came  from  the  Calvin- 
istic  preachers  dwelling  on  the  nature  and  attributes  of  God,  nevertheless 
exhibit  a  more  truly  balanced  gospel  than  any  preceding  ones.  They 
announce  preeminently  a  gospel  of  hope.  They  emphasize  the  love  of 
God,  the  sufficiency  of  Christ,  the  gudt  and  unreason  of  sin,  the  privilege 
of  serving  Ciirist,  and  the  duty  of  immediate  surrender. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  form  of  evangelism  we  are  considering 
lias  had  a  very  helpful  inHuence  upon  the  development  of  our  American 
Christian  life.  Yet  it  must  be  said,  in  conclusion,  that  these  powers  of 
evangelism  are  liable  to  be  attended  by  one  serious  peril.  .Some  churches 
have  been  led  by  them  to  depend  almost  altogether  upon  outside  evangelists 
and  general  movements  for  the  winning  and  gathering  of  souls,  rather  than 
upon  the  regular  work  of  the  settled  pastor,  and  the  ordinary  ser\'ices  of 
consecrated  church  members.     In  such  cases   church  work   becomes  spas- 


986  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

modi(i,  and  the  preaching  of  the  pastor  has  often  become  educational  instead 
of  being  also  distinctively  evangelistic.  To  guard  against  the  evil  two 
things  are  essential: 

First.  A  higher  conception  of  the  mission  of  the  local  church.  The 
fact  should  never  be  lost  sight  of  that  the  local  church  itself  is,  after  all,  the 
responsible  body  for  the  evangelization  of  its  own  vicinity. 

Second.  A  more  evangelistic  ministry.  That  means  men  in  the  pulpits 
impressed  with  the  infinitely  practical  reach  of  their  work,  the  awful  respon- 
sibility of  their  position  and  their  utter  dependence  upon  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Perhaps  the  supreme  suggestion  of  the  whole  subject  for  this  rushing, 
conceited,  self-asserting,  money-grasping,  law-defying.  Sabbath-desecrating, 
contract  breaking,  rationalistic  age  is  that  we  are  to  return  to  the  profound 
teaching  of  the  sovereignty  of  God. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  STATE  OF  GERMANY. 

By  Count  A.  Bernstorkf. 

The  division  of  Germany  in  a  Catholic  and  a  Protestan.  population 
exists  in  all  its  force.  With  her  strong  discipline  and  the  power  she  wields 
over  the  people,  with  the  existence  of  a  numerous  political  party  that 
represents  her  interests  in  Parliament,  the  Catholic  Church  undoubtedly  has 
a  large  influence.  But  this  has  also  helped  much  to  arouse  the  Protestant 
feelmg  of  the  nation — a  large  Protestant  association  for  the  protection  of 
the  Protestant  interests  is  gaining  new  adherents  every  day.  The  com 
memoration  of  the  Luther  Jubilee  in  18S3  has  deeply  stirred  the  heart  of 
the  nation,  and  the  day  will  not  easily  be  forgotten,  when  on  the  31st  of 
October,  1892,  the  Empress,  with  most  of  the  German  princes  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain,  and  of  the  Kings  of  Sweden  and 
Denmark,  and  the  Queen  of  the  Netherlands,  publicly  declared  their  adher- 
ence to  the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation.  Within  Protestantism  the  old 
feud  between  Lutheran  and  Calvinist  has  made  way  to  problems  of  greater 
importance.  The  free  churches,  Methodists,  Baptists,  Mennonites,  even  the 
highly  honored  body  of  the  Moravian  Brethren  and  the  Directing  Lutherans 
in  Prussia,  do  a  good  work  for  the  saving  of  individual  souls,  and  weighed 
in  the  balance  of  heaven  their  work  will  not  be  accounted  lightly;  but  their 
numbers  are  small  and  their  influence  on  the  national  life  of  Germany  is 
smaller  still.  The  great  struggles  and  problems  of  the  day  are  fought  out 
within  the  national  churches,  and  this  is  not  only  true  in  voluntary  associa- 
tions, in  the  press  and  by  similar  means,  hut  also  on  the  official  battle- 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


COUNT  A.  BERNSTORFF. 

"this  parliament  is  a  testimony  whose  voice  will,  I  trust,  be  heard  all  over  the 

EARTH,  TI:\T  men  LIVE  NOT  IIV  BREAD  ALONE,  BUT  THAT  THE  CARE  FOR  THE  IMMORTAL 
SOLX  IS  THE  PARAMOUNT  QUESTION  FOR  EVERY  MAN,TMR  QUESTION  WHICH  OUGHT  TO  BE 
TREATED  BEFORE  ALL  OTHERS  WHEN  MEN  OK  ALL  NATIONS  MEET." 


988  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TEiNTH    DAY. 

ground  provided  in  the  Synods.     A  large  party  in  our  church  is  striving  at 
a  greater  independence  from  the  state. 

The  socialist  movement  spreads  utter  atheism  among  the  working 
classes.  Perhaps  it  has  never  before  been  uttered  with  such  decided  con- 
viction that  there  is  no  God.  But  after  all  this  is  only  the  case  among  the 
neglected  masses  of  our  large  cities.  In  the  country  even  the  leaders  of 
social  democracy  abstain  from  saying  anything  against  religion  because 
they  know  that  it  would  compromise  their  cause. 

The  so-called  ethical  movement  found  but  few  adherents.  The  great- 
est danger  we  are  under  is  perhaps  a  new  critical  school  of  theology.  The 
lately  deceased  Professor  Ritschl.has  introduced  anew  system,  superior  to 
the  old  rationalism,  eminently  clever,  yet  undoubtedly  dangerous.  Biblical 
terms  are  used,  but  another  meaning  given  to  them.  To  this  theology, 
Christ  is  not  preexistent  from  all  eternity,  but  only  a  man  in  whom  divine 
life  came  to  the  highest  development ;  the  great  facts  of  redemption  only 
symbols,  prayer  in  som'fe  way  only  a  gymnastic  exercise  of  the  soul,  helpful 
as  such  to  him  who  prays,  but  not  heard  in  heaven.  Numerous  students  are 
under  the  charm  of  this  school  and  many  people  think  that  it  will  soon  have 
possession  of  our  pulpits.  I  do  not  share  this  fear.  The  university 
alone  does  not  train  our  future  ministers.  There  are  too  many  forces  of  divine 
life  in  our  congregations  now  to  render  this  possible.  We  have  faithful 
■preaching  in  many  of  our  churches,  and  where  the  Gospel  is  preached  in 
power  and  in  truth  the  churches  are  not  empty.  We  have  the  great  organi- 
zations of  home  mission  work,  in  deaconesses  institutions,  reformatories, 
workingmen's  libraries,  city  missions,  and  so  forth.  These  are  only  exam- 
ples. We  have  a  large  religious  press.  The  sermons  published  by  the 
Berlin  city  mission  are  spread  in  112,000  copies  every  week.  A  great  num- 
ber of  so-called  Sunday  papers,  that  is,  not  political  papers,  which  appear 
on  Sunday,  but  small  religious  periodicals,  which  intend  to  give  good  relig- 
ious reading  to  the  people,  are  circulated  besides  the  sermons,  to  a  great 
extent  by  voluntary  helpers.  Our  Bible  Societies  spread  the  Bible  in  large 
numbers.  We  are  making  way  toward  a  better  observation  of  the  Lord's 
day.  At  the  wish  of  our  emperor,  races  no  more  take  place  on  Sunday. 
The  new  law  on  the  social  question  has  closed  our  shops  on  Sundays,  and 
the  complaints  raised  against  this  measure  at  first  have  soon  made  way  to  a 
sense  of  gratitude  for  the  freedom  thus  procured  to  the  many  people  who 
have  hard  work  during  the  week. 

Our  emperor  and  empress  have  given  a  powerful  impulse  toward  the 
building  of  new  churches,  and  their  regular  attendance  at  the  opening  ser- 
vices is  a  valuable  testimony  to  the  cause  01  rdigiun.  The  empress  tries  to 
stimulate  the  ladies  to  more  of  what  you  call  women's  work,  and  a  large 
assembly  of  3,000  ladies,  held  at  Berlin  last  winter,  shows  that  her  call  is 
not  in  vain.  Our  Sunday  schools  have  nearly  doubled  in  the  last  three  years. 
The  impulse  given  by  the  late  Professor  Christlieb  at  Bonn  to  have  evangelistic 


WEBB:   THE   SPIRIT   OF   ISLAM.  9^9 

services,  has  been  followed  up.  Some  flourishing  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciations lead  young  men  to  a  decided  religious  life.  Lay  work,  unknown  in 
previous  generations,  quickly  but  steadily  gains  ground.  Believing,  evan- 
gelical Christianity  in   Germany  is  more   a  power  now  than  it   ever  was 

before. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ISLAM. 
By  Mohammed- Webb. 

I  wish  I  could  express  to  you  the  gratification  I  feel  at  being  able  to 
appear  before  you  to-day,  and  that  I  could  impress  upon  your  minds  the  feel- 
ings of  millions  of  Mussulmans  in  India, Turkey  and  Egypt,  who  are  looking 
to  this  Parliament  of  Religions  with  the  deepest,  the  fondest  hope.  There  is 
not  a  Mussulman  on  earth  who  does  not  believe  that  ultimately  Islam  will  be 
the  universal  faith.  It  may  surprise  you  to  know  that  five  times  a  day,  regu- 
larly, year  in  and  year  out,  from  every  Mussulman's  heart  goes  forth  the 
sentiment  we  have  just  sung — "  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee."  To-morrow  I 
expect  to  speak  upon  "  The  Influence  of  Islam  on  Social  conditions,"  /and  I 
want  to  say  at  that  time,  something  about  polygamy. 

But  to-day  1  have  been  requested  to  make  a  statement,  very  briefly,  in 
regard  to  something  that  is  considered  universally  as  part  and  parcel  of  the 
Islamic  system.  There  are  thousands  and  thousands  of  people  who  seem  to 
be  in  mortal  terror  that  the  curse  of  polygamy  is  to  be  inflicted  upon  them 
at  once.  Now,  I  want  to  say  to  you,  honestly  and  fairly,  that  polygamy 
never  was  and  is  not  a  part  of  the  Islamic  system.  To  engraft  polygamy 
upon  our  social  system  in  the  condition  in  which  it  is  to-day,  would  be  a  curse. 
There  are  parts  of  the  East  where  it  is  practised,  .  .  .  But  we  must  first 
understand  what  it  really  means  to  the  Mussulman,  not  what  it  means  to  the 
American.  .  .  .  'Now,  I  don't  intend  to  go  into  this  subject.  With  the 
gentlemen  who  first  spoke,  I  am  an  American  of  the  Americans.  I  carried 
with  me  for  years  the  same  errors  that  thousands  of  Americans  carry  with 
them  to-day.  Those  errors  have  grown  into  history,  false  history  has  influ- 
enced your  opinion  of  Islam.  It  influenced  my  opinion  of  Islam  and  when  I 
began,  ten  years.ago,  to  study  the  Oriental  religions,  I  threw  Islam  aside  as 
altogether  too  corrupt  for  consideration. 

But  when  I  came  to  go  beneath  the  surface,  to  know  what  Islam  really 
is,  to  know  who  and  what  the  prophet  of  Arabia  was,  I  changed  my  belief 
very  materially,  and  I  am  proud  to  say  that  I  am  now  a  Mussulman. 

I  have  not  returned  to  the  United  States  to  make  you  all  Mussulmans  in 

'Note. —  The  few  words  omitted  here  opened  a  subject  requiring  more  than  a  bald  state- 
ment in  five  lines  to  be  at  all  rightly  understood. 


990  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS  :   TENTH    DAY. 

spite  of  yourselves;  I  never  intended  to  do  it  in  the  world.  I  do  not  propose 
to  take  a  sword  in  one  hand  and  the  Koran  in  the  other  and  go  through  the 
world  killing  every  man  who  does  not  say,  Z/i  illaha  illala  Mohammud  resoul 
Allah — "There  is  no  God  but  one  and  Mohammed  is  the  prophet  of  God." 
But  I  have  faith  in  the  American  intellect,  in  the  American  intelligence,  and 
in  the  American  love  of  fair  play,  and  will  defy  any  intelligent  man  to  under- 
stand Islam  and  not  love  it. 

It  was  at  first  suggested  that  I  should  speak  on  the  theology  of  Islam. 
There  are  some  systems  which  have  in  them  more  theology  than  religion. 
Fortunately  Islam  has  more  religion  than  theology. 

There  are  various  explanations  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  religion. 
One  has  but  to  read  Max  Miiller's  gifted  lectures  to  understand  what  a  vari- 
ety of  meanings  there  are  to  the  word.  We  may  simply  consider  that  it 
means  a  system  by  which  man  hopes  to  inherit  happiness  beyond  the  grave. 
What  the  conditions  may  be  beyond  the  grave  may  be  questioned  and  spec- 
ulated upon,  but  in  its  broader  sense  religion  is  that  system  which  leads  us 
to  or  gives  to  us  the  hope  of  a  future  life.  In  order  to  understand  Islam  and 
its  effects,  to  understand  the  spirit  of  Islam,  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  con- 
sideration human  nature  in  all  its  aspects. 

Do  you  suppose  that  any  active  religionist  who  has  studied  only  his  own 
-system  of  religion,  who  knows  nothing  about  any  other  system,  can  write 
fairly  of  any  other  system  ?  It  is  absolutely  impossible.  I  have  read  every 
history  of  Mohammed  and  Islam  published  in  English,  and  I  say  to  you,  there 
is  not  a  single  one  of  them,  except  the  work  of  Ameer  Ali,  of  Calcutta,  which 
reflects  at  all  in  any  sense  the  spirit  of  Islam.  We  will  take  the  work  of 
Washington  Irving  for  example.  Washington  Irving  evidently  intended  to 
be  fair  and  honest ;  it  is  apparent  in  every  line  that  he  meant  to  tell  the  truth, 
but  his  information  came  through  channels  that  were  muddy,  and  while  he  is 
appalled  at  what  he  considers  the  vicious  character  of  the  prophet,  he  is 
completely  surprised  at  times  to  find  out  what  a  pure  and  holy  man  he  was. 
Now,  the  first  book  I  ever  read  in  English  upon  Islam  was  The  Life  of 
Alohammed,  by  Washington  Irving,  and  the  strongest  feature  of  that  work  to 
me  was  its  uncertainty. 

In  one  page  he  would  say.  Mohammed  was  a  very  good,  a  very  pure 
and  holy  man,  and  it  was  a  shame  that  he  was  not  a  Christian,  but  his 
impious  rejection  of  the  Trinity  shut  him  out  from  salvation  and  made  him 
an  impostor.  These  were  not  the  exact  words  that  Irving  used,  but  they 
convey  practically  his  meaning.  After  saying  these  things,  he  goes  on  to 
say  what  a  sensuous,  grasping,  avaricious  tyrant  the  prophet  was,  and  he 
closed  his  work  by  saying  that  the  character  of  the  prophet  is  so  enigmat- 
ical that  he  cannot  fathom  it.  He  is  uncertain,  finally,  whether  Mohammed 
was  a  good  man  or  a  bad  man. 

Now,  to  understand  the  character  of  Mohammed  and  his  teachings,  we 
must  learn  to  read  between  the  lines ;  we  must  learn  to  study  human  nature  ; 


WEBB:   THE   SPIRIT   OF   ISLAM.  QQI 

we  must  carefully  analyze  the  condition  of  the  Arabians  at  the  time  Moham- 
meil  lived  ;  we  must  carefully  analyze  the  existing  social  conditions;  we 
must  understand  what  woman's  position  was  in  the  social  system  ;  the  vari- 
ous conditions  that  had  possession  of  the  whole  Arabian  nation.  They 
were  not,  however,  a  nation  at  that  time,  but  divided  into  predatory  tribes, 
with  all  the  vices  and  weaknesses  that  man  possesses,  almost  as  bad  as 
men  in  some  of  the  slums  of  Chicago  and  New  York.  Mohammed  came 
among  his  people  intending  to  purify  and  elevate  them,  to  make  them  a 
better  people,  and  he  did  so.  The  history  of  Mohammedanism  we  have  in 
English,  as  I  have  shown,  is  inaccurate,  untruthful,  and  full  of  prejudice. 

In  order  to  understand  the  spirit  of  Islam,  let  us  take  the  prophet  as  a 
child.  He  was  bom  in  Mecca.  All  historians — and  I  shall  simply  now 
state  what  Christian  historians  have  written  of  him — are  agreed  that  he 
was  remarkable  as  a  boy  for  the  purity  of  his  character.  He  was  utterly 
free  from  the  vices  which  afflicted  the  youth  of  Mecca.  As  he  grew  to 
manhood  his  character  became  unimpeachable,  so  much  so  that  he  was 
known  all  over  the  city  as  "the  trusty."  Those  characteristics  with  which 
he  is  accredited  by  Christian  writers  were  manifested  in  no  degree  what- 
ever. 

Hq  began  life  as  a  merchant,  following  his  uncle's  caravans  to  southern 
Europe  and  Syria,  and  he  demonstrated  the  fact  that  he  was  an  excel.lent 
business  man.  He  was  successful,  so  much  so  that  the  wealthy  widow  Kadi- 
jah,  whose  husband  had  died,  selected  "him  to  take  charge  of  her  business 
interests.  He  had  never  displayed  any  disposition  to  associate  with  the  fair 
sex ;  sensuality  was  no  part  of  his  character  at  all.  He  married  this  widow, 
and  with  her  accumulated  a  large  fortune,  with  which  he  engaged  in  the 
same  trade  as  his  uncle,  Abu  Taleb. 

This  marriage,  by  the  way,  was  not  brought  about  by  Mohammed.  He 
did  not  go  to  Kadijah  and  ask  her  to  be  his  wife,  but  she,  taking  perhaps  a 
mercenary  view  of  the  situation,  engaged  him  for  life  to  be  her  business 
manager.  Mohammed  rejected  the  proposal  at  first  and  would  have  refused 
it  altogether,  but  his  uncle,  Abu  Taleb,  said  it  was  the  best  thing  he  could 
do  and  that  he  should  marry  her.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  laws  of 
his  country  allow  him  to  take  as  many  wives  as  he  pleased,  Christian  histo- 
rians agree  that  he  was  true  to  Kadijah  for  twenty-five  years  and  never 
availed  himself  r\{  the  opportunity  to  take  another  wife.  He  was  true  to  her 
until  the  day  of  her  death. 

Now,  let  us  see  what  the  word  Islam  means.  It  is  the  most  expressive 
word  in  existence  for  a  religion.  It  means  simply  and  literally  resignation 
to  the  will  of  God.  It  means  aspiration  to  God.  The  .Moslem  system  is 
designed  to  cultivate  all  that  is  purest  and  noblest  and  grandest  in  the 
human  character.  Some  people  say  Islam  is  impossible  in  a  high  state  of 
civilization.  Now,  that  is  the  result  of  ignorance.  Look  at  Spain  in  the 
eighth  century,  when  it  was  the  center  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences,  when 


992  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

Christian  Europe  went  to  Moslem  Spain  to  learn  all  that  there  was  worth 
knowing — languages,  arts,  all  the  new  discoveries  were  to  be  found  in  Mos- 
lem Spain  and  in  Moslem  Spain  alone.  There  was  no  civilization  in  the 
world  as  high  as  that  of  Moslem  Spain. 

With  this  spirit  pi  resignation  to  the  will  of  God  is  inculcated  the  idea 
of  individual  responsibility,"  that  every  man  is  responsible  not  to  thi^man 
or  that  man,  or  the  other  man,  but  responsible  to  God  for  every  thovlght  and 
act  of  his  life.  He  must  pay  for  every  act  that  he  commits; -he  is  rewarded 
for  every  thought  he  thinks.  There  is  no  mediator,  there  is  no  priesthood, 
there  is  no  ministry.  '  ■     i  ,    " 

The  Moslem  brotherhood  stands  upon  a  perfect  equality,  recognizirig 
only  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  .the  brotherhood  of  man.  The  Emir,  who 
leads  in  prayer,  preaches  no  sermon.  He  goes  to  the  mosque  every  day  at 
noon  and  reads  two  chapters  from  the  holy  Koran.  He  descends  to  the 
floor  upon  a  perfect  level  with  the  hundreds,  or  thousands,  of  worshipers,  and 
the  prayer  goes  on,  he  simply  leading  it.  The  whole  system  is  calculated 
to  inculcate  that  idea  of  perfect  brotherhood.  .       •    •      -    "  ' 

The  subject  is  so  broad  that  I  can  only  touch  upon  it.  There  is  so 
much  unfamiliar  to  Americans  and  Englishmen  in  Islam  that  I  regret 
exceedingly  I  have  not  more  time  to  speak  of  it.  A  man  said  to  me  in 
New  York  the  other  day  :  ;  "Must  I  give  up  Jesus  and  the  Bible  if  I  become 
a  Mohammedan?"-  No,  no?  There  is  no  Mussulman  on  earth  who  does 
not  recognize  the  inspiration  of  Jesus.  The  system  is  one  that  has  been 
taught  by  Moses,  by  Abraham,  by  Jesus,  by  Mohammed,  by  every  inspired 
man  the  world  has  ever  known.  -You  need  not  give"  up  Jesus,  but  assert 
your  manhood.     Go  to  God.  ,     \ 

Now  let  us  work  at  the  practical  side  of  Islam  in  reference  to  the  appli- 
cation of  the  spirit  of  Islam  to  daily  life.  A  Mussulman  is  told  that  he  must 
pray.  So  is  everyone  else;  so  are  the  followers  of- every  other  religion. 
But  the  Mussulman  is  not  told  to  pray  when  he  feels  like  it,  if  it  does  not 
interfere  with  business,  with  his  inclinations  or  some  particular  engage- 
ment. Some  people  do  not  pray  at  such  times ;  they  say  it  does  n6t  make 
very  much  difference,  we  can  make  it  up  some  other  time.  A  little  study  of 
human  nature  will  show  that  there  are  people  who  pray  from  a  Conscien- 
tious idea  of  doing  a  duty,  but  there  are  a  great  many  others  who  shirk  a 
duty  at  every  chance  if  it  interferes  with  pleasure  or  business. 

The  wisdom  of  Mohammed  was  apparent  in  the  sirigle  item  of  prayer. 
He  did  not  say,  "  Pray  when  you  feel  like  it,"  but  "Pray  five  times  a  day  at 
a  certain  time."  The  Mussulman  rises  in  the  morning  before  daylight, 
because  his  first  prayer  must  be  said  before  the  first  streaks  of  light  appear 
in  the  east.  At  just  the  first  trace  of  davyn  he  sinks  upon  his  knees  and 
offers  his  prayer  to  God.  The  prayer  can  be  said  at  no  other  time.  That  is 
the  time  to  say  it.  The  result  is  he  must  get  up  in  the  morning  to  do  it.  It 
encourages  early  rising.    Now,  you  may  say  that  is  a  slavish  system.     Very 


994  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

true.  Humanity  differs  very  materially.  There  are  men  who  need  a  slavish 
system.  We  have  evidences  of  it  all  around  us,  in  every  religious  system 
known.  They  want  to  he  slaves  to  a  system,  and  let  us  take  that  system 
which  will  accomplish  the  best  results.  His  next  prayer  is  said  between 
twelve  and  one  o'clock,  or  just  as  the  sun  is  passing  the  meridian.  At  no 
other  time.  The  third  prayer  is  between  four  and  five  o'clock.  The  fourth 
prayer  is  just  as  the  sun  has  sunk  in  the  west.  The  light  of  the  day  is  dying 
out.     The  last  prayer  of  the  day  is  repeated  just  before  he  steps  into  bed. 

There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among  those  who  want  to  argue  over 
doctrinal  matters,  as  to  the  exact  time  of  this  evening  prayer,  but  there  is  no 
doubt  about  the  other  ones.  Some  Mussulmans  will  insist  upon  it  that  you 
can  pray  any  time  after  the  sunset  prayer.  Others  say  no,  you  must  pray 
when  you  go  to  bed.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  from  what  I  know  of  the 
prophet's  character  that  he  intended  that  that  was  to  be  the  last  prayer  of 
the  day,  and  that  a  man  should  go  to  sleep  presenting  his  soul  purified  to 
God.  ' 

Now,  before  that  man  says  a  prayer  he  must  wash  himself — he  performs 
his  ablutions.  The  result  is  that  the  intelligent  Mussulman  is  physically 
clean.  It  is  not  optional  with  him  to  take  his  bath  and  perform  his  ablu- 
tions when  he  sees  tit,  but  he  must  do  it  just  before  he  prays.  That  system, 
as  applied  to  the  masses  intelligently,  must  secure  beneficial  results.  There 
are  Mohammedans  who  say  they  do  not  need  to  pray.  The  other  Moham- 
medans say,  "That  is  between  you  and  God,  I  believe  I  must  pray."  The 
system  is  so  thoroughly  elastic,  so  thoroughly  applicable  to  all  the  needs  of 
humanity  that  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  exactly  the  system  that  we  need  in 
our  country,  and  that  is  why. I  am  here,  that  is  why  I  am  in  the  United 
States.  _ 

A  gentleman  asked  me  if  we. had  organized  a  mission  in  New  York. 
I  told  him  yes,  but  not  in  the  ordinary  sense  ;  that  we  simply  wanted  peo- 
ple to  study  Isiam  and  know  what  it  was.  The  day  of  blind  belief  has 
passed  away.  Intelligent  humanity  wants  a  reason  for  every  belief,  and  I 
say  that  that  spirit  is  commendable  and  should  be  encouraged  wherever  it 
goes,  and  that  is  one  of  the  prominent  features  of  the  spirit  of  Islam. 

We  speak  of  using  force,  that  Mohammed  went  with  a  sword  in  one 
hand  and  the  Koran  in  the  other.  I  want  to  show  to  you  to-morrow  that 
he  did  not  do  anything  of  the  sort.  No  man  is  expected  to  believe  any- 
thing that  is  not  in  perfect  harmony  with  his  reason  and  common  sense. 

There  is  one  particular  spirit  which  is  a  part  of  the  Islamislic  idea  that 
prevails  among  the  Moslems — and  now  I  am  speaking  not  of  the  lower 
classes,  not  of  the  masses  of  the  Moslems  the  missionaries  see  when  they  go 
to  the  East,  but  I  am  speaking  of  the  educated,  intelligent  Moslems,  and 
they  are  the  safest  guides.  No  one  would  expect  me  to  go  into  the  slums  of 
Chicago  to  find  a  reflection  of  the  Christian  religion.  You  cannot  expect 
to  find  it  in  the  character  and  the  acts  and  the  thoughts  of  a  poor,  ignorant 


WEBB:   THE   SPIRIT   OF   ISLAM.  995 

coolie,  who  can  neither  read  nor  write,  and  who  lias  associated  with  the 
most  degraded  characters  all  his  lite. 

But  the  spirit  that  prevails  among  the  Moslems  of  the  higher  class  is 
indifference  to  this  world.  This  world  is  a  secondary  consideration,  and  the 
world  beyond  is  the  world  to  strive  for,  the  life  beyond  is  the  life  that  has  some 
value  to  it.  It  is  worth  devoting  all  our  lives  to  secure  in  that  life  happi- 
ness and  perfect  bliss.  The  idea  of  paradise  naturally  follows.  It  is  popu- 
larly believed  that  Mohammed  talked  of  a  paradise  where  beautiful  houris 
were  given  to  men,  that  they  led  a  life  of  sensual  joy  and  luxury,  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing,  That  idea  is  no  more  absurd  than  the  golden  streets  and 
pearly  gates  idea  of  the  Christian.  Mohammed  taught  us  a  spiritual  truth, 
he  taught  a  truth  which  every  man  who  knows  anything  of  the  spiritual  side 
of  religion  ought  to  know.  And  he  taught  it  in  a  manner  which  would 
most  readily  reach  the  minds  and  hearts  of  his  hearers. 

The  poor  Arabs  who  lived  in  the  dry,  sandy  deserts  looked -upon  broad 
fields  of  green  grass  and  flowing  rivers  and  beautiful  trees  as  a  paradise. 
We  who  are  accustomed,  perhaps,  to  that  sort  of  thing,  some  of  us  run  away 
with  the  idea,  perhaps,  that  a  golden  street  and  pearly  gates  are  better  than 
th^t.  His  idea  was  to  show  them  that  they  were  to  secure  a  perfect  bliss,  and 
to  an  Arab,  if  he  could  reach  an  open  field  where  the  grass  grew  green  under 
his  feet,  and  the  birds  sang  and  the'trees  bore  pearls  and  rubies,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing,  it  would  be  bliss.  Mind  you,  Mohammed  never  taught  that, 
but  he  is  credited  with  teaching  it,  and  I  believe  he  taught  something  to 
illustrate  this  great  spiritual  truth  that  he  was  trying  to  force  upon  their 
minds,  and  it  has  been  corrupted  into  the  idea  of  a  garden  full  of  houris. 

The  next  feature  of  the  spirit  of  Islam  is  its  fraternity.  One  of  the  first 
things  that  Mohammed  did  after  being  driven  out  of  Mecca  and  located  in 
Medina  was  to  encourage  the  formation  of  a  Moslem  brotherhood,  with  a 
perfect  community  of  property,  a  socialistic  idea  impracticable  in  this  civili- 
zation but  perfectly  practical  at  that  time.  His  followers  assembled  around 
him  and  contributed  all  they  had.  The  idea  was,  "  Do  anything  to  help  your 
brother,  what  belongs  to  your  brother  belongs  to  you,  and  what  belongs  to 
you  belongs  to  your  brother.     If  he  needs  help,  l^elp  him." 

Caste  lines  are  broken  down  entirely.  We  find  on  one  occasion  Omar, 
one  of  the  most  energetic  and  vigorous  of  his  Caliphs,  exchanged  with  his 
slave  in  riding  on  the  camel.  The  daughters  of  Mohammed  in  the  house- 
hold would  divide  the  time  grinding  corn  with  the  slaves.  The  idea  was 
taught  "your  slave  is  your  brother."  Social  conditions  make  him  your 
slave,  but  he  is  none  the  less  your  brother.  This  idea  of  close  fraternity, 
this  extreme  devotion  to  fraternity,  was  the  cause  of  the  Moslem  triumph  at 
arms.  In  the  later  years,  after  the  death  of  Mohammed,  that  idea  was 
paramount  in  every  instance,  and  it  was  only  when  that  bond  of  fraternity 
was  broken  that  we  find  the  decadence  of  the  Islamistic  power  in  Spain. 

Readers  of  history  can  very  readily  trace  where  the   first  serpent  made 


90  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS  :   TENTH    DAY. 

its  entry  into  the  Islamistic  social  system,  that  serpent  of  disunion  in  divis- 
ion. We  find  the  Christians  coming  up  on  the  other  side,  closely  knit  in 
the  same  bond  of  brotherhood.  Does  that  bond  of  brotherhood  exist  to-day? 
It  exists  among  the  Mussulmans  of  India.  It  exists  among  the  better  class 
of  Mussulmans  of  Egypt  and  Turkey  in  a  degree  that  would  surprise  you. 
I  know  an  old  man  in  Bombay  who  had  lost  everything  and  was  being 
helped  along  by  his  Mohammedan  brethren.  A  wealthy  man,  reputed  to  be 
worth  something  like  half  a  million  or  a  million  and  a  half  dollars,  owned  a 
very  beautiful  yacht,  and  this  man  went  to  him  and  said  :  "  I  want  to 
borrow  your  yacht  to  go  fishing."  "  Certainly,  take  it  whenever  you  want 
it ;  it  is  yours." 

During  my  stay  in  the  East,  every  time  I  visited  Bombay,  almost,  that 
old  fellow  would  go  out  fishing.  I  dined  in  the  house  of  a  wealthy  Mus- 
sulman, and  that  same  old  man  came  in.  As  he  entered  the  door  he  said, 
"  Peace  be  with  you."  A  chair  was  set  for  him  at  the  table.  We  were  eat- 
ing at  the  table  at  that  time,  in  deference  to  me,  possibly.  Usually  they  eat 
upon  the  floor,  in  the  most  primitive  fashion,  and  with  their  fingers,  but  the 
better  class  of  Mohammedans,  or  rather  those  who  have  acquired  European 
ideas,  eat  with  the  fork  and  knife,  with  glass  furniture  on  the  table,  etc. 
On  that  occasion  we  were  at  the  table,  and  this  old  man  was  invited  to  sit 
down  and  take  dinne«r  with  us.  That  fraternal  idea  impressed  me  more 
deeply,  possibly,  than  anytl  ing  else.  I  felt  that  I  was  among  my  brethren, 
and  that  Mussulmans  were  brothers  the  world  over,  and  I  know  that  is  one 
of  the  basic  principles  of  the  system,  and  that  belongs  strictly  to  the  spirit 
of  Islam. 

In  closing,  I  want  to  say  this  :  that  there  is  no  system  that  has  been  so 
wilfully  and  persistently  misrepresented  as  Islam,  both  by  writers  of 
so-called  history  and  by  the  newspaper  press.  There  is  no  character  in  the 
whole  range  of  history  so  little,  so  imperfectly,  understood  as  Mohammed. 
I  feel  that  Americans,  as  a  rule,  are  disposed  to  go  to  the  bottom  facts,  and 
to  ascertain  really  what  Mohammed  was  and  what  he  did,  and  when  they 
have  done  so  I  feel  that  we  shall  have  a  universal  system  which  will  ele- 
vate our  social  system  at  l^ast  to  the  position  where  it  belongs.  I  thank 
you. 


CHRIST,  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

By  Rev.  B.  Fay  Mills. 

Christ  is  the  revelation  of  what  God  is  and  of  what  man  must  become. 
He  revealed  the  character  of  God  as  love  suffering  for  the  sins  of  man.  His 
whole  conception  of  himself  was  summed  up  in  these  words)  "  Christ,  the 
Saviour  of  the  World,"  and  we  get  the  full  thought  of  his  revelation  by 
emphasizing  the  latter  part  of  this  supreme  title,  and  realizing  that  he  came 
not  to  save  selected  individuals  nor  any  chosen  race,  but  to  save  the  whole 
world.  There  is  a  very  real  sense  in  which  it  was  not  necessary  for  Christ 
to  come  into  the  world  in  order  that  individuals  might  become  acquainted 
with  God.' 

But  the  mission  of  Jesus  was  to  save  the  world  itself.  As  a  recent 
writer  has  well  said,  it  is  a  deadly  mistake  to  suppose  that  "Christ  simply 
came  to  rescue  as  many  as  possible  out  of  a  wrecked  and  sinking  world." 
He  came  to  give  the  church  a  "commission  that  includes  the  saving  of  the 
wreck  itself,  the  quieting  of  its  confusion  .and  struggle,  the  relief  of  its 
wretchedness,  a  deliverance  from  its  destruction." 

This  certainly  was  his  own  conception  of  his  mission  upon  earth.  This 
also  seems  to  have  been  the  understanding  of  his  earliest  followers.  This 
certainly  was  the  conception  that  Paul  had  of  the  mission  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  was  also  the  conception  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus  of  the  earlier  cen- 
turies. 

The  mission  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world  may  be 
expressed,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  in  four  conceptions. 

First.  He  was  a  new  and  complete  revelation  of  God's  eternal  suffer- 
ing for  the  redemption  of  humanity.  He  showed  that  God  was  pure,  and 
unselfish,  and  meek,  and  forgiving,  and  that  he  had  always  been  suffering 
for  the  sins  of  men.  He  revealed  the  meaning  of  forgiveness  and  of  deliv- 
erance from  sin.  It  had  been  costing  God  to  forgive  sin  all  that  it  had 
cost  man  to  bear  it,  and  more.  This  had  to  he  in  God's  thought  before  he 
made  the  world.  In  the  words  of  a  modern  prophet,  ft  The  cross  of  Christ 
indicates  the  cost,  and  is  the  pledge  of  God's  eternal  friendship  for  man." 
Jesus  Christ  was  in  no  sense  a  shield  for  us  from  the  wrath  of  God,  but  "was 
the  effulgence  of  God's  glory  and  the  very  image  of  his  substance."  He 
said  to  one  of  his  disciples  "He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 
The  heart  of  his  teaching  was,  "that  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave 
his  only  begotten  Son."  He  came  to  show  us  that  the  world  had  never 
belonged  to  the  powers  of  evil,  but  that  in  his  original  thought,  God  had 
"  Gospel  of  John,  ch.  f,  vs.  i. 

997 


99^  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

decided  that  a  moral  world  should  be  created ;  and  that  in  this  decision, 
which  gave  to  humanity  the  choice  of  good  and  evil,  he  had  to  take  upon 
himself  infinite  suffering  until  the  world  should  be  brought  back  to  him. 
The  redemption  of  the  world  by  Christ  is  a  part  of  the  creation  of  the 
world  for  Christ. 

Our  second  thought  concerning  the  mission  of  Jesus  is,  that  his  life  was 
the  expression  of  the  origin  and  destiny  of  man.  We  are  told  that  Adam 
was  created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  if  he  had  been  an  obedient  child  it 
'  may  have  been  that  he  would  have  grown  up  to  be  a  full-grown  son  of  the 
Eternal  ;  but  he  sold  his  birthright  for  a  mess  o  f  pottage.  The  second 
Adam  was  the  Son  of  Man,  revealing  to  us  that  the  perfect  man  differs  in 
no  respect  from  the  perfect  God.  He  was  God.  He  became  man  ;  not  a 
man,  but  man.  He  was  God  and  man,  not  two  persons  in  one  existence, 
but  revealing  the  identity  of  man  and  God,  when  man  should  have  attained 
unto  the  place  that  he  had  always  occupied  in  the  eternal  thought.  The 
marvelous  counterpart  of  this  revelation  is  that  when  God  shall  have  per- 
fected his  thought  concerning  us,  that  man  shall  have  to  become  in  all 
things  like  unto  Jesus  Christ.  Mam^e  says  that  all  depends  on  whether  we 
decide  the  first  or  second  Adam  the  head  of  the  human  race.  "  I  would 
have  you  know,"  says  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  that  "  the  head  of 
every  man  is  Christ." 

The  blood  of  the  world  was  poisoned,  and  needed  an  infusion  of  purity 
for  the  correction  of  its  standards  and  bestowal  of  desire  and  power  to  attain 
unto  its  high  possibility.  This  was  a  partial  object  and  result  of  the  mission 
of  Christ.  He  showed  that  the  destiny  of  man  was  to  be  one  with  God,  and 
that  infinite  misery  would  be  the  result  of  the  avoidance  of  this  great  oppor- 
tunity, and  that  God  would  count  nothing  "dear  to  himself,"  or  to  man,  that 
this  might  be  accomplished. 

The  third  great  thought  in  connection  with  the  salvation  of  Jesus  Christ 
is,  that  through  the  completeness  of  his  redemption  there  is  no  necessity  nor 
reason  for  any  form  of  sin  in  the  individual. 

A  great  preacher  has  told  us  that  Christ  is  able  to  save  "  unto  the  utter- 
most ends  of  the  earth,  to  tiie  uttermost  limits  of  time,  to  the  uttermost 
periods  of  life,  to  the  uttermost  length  of  depravity,  to  the  uttermost  depth 
of  misery,  and  to  the  uttermost  measure  of  perfection."  The  way  of  salva- 
tion for  the  individual  through  Christ  is  the  knowledge  of  the  love  of  God 
making  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  world  ;  the  discerning  the  only  real 
principles  of  power,  in  losing  the  life,  in  order  to  save  it,  and  the  glad  for- 
saking of  all  things  to  become  his  disciple  and  to  "  fill  up  that  which  is 
behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ,  for  his  body's  sake."  It  is  here  that  the 
teaching  and  the  life  of  Jesus  are  in  glorious  unity.  The  cross  is  not  one 
thing  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  another.  The  kingdom  which  the 
Prince  of  Peace  came  to  establish  on  earth  had  for  its  constitution  those 
vital  words  which   may   be  expressed  by  the  one  word  love  ;  and  he,  him- 


MILLS:  CHRIST,  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.      999 

self  was  the  exhibition  of  what  it  meant  to  do  as  he  had  said,  and  even  to 
joyfully  suffer  death  for  righteousness'  sake. 

Faith  in  Christ  is  not  so  much  the  condition  as  it  is  the  evidence  of  a 
man's  salvation.  "Jesus  Christ  is  the  touchstone  of  character."  And  faith 
in  Christ  is  that  quality  of  righteousness  by  which  a  man  sees  in  Jesus  that 
which  he  himself  wishes  to  be,  realizes  that  he  may  be  and  determines  that 
he  will  be.  God  has  no  way  of  saving  men,  save  by  conforming  them  to 
the  image  of  his  Son.  For  a  man  who  sees  this,  believes  in  the  love  of  God, 
in  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  the  redemption  of  the  world ;  and  surrenders 
himself  to  the  mastership  of  Jesus ;  this  is  not  only  a  possibility  but  a  cer- 
tainty. 

The  last  thought  concerning  the  salvation  of  the  world  through  Jesus 
Christ  is,  that  the  loving  righteousness  of  God  must  be  finally  triumphant. 

One  cannot  conceive  of  a  heaven  in  which  man  should  not  be  a  moral 
being  and  free  to  choose  good  or  evil,  as  he  is  upon  this  earth;  and  the  joy 
of  heaven  will  consist  largely  in  that  glad  fixity  of  will  that  shall  eternally 
lose  itself  in  God. 

But  what  a  terrible  conception  comes  to  us  of  the  lost  world,  when  we 
conceive  ourselves  in  spite  of  all  the  loving-kindness  and  sacrifice  of  the 
eternal  God,  as  still  choosing  to  go  on  in  sin,  determining  to  resist  his  love, 
conscious  of  it  and  yet  without  the  power  to  escape  it.  No  hell  can  extinguish 
the  righteousness  of  God,  and  no  flames  consume  his  love,  which  is  the  mani- 
festation of  his  righteousness,  and  must  pursue  all  unrighteousness  in  every 
sinner  with  a  "  worm  that  dieth  not  and  a  fire  that  is  not  quenched." 

And  as  for  our  conception  of  heaven  ;  when  the  world  shall  obey  Jesus 
Christ,  and  when  all  those  who  have  surrendered  unto  his  heart  of  love  and 
have  been  working  with  him  throughout  the  ^^ons,  in  the  establishment  of 
righteousness,  shall  be  with  him  in  the  new  earth,  no  other  heaven  can  be 
imagined. 

This  must  be  the  end  of  the  atonement  of  the  life  and  the  death  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  keeping  of  his  commandments,  which  are  all  summed  up  in 
the  great  name  of  God,  which  is  love. 

With  shame  I  confess,  that  all  the  disciples  naming  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  have  not  fully  done  his  will  in  his  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  and  indeed 
have  sometimes  scarcely  seemed  to  apprehend  it.  We  have  already  in  this 
Parliament  been  rebuked  by  India  and  Japan  with  the  charge  that  Christians 
do  not  practice  the  teachings  of  Jesus. 

I  might  reply  by  pointing  to  our  hospital  walls  and  college  towers  and 
myriad  ministries  of  mercy; — but  I  forbear.  We  have  done  something;  but 
with  shame  and  tears  I  say  it,  that  as  kingdoms  and  empires  and  republic, 
as  states  and  municipalities  and  in  our  commercial  and  industrial  organiza- 
tions, and  even  in  a  large  measure  as  an  organized  church,  we  have  not  been 
practising  the  teachings  of  Jesus  as  he  said  them  and  meant  them,  as  the 
earliest  disciples  understood  and  practised  them ;  and  as  we  must  again  sub- 


1000  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

mit  to  them,  if  we  are  to  be  the  winners  of  the  world  for  Jesus  Christ.  It  is 
no  excuse  to  say  that  with  Christians,  the  nation  is  not  the  Church.  That  is 
a  still  further  confession  of  comparative  failure.  We  have  lacked  the  power 
of  conquest,  because  organized  Christianity  has  been  saying  "  Lord,  Lord,"  to 
her  Master ;  and  as  regards  politics  and  society  and  property  and  industry  has 
not  been  doing  the  things  that  he  sai(iyl  Benjamin  F'ranklin  said  that  a  genera- 
tion of  followers  of  Jesus  who  practise(^  his  teachings  would  change  the  face  of 
the  earth.  And  it  is  true.  When  evil  shall  go  forth  with  its  deadly  poison  ready 
for  dissem/rfation,  and  find  Christians  who  are  meek  and  merciful  and  poor  in 
spirit  and  pure  in  heart,  and  who  count  it  all  joy  to  be  persecuted  for  right- 
eousness' sake;  when  it  shall  dart  its  venomed  tongue  at  men  and  women 
who  "resist  not  evil,"  who  "give  to  him  that  asketh,"  and  from  the 
borrower  do  not  turn  away ;  who  "  being  struck  upon  one  cheek  turn  the 
other  also,"  who  "love  their  enemies,  bless  those  that  curse  them,  do  good  to 
them  that  hate  them,  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use  them  and  perse- 
cute them,"  who  forgive  their  debtors  because  God  has  forgiven  them  ;  then 
shall  the  old  serpent  find  no  blood  that  shall  be  responsive  to  his  poisonous 
touch,  and  shall  sting  himself  unto  the  death,  even  as  he  did  under  that  other 
cross ;  which  he  looked  upon  as  the  token  of  the  impotence  of  righteousness, 
but  which  was  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  and  the 
prophecy  of  the  triumph  of  eternal  love. 

Our  brethren  from  across  the  sea  have  said  all  we  need  ask  them  to 
say,  when  instead  of  attacking  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus,  they  show 
that  we  fail,  only  because  we  may  have  said  "  Lord,  Lord,"  and  not  done 
the  things  that  he  said.  The  only  hope  of  .Asia  as  of  America,  and  of 
Africa  as  of  Europe,  is  in  the  love  of  God,  and  the  establishment  of  his 
universal  kingdom  of  peace,  which  must  be  set  up  on  earth,  and  which  shall 
have  no  end.  It  is  of  universal  application.  Jesus  was  born  in  the  East, 
and  has  gained  his  greatest  present  triumphs  in  the  West.  When  men  shall 
have  begun  again  to  practice  the  teachings  of  Jesus  in  every  walk  and 
relationship  of  life,  then  there  will  be  no  social  enigmas  unsolved  and  no 
political  questions  unanswered,  i>ut  men  shall  be  in  union  with  God  and  at 
peace  with  one  another  ;  and  heaven  antl  earth  shall  be  one,  in  the  creation 
of  "the  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness."  -And  there  are  indica- 
tions of  such  a  triumph  now.  Every  language  may  be  translated  into 
every  other  tongue  of  man.  The  last  religion  of  the  world  has  been 
investigated  and  its  teachings  are  open  to  the  eyes  of  all.  The  time  is 
near  when  we  shall  clearly  know  what  now  we  dimly  see  in  Jesus  Christ 
that  "Love  is  righteousness  in  action,"  that  God  is  love,  and  law  is  gospel, 
and  sin  has  been  transformed  into  righteousness;  then  shall  we  see  "that 
unto  each  one  of  us  was  this  grace  given  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
^ift  of  Christ,  and  we  shall  all  "attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  .Son  of  God  ;  unto  a  full-grown  man;  unto  the  measure 
of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Chrisjt," 


'a 


T. 

r. 


r. 


M-^^ 


-»^<?^  V    '<rr--l^: 


RECONCILIATION  VITAL,  NOT  VICARIOUS. 
By  the  Rev.  Theodore  F.  Wright. 

There  are  certain  dicta  of  Scripture  which  are  universal  because  fun- 
damental, and  fundamental  because  universal.  One  of  these  is  that  saying 
of  the  Apostle  John,  "  God  is  love,  and  he  that  dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in 
God,  and  God  in  him." 

It  is  in  the  light  of  this  fact  of  the  universal  Divine  Love  that  the  fallen 
condition  of  man  finds  its  remedy  disclosed.  Fallen  man  was  succored  by 
the  same  Love  that  created  him.  The  father  of  the  prodigal  does  not  sulk 
in  his  tent  while  some  elder  brother  is  left  to  search  out  the  wanderer  and 
bring  him  in,  pointing  to  the  wounds  he  got  in  rescuing  him  as  a  means  of 
softening  the  heart  of  the  father  ;  nay,  the  father  watches  the  pathway  with 
longing,  and  sends  his  love  after  the  boy,  and  when  the  wayward  one  is  yet 
a  great  way  off,  he  sees,  he  hath  compassion,  he  runs,  he  falls  on  his  neck, 
he  kisses  him,  he  bids  them  bring  the  robe,  the  ring,  the  shoes,  the  fatted 
calf,  he  reproves  the  cold  vindictiveness  of  the  elder  brother,  he  is  all  shep- 
herd-like. 

Intellectually,  man  has  not  fallen.  He  is  as  bright  as  he  ever  was. 
He  is  growing  brighter.  The  evolution  of  intellect  is  indisputable.  But  as 
to  the  will,  what  is  man  ?  We  are  making  men  shrewd,  but  we  are  not 
making  them  good.  The  human  mind  wants  reaching  in  its  depths.  The 
motives  behind  our  thinking  want  renewal.  How  should  the  Divine  Love 
accomplish  the  recovery  of  the  lost  state  ?  The  remedy  was  within  the 
keeping  of  the  Infinite  Love  and  Wisdom,  which  had  so  far  made  and  con- 
ducted man. 

If  God  would  come  with  any  mercy,  he  must  descend  to  the  place  of 
the  fallen.  To  take  upon  himself  the  nature  born  of  woman  would  be  his 
means  of  redemption. 

This  was  no  merely  vicarious  act  of  a  subordinate  person.  It  was  the 
act  of  God  himself  to  restore  the  vital  union  between  man  and  himself,  that 
union  which  man  had  severed  by  increasing  self-assertion,  waywardness  and 
wickedness,  and  which  could  only  be  renewed  by  contrition  and  return  antl 
reconciliation. 

Thus  the  will  and  the  power  to  rescue  and  reconcile  wayward  souls 
sprang  from  the  Infinite  Love;  the  method  was,  and  is,  that  of  the  Divine 
order,  and  the  result  in  the  individual  redeemed  through  repentance  and 
regeneration  is  just  what  man's  fallen  state  required  and  requires.  As  Paul 
said :     "God  was  in  the  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself." 


looa 


THE     ESSENTIAL    ONENESS    OF    ETHICAL    IDEAS 

AMONG  ALL  MEN. 

By  Rev.  Ida  C.  Hultin. 

Of  ethical  Ideas,  not  of  ethical  systems  or  doctrines,  am  I  bidden  to 
speak  to-day. 

Let  me  say  ethical  sense.  It  will  mean  the  same  and  be  more  simple. 
The  universality  of  the  ethical  sense. 

Gravitation  is  not  more  surely  a  fact,  it  seems  to  us,  than  is  the  unity  of 
all  life.  If  life  is  a  whole,  then  that  which  is  an  essential  quality  of  one  part 
must  be  common  to  the  whole.  Through  all  life  not  only  an  eternal  pur- 
pose runs,  but  an  eternal  moral  purpose.  Human  history  has  been  a  struggle 
of  man  to  understand  himself  and  the  other  selves,  and  beyond  that  the 
Infinite  Self. 

Right  and  wrong  can  never  be  found  in  outer  conditions,  forces  or  results. 
These  may  furnish  data  by  which  decisions  may  be  made  in  regard  to  the  use- 
fulness or  uselessness  of  certain  ways  of  doing,  but  there  is  no  element  here  of 
rightness  or  wrongness.  Not  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  exterior  conduct,, 
but  the  conscious  purpose,  the  imperative  I  ought,  I  will,  changing  by  virtue 
of  divine  necessity  to  I  must — this  is  the  ethical  intent  of  all  religions.  For 
out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life.  The  results  of  reasoning  will  inform 
conscience  and  man  will  discover  higher  incentive  for  action,  newer  inter- 
pretations of  expediency  and  finer  variations  of  choice,  as  he  passes  through 
God's  judgment  days  by  the  way  of  intellectual  development.  Evil,  yea, 
sin,  will  be  found  to  be  a  necessary  condition  of  advancement,  the  growing 
pain  of  the  soul  ;  the  unquenchable  spirit  will  have  its  way  with  all  these, 
yea,  they  shall  serve.     Thus  man  grows,  humanity  rises. 

This  is  not  a  question  necessarily  of  theologies  or  churches.  Humanity 
does  not  reach  its  best  life  through  any  scheme  of  redemption,  but  through 
an  age  of  long  struggle  with  God  to  help.  It  is  not  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be 
saved  ?"  but  "What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?"  The  moral  man  is 
obeying  the  God-voice,  whether  he  knows  to  call"  it  that  or  not.  Is  lie 
denied  theological  classification  it  v.'iii  not  be  surprising  if  he  enters  heaven 
without  a  label.  He  who  cannot  liearGod,  see  God,  feel  God,  in  the  living, 
potent  things  of  the  every  day,  must  buy  a  book  and  find  God  and  his  law 
tiiere.  But  if  the  church  disband  or  his  i)ook  is  burned,  where  shall  he  turn 
for  authority  ?  .May  he  lie  and  steal  now  with  impunity  ?  Pity  the  man 
whose  moral  nature  is  not  a  law  unto  itself. 

Strive  from  il  though  we  may,  the  truth  appears  when  we  are  honest 
with  ourselves,   that  churches  and  creeds  have  never  done  the  world's  best 

1003 


1004  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

work.  Tlie  church  has  never  freed  the  slave  of  any  land.  Even  while  the 
armies  were  gathering  which  eventually  freed  the  slaves  in  this  country, 
ministers  were  preacliing  that  slavery  was  divinely  ordained  and  right 
according  to  the  Word  of  God.  But  the  spirit  of  eternal  justice,  revealing 
itself  in  the  ethical  sense  of  thousands  of  men  and  women,  ignoring  the 
dogma  and  its  expounders,  moved  against  the  wrong  and  overcame  it. 
There  were  those  who  could  read  but  one  page  of  God's  word,  but  in  the 
"terrible  swift  lightning"  of  that  judgment  day,  men  read  the  law  written 
on  human  hearts. 

Try  to  evade  the  truth  if  you  will,  you  must  face  it  at  last.  No  credal 
church  and  no  form  of  ecclesiasticism  has  ever  lent  itself  to  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  woman-half  of  humanity.  She  has  suffered,  and  stjll  suffers, 
because  of  the  results  of  dogmatic  beliefs  and  theological  traditions.  But 
the  ethical  sense  of  the  humanity  of  which  she  is  a  part  is  lifting  her  out 
into  the  fullness  of  religious  liberty.  She  does  not  come  into  the  fellowship 
to  write  creeds  nor  to  impose  dogmas,  but  to  cooperation  in  such  high  living 
as  shall  make  possible  religiousness.  She  comes  to  help  do  away  with  false 
standards  of  conduct.  By  demanding  morality  for  morality,  purity  for 
purity,  self-respecting  manhood  for  self-respecting  womanhood,  she  will  help 
remove  odious  distinctions  on  account  of  sex,  and  make  one  code  of  morals 
do  for  both  men  and  women.  This  not  alone  in  the  western  world,  where 
circumstances  have  been  more  propitious  for  woman's  advancement,  but  in 
all  parts  of  the  world.  Churches  as  a  whole  do  not  feed  the  hungry,  clothe 
the  naked,  minister  to  the  sick,  turn  prisons  into  reformatories,  and  unite  to 
stay  the  atrocities  of  legalized  cruelty.  If  churches  were  doing  the  humane 
work  of  the  world  there  would  not  be  needed  so  many  clubs  and  associations 
and  institutions  for  philanthropic  work,  and  as  outlets  for  the  ethical  sense. 
Men  and  women  in  the  churches  and  out  of  them  do  this  work,  while  theo- 
logians are  busy  with  each  other  and  the  creeds;  these  men  and  women 
belonging  to  all  countries  and  all  races,  who  perhaps  have  not  had  time  t(} 
formulate  their  beliefs  about  humanity,  are  busy  working  for  it;  who  have 
never  known  how  to  defrne  God,  are  finding  him  in  their  daily  lives.  Faith  ? 
Yes,  but  "  faith  without  works  is  dead."  When  the  ethical  intent  has  been 
removed  from  a  theological  system  it  is  dead  faith.  Interesting  as  the  his- 
tory of  a  religious  evolution,  and  not  to  be  lightly  estimated,  but  as  a  work- 
ing force  in  spiritual' advancement  it  is  useless.  It  was  well  said  from  this 
platform  by  the  preacher  from  Brooklyn  a  few  days  ago,  "Not  Christianity 
but  Christ  I  plead."  Many  of  us  are  not  particular  about  the  Christian  name, 
but  we  do  care  about  the  Christ  spirit,  that  same  spirit  that  has  been  the 
animating  force  in  every  prophet-life.  The  religious  aspiration  which  gave 
birth  to  the  ethical  sense  that  made  to  be  alive  old  forms,  has  passed  on  to 
vivify  new  forms  and  systems  that  yet  shall  have  their  day  and  give  place  to 
others.  "  It  is  the  spirit  that  giveth  life,  the  letter  killeth."  When  you 
remember  some  of  the  things  that  have  been  taught  and  have  been  done  in 


PRATT:    RELIGION    AND    MUSIC.  IOO5 

the  name  of  Christ  do  you  wonder  that  our  l)rother  from  Japan  said,  "  If 
such  be  the  Christian  ethics,  well,  we  are  perfectly  satisfied  to  be  heathen." 
Do  vou  wonder  that  the  calm-souled  prophet  from  India  pleads  with  us  for 
a  manifestation  of  the  spirit  that  was  in  Jesus  ?  Do  we  need  assurance  that 
boasting  of  our  religion  will  not  prove  us  to  be  religious  ?  We  talk  too 
glibly,  yes,  sometimes  irreverently  in  our  boastfulness  about  these  high 
things.  We  need  to  learn  humility.  We  are  only  beginners  after  all,  all  of 
us.  When  asked  for  definitions  that  define,  man  stands  dumb,  even  before  a 
gTass  blade,  and  he  is  growing  more  reverent  in  contemplation  of  the  all- 
wise,  the  all-true,  the  all-good  and  all-loving.  Even  as  a  little  child  is  he 
learning  to  enter  the  kingdom.  Spelling  out  the  best  name  he  knows  for  his 
highest  ideal,  anil  hoping,  loving,  trusting  more  than  he  can  word  or  think. 


RELIGION  AND  MUSIC. 

By  Prof.  Waldo  S.  Pratt,  of  Hartford. 

Music  naturally  belongs  with  the  social  side  of  religion  rather  than  with 
its  private  side.  The  secret  intercourse  between  the  soul  and  God  has  no 
absolute  need  of  music  or  any  other  sensuous  formulation.  Only  so  far  as 
this  inmost  intercourse  expands  into  a  social  institution,  where  outward 
expression  is  a  necessity,  is  there  a  special  demand  for  such  a  voice  as  that 
of  music.  The  solitary  worshiper  may  set  his  prayer  and  praise  in  forms  of 
song  as  a  fuller  mode  of  utterance  than  cold  words ;  but  he  is  not  likely  to 
do  this  unless  he  has  first  learned  the  value  of  song  as  an  implement  of 
social  intercourse. 

It  is  important  for  us  to  observe  two  features  of  the  visible  working  of 
religion  in  the  world.  The  first  of  these  is  that,  although  religion  is  essen- 
tially a  spiritual  affair,  all  we  can  know  of  it,  outside  of  our  own  souls, 
is  through  various  sensuous  embodiments ;  it  is  made  manifest  in  word  and 
deed  and  character.  The  second  feature  is  that,  although  religion  is  essen- 
tially a  personal  affair  between  every  individual  and  God,  its  necessity  of 
outward  manifestation  makes  it  also  a  social  affair.  These  two  practical 
necessities  in  religion,  the  necessity  of  concrete  manifestation  and  the  twin 
necessity  of  social  value  in  such  manifestation,  have  their  fullest  expression 
in  the  institution,  historic  everywhere,  of  public  worship.  In  public  worship 
may  always  be  seen  some  concrete  manifestation  of  currents  of  intercourse 
both  from  man  to  God  and  from  God  to  man,  and  in  this  manifestation 
there  is  a  decided  social  reaction  of  man  upon  man  as  they  stand  together 
in  God's  presence. 

These  thoug*..!3  enable  us  to  see  why  music  plays  so  large  a  part  in  the 
social  manifestations  of  religion  in  public  worship.     Music  may  have  other 
Copyright,  i8<)3,  by  J.  H.  B. 


I006  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

reasonable  applications  ;  l)ut  there  should  be  no  question  about  its  religious 
application. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  coroiluries  that  issue  from  these  thoughts.  Religious 
music  is  a  language,  not  a  mere  festal  robe,  not  a  spectacular  display,  not  a 
lifeless  apparition,  but  a  language  expressive  of  one  personality  and  impres- 
sive upon  other  personalities.     Assume  that  this  is  true,  what  follows? 

It  follows,  first,  that  as  a  language  its  message  or  content  should  be 
consonant  with  its  occasion.  Spiritual  truth  is  the  first  of  the  qualities  to 
be  demanded  in  the  thorough  criticism  of  religious  music.  The  message 
conveyed  by  such  music  must  be  a  genuine  one,  a  heartfelt  one,  and  one 
germane  to  the  ideal  inter-relations  between  God  and  men  and  between 
men  in  his  presence. 

Now  regarding  sacred  music  as  capable  of  containing  a  message  evi- 
dently and  powerfully  pertinent  to  the  social  manifestations  of  religion, 
particularly  in  public  worship,  we  have  three  ways  of  controlling  the  nature 
of  this  content  or  message,  three  directions  in  which  harmful  misapplica- 
tions may  be  excluded,  three  paths  always  open  for  earnest  and  enterprising 
progress.  These  three  directions  are,  briefly,  the  personality  of  religious 
musicians,  the  style  of  religious  music,  and  the  words  chosen  for  musical 
setting  for  religious  use,  including  the  artistic  consonance  of  the  setting 
with  the  text.  But  the  application  of  these  principles  is  manifest.  Not 
every  musician  is  fitted  to  be  a  religious  musician  simply  because  he  is  an 
artist.  Not  all  kinds  of  music  are  suited  to  be  used  as  sacred  music  simply 
because  artistically  they  are  interesting  or  even  beautiful.  Setting  words  to 
music,  however  good,  does  not  make  the  compound  fit  for  religious  use 
unless  apart  from  the  music  they  are  thus  fit,  and  unless  the  setting  makes 
their  fitness  more  apparent.  These  are  cardinal  principles,  applicable  to 
every  phase  of  Christianity  and  to  every  sincere  religious  system  whatso- 
ever. They  are  axiomatic  principles,  needing  only  to  be  stated  to  be 
accepted.  So  long  as  they  are  unobserved,  religious  music  will  be  mean- 
ingless and  neutral,  if  not  false  and  positively  injurious. 

,But  there  is  another  equally  important  side  to  the  matter.  We  have 
noted  that  if  miisic  be  a  language,  its  contents  should  be  consonant  with  its 
occasion.  We  must  now  add  that  if  it  be  a  language,  its  actual  effectiveness 
should  be  diligently  cultivated  and  perfected.  Spiritual  truth  is  the  first  of 
the  qualities  demanded  ;  spiritual  power  is  the  second.  The  first  quality  is 
mainly  to  be  secured  by  magnifying  sincerity  on  the  part  of  the  one  using 
such  music.  The  second  is  mainly  to  be  secured  by  developing  skill  and  by 
providing  favorable  circumstances.  It  is  unfortunately  true  that  technical 
expertness  without  serious  purpose  often  seems  to  be  far  more  effective  and 
valuable  than  even  great  earnestness  of  purpose  without  adequate  skill.  So 
it  has  come  to  pass  too  often  that  religious  music  has  been  entrusted  to  those 
to  whom  art  is  first  and  piety  and  edification  second  or  worse.  There  will  be 
unrest  and  difficulty  wherever  religious  music  is  handled  without  due  regard 
to  both  truth  and  effectiveness  in  conjunction  and  in  due  coordination. 


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ST.   I'AIRICK'S  CATHKDKAI.,  .\1':\\'  V(JkK. 


I008  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

This  brings  me  to  two  practical  remarivs.  The  first  of  these  is,  that  in 
many  communities  there  is  altogether  too  much  so-called  religious  music.  It 
has  been  mechanically  turned  out  by  the  yard  and  duplicated  by  the  thou- 
sand, until  it  is  no  longer  a  message  from  one  heart  to  another,  and  until  it 
has  actually  turned  some  hearts  to  stone.  Christianity  has  borne  consum- 
mate flowers  of  song,  hymns  that  palpitate  with  precious  heart-throbs,  mel- 
odies that  mount  up  on  eagle's  wings,  anthems  and  oratorios  that  seem  to  be 
foretastes  of  the  angelic  praises ;  and  yet  these  very  blossoms  have  been  so 
imitated  and  reproduced  in  clumsy  wax  and  flimsy  paper  that  thousands  of 
would-be  worshipers  know  nothing  of  the  fragrant  and  fruitful  originals,  and 
are  even  disgusted  with  the  sham  and  paltriness  of  everything  called  sacred 
music.  This  prevalent  vulgarity  of  music  in  religious  uses  is  a  grievous  evil. 
Music  is  too  precious  to  be  wasted  or  misused,  least  of  all  when  on  its  golden 
petals  is  stamped  the  very  image  of  God's  love  as  revealed  in  the  Christian 
heart. 

This  suggests  the  other  practical  thought.  Merely  negative  restraints 
upon  religious  music  will  never  make  it  good.  They  may  cut  off  foolish  and 
fraudulent  simulations  of  it.  But  currency  is  not  coined  by  suppressing 
counterfeits.  Side  by  side  with  restriction  must  be  positive  education.  What 
provision  is  being  made  by  our  chief  religious  agencies  that  of  real  religious 
music  there  shall  be  more  and  better  ?  This  question  is  a  pressing  one.  It 
is  one  to  which  little  satisfactory  answer  is  being  given  by  our  various  relig- 
ious bodies. 

One  of  the  surest  signs  of  neglect  of  the  subject  is  the  rarity  and  pov- 
erty of  literary  work  upon  it.  The  luminous  treatises  upon  religious  music 
in  its  larger  aspects  may  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  Popular 
thought  about  religious  music,  hymns,  tunes,  anthems,  cantatas,  oratorios, 
especially  as  related  to  public  worship,  is  notoriously. defective,  weak,  fanci- 
ful, and  unfruitful.  Speaking  in  a  large  way,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
churches  have  only  barely  begun  to  master  the  skill  to  use  music  with  thor- 
ough effectiveness,  and  have  not  yet  begun  to  supply  that  atmosphere  of 
diffused  popular  appreciation  of  religious  music,  which  is  pperequisite  to  gen- 
eral and  hopeful  progress. 

I  firmly  believe  that  religious  music  as  applied  to  Christian  purposes  is 
as  yet  only  in  its  infancy.  How  it  is  with  non-Christian  religions  I  do  not 
know  ;  but  with  us  the  actual  and  the  typical  are  very  far  apart.  Nothing 
but  well  considered  and  prolonged  processes  of  education  will  bring  them 
together. 

I  do  not  share  the  belief  of  some  musical  enthusiasts  that  the  coming 
century  will  see  such  a  degree  of  musical  progress  as  to  set  music  as  the 
exclusive  language  of  higher  sentiments  of  every  sort.  But  I  do  believe  that 
in  music,  both  instrumental  and  vocal,  there  are  hidden  vast  treasures  of 
poetic  truth  and  magazines  of  emotional  power,  which  are  now  known  only 
to  the  few  and  expended  only  for  minor  ends. 


THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND 

CONDUCT. 

By  Prof,  Crawford  Howell  Toy,  of  Harvard  University. 

Our  thesis  may  be  expressed  as  follows  :  Morality  is  complementary 
to  religion,  or  it  is  the  independent  establishment  of  the  laws  of  conduct 
which  help  to  furnish  the  content  of  the  undefined  religious  ideal.  Let  us 
look  at  certam  facts  in  man'sTnoral-religious  history  which  appear  to  illus- 
trate one  part  of  this  thesis. 

First,  it  may  be  noted  that,  in  the  ancient  world,  about  the  same  grade 
of  morality,  theoretical  and  practical,  was  attained  by  all  the  great  nations. 
From  this  ethical  uniformity  we  must  infer  that  the  moral  development  was 
independent  of  the  particular  form  of  religion.  Another  fact  of  the  ancient 
world  is  that  the  ethical  life  stands  in  no  direct  ratio  to  the  religiousness  of 
a  people  or  circle.  Several  great  moral  movements  were  characterized  by 
an  almost  complete  ignoring  of  the  divine  element  in  human  thought. 
These  are  Confucianism,  Buddhism,  Stoicism,  and  Epicureanism.  Turning 
to  modern  Europe,  it  is  evident  that  progress  in  morality  has  been  in  pro- 
portion to  the  growth  rather  of  general  culture  than  of  religious  fervor.  If 
religion  alone  could  have  produced  morality,  the  crusades  ought  to  have 
converted  Europe  into  an  ethically  pure  community  ;  instead  of  which  they 
oftener  fostered  barbarity  and  vice.  The  English  Puritans  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  were  among  the  most  religious  and  the  most  barbarous  and 
unscrupulous  of  men.  In  a  word,  religion  has,  as  a  rule,  not  been  able  to 
maintain  a  high  moral  standard  against  adverse  circumstances,  and  has  not 
e.xerted  its  proper  influence. 

In  order  to  understand  the  relation  between  religion  and  morality  we 
must  note  their  origins.  Morality,  in  the  first  place,  is  simply  a  product  of 
our  social  relations.  The  idea  of  honesty  assumes  the  existence  of  prop- 
erty, and  of  property  belonging  to  another.  In  an  unorganized  commun- 
ism, or  in  the  case  where  I  alone  am  owner,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
dishonesty.  •  Further,  the  idea  of  property  is  at  first  physical,  non-moral, 
involving  the  mere  notion  of  possession. 

With  the  growing  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  individual  and  the 
increasing  dependence  of  members  of  the  community  on  one  another,  the 
rights  of  property  are  more  cleaVly  defined,  and  there  is  a  greater  disposi- 
tion to  punish  the  slightest  invasion  of  these  rights.  Recognition  of  the 
property-right  becomes  a  duty,  but  always  under  the  condition  that  gave  it 
birth,  namely,  the  well-being  of  the  community. 

64  1009 


lOIO  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   TENTH    DAY. 

t 

In  the  same  way  the  duties  of  truthfulness  and  of  respect  for  human 
life  have  arisen,  and  these  are  limited  by  the  same  condition. 

The  same  law  of  growth  governs  the  history  of  the  more  general 
ethical  conceptions.  Love  in  its  earliest  form  is  non-moral — it  is  mere 
desire  or  instinct.  Two  conditions  must  be  fulfilled  before  love  can  rise  to 
the  ethical  plane.  First,  it  must  be  transformed  from  selfish  desire  into  a 
single-minded  wish  to  secure  the  well-being  of  its  object,  and  then  it  must 
know  what  is  well-being.  Both  these  conditions  are  attained  through 
social  intercourse. 

It  is  no  less  true  that  it  is  from  social  intercourse  that  we  gain  the 
final  and  fundamental  standard  of  conduct,  the  idea  of  justice.  The  indi- 
vidual comes  to  self-consciousness,  to  individuality,  and  therefore  to  rights 
and  perfection  only  in  society.  At  the  same  time,  the  content  of  justice  is 
determined  by  social  relations.  It  is  only  by  experience  that  we  can  say 
that  we  owe  just  so  much  to  each  person.  '  Love  can  do  no  more  than 
recognize  the  rights  of  every  being,  for  to  do  more  would  be  wrong. 

A  great  motive  for  right  living  is  supplied  by  experience;  namely,  the 

•  hope  of  worldly  well-being,  or  salvation.      Enlightened  observation  more 

and  more  shows  that  happiness  attends  virtue.     What  is  more,  from  it  the 

mind  passes  naturally  to  the  broader  ideal  of  the  well-being  of  the  world 

as  the  aim  of  life  and  the  basis  of  happiness. 

Religion,  the  sense  of  relation  to  the  extra-human  power  of  the  universe, 
introduces  us  to  a  new  social  complex.  In  morality  the  parties  are  man  and 
man,  in  religion,  man  and  God.  In  our  moral  relations  with  a  person  or 
government  there  are  two  classes  of  influence  to  be  considered  —  the  moral 
power  of  the  personality  and  the  restraining  or  impelling  power  of  his  or 
its  physical  power  over  us.  The  second  of  these  is  what  we  call  sanctions, 
rewards  and  punishments. 

When  religious  sanctions  are  spoken  of  it  is  commonly  the  supernat- 
ural sort  that  is  meant.  It  is  an  interesting  question  how  far  the  belief  in 
these  is  now  morally  effective.  It  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  convic- 
tion of  the  religious  world  that  the  future  life  must  be  morally  the  continua- 
tion and  consequence  of  the  "present.  This  must  be  esteemed  a  great  gain 
—  it  tends  to  banish  the  mechanical  and  emphasize  the  ethical  element  in 
life  and  to  raise  religion  to  the  plane  of  rationality.  Rational  religious  mor- 
ality is  obedience  to  the  laws  of  nature  as  laws  of  God. 

We  are  thus  led  to  the  other  side  of  religion,  comnmnion  <vith  God,  as 
the  effective  source  of  religious  influence  on  conduct.  It  is  this,  in  the  first 
place,  that  gives  eternal  validity  to  the  laws  of  right.  Resting  on  con- 
science and  the  constitution  of  society,  these  laws  may  be  in  themselves 
obligatory  on  the  world  of  men,  but  they  ac(iuire  a  universal  character  only 
when  we  remember  that  human  nature  itself  is  an  effluence  of  the  divine, 
and  that  human  experience  is  the  divine  self-revelation. 

Further,  the  consciousness  of  the  divine  presence   should  be  the  most 


TOY:    RELIGION    AND   CONDUCT.  10 1  I 

potent  factor  in  man's  morsd  life.  The  thought  of  the  ultimate  basis  of  life, 
incomprehensible  in  his  essence,  yet  known  through  his  self-outputting  in 
the  world  as  the  ideal  of  right,  as  the  comrade  of  man  in  moral  life,  should 
be,  if  received  into  the  soul  as  a  living,  everyday  fact,  such  a  purifying  and 
uplifting  influence  as  no  merely  human  relationship  has  ever  engendered. 

Religion,  then,  in  itself  furnishes  us  with  no  rules  of  conduct ;  it 
accepts  the  rules  worked  out  by  human  experience.  The  deepest,  the  ulti- 
mate source  of  our  ethical  codes,  as  actual  phenomena,  is  social  unity.  The 
building  up  of  this  unity  is  the  highest  moral  duty  of  us  all,  and  offense 
against  it  is  the  blackest  sin  of  which  man  is  capable.  Here  we  see  the 
mural  function  of  love.  It  has  no  code,  but  it  is  an  impulse  which  tends  to 
foster  unity. 

Religion,  accepting  the  ethical  code  established  by  man,  identifies  it 
with  the  will  and  nature  of  Deity.  The  impetus  which  thus  comes  to  the 
moral  life  is  obvious.  There  is  the  enthusiasm  which  springs  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  a  part  of  a  vast  scheme,  buoyancy  given  by  hopefulness 
or  certainty  of  final  victory,  and  the  exaltation  of  loyalty  to  a  great  aim  and 
a  transcendent  person.  The  true  power  of  religion  lies  ir  the  contact 
between  the  divine  soul  and  the  soul  of  man.  It  must  be  admitted  that  to 
attain  this  is  no  easy  thing.  Most  men  look  to  God  as  their  helper  in 
physical  things  or  as  an  outside  lawgiver  rather  than  as  their  comrade  in 
moral  struggle. 

Thus  religion  has  not  come  to  its  rights  in  the  world  ;  it  still  occupies, 
as  a  rule,  the  low  plane  of  early,  non-moral  thought ;  but  is  there  any  reason 
why  it  should  continue  in  this  nascent  shape  ?  Inadequate  conceptions  of 
God  and  of  the  moral  life  must  be  swept  away,  the  free  activity  of  the  human 
soul  must  be  recognized  and  relied  on,  the  habit  of  contemplation  of  the 
ideal  must  be  cultivated;  we  must  feel  ourselves  to  be  literally  and  truly 
co-workers  with  God.  In  the  presence  of  such  a  communion  would  not 
mural  evil  be  powerless  over  man  ? 

Finally,  we  here  have  a  conception  of  religion  in  which  almost  all,  per- 
haps all,  the  systems  of  the  world  may  agree.     It  is  our  hope  of  unity. 


CHRISTIANITY    IN   JAPAN;    ITS    PRESENT    CONDI- 
TION AND  FUTURE  PROSPECTS. 

By  President  Kozakt,  of  the  Doshisha  University,  Japan. 

There  are  now  many  peculiar  features  in  Japanese  Christianity,  which 
are  seldom  seen  in  other  countries. 

I.  One  distinctive  feature  of  the  Japanese  churches  lies  in  the  peculiar- 
ity of  the  constituency  of  their  membership,  (i)  The  proportion  of  female 
members  to  male  is  about  three  to  four.-  (2)  Another  fact  is  the  abundance 
of  young  people  in  our  churches.  (3)  One  more  point  is  the  predomi- 
nance of  "Shizoku  "  or  the  military  class.  They  have  been,  and  still  are, 
the  very  brain  of  the  Japanese  people.  Though  they  are  not  usually 
wealthy,  they  are  far  superior,  both  intellectually  and  morally,  to  other 
classes. 

II.  The  next  peculiar  feature  is  lack  of  sectarian  or  denominational 
spirit.  Japanese  Christians  are  essentially  undenominational.  You  may 
see  that  the  church  which  adopts  Presbyterian  forms  of  government  refuses 
to  be  called  "  Presbyterian  "  or  "  Reformed,"  and  adopts  the  broad  name 
"Itschi,"  the  "United;"  but  not  content  even  with  this  broad  name  it  has 
recently  changed  it  to  a  still  broader  name,  "The  Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan."  The  church  which  has  adopted  an  Episcopal  form  of  government 
lately  dropped  the  name  of  Episcopal  and  adopted  instead  the  name  of  "The 
Holy  Church  of  Japan."  The  church  now  called  Kumiai,  for  a  long 
time  had  no  name  except  the  simple  one,  a  church  of  Christ.  When  it  was 
found  necessary  to  adopt  some  name  to  distinguish  themselves  from  other 
churches,  its  Christians  reluctantly  adopted  the  name  of  "  Kumiai,"  which 
means  "associated  ; "  for  at  that  time  they  happened  to  form  an  associa- 
tion of  churches  which  were  until  then  independent  of  each  other.  They 
have  always  refused  to  be  called  "Congregational  Churches,"  although 
they  have  adopted  almost  entirely  the  Congregational  form  of  church 
government. 

III.  The  third  distinctive  feature  is  the  prevalence  of  a  libej"al  spirit  in 
doctrinal  matters.  While  missionaries  are  both  preaching  and  teaching 
the  so-called  orthodox  doctrines,  Japanese  Christians  are  eagerly  studying 
the  most  liberal  theology.  Not  only  are  they  studying,  but  they  are 
diffusing  these  liberal  thoughts  with  zeal  and  diligence,  and  so  I  believe 
that  with  a  small  exception  most  of  the  Japanese  pastors  and  evangelists 
are  quite  liberal  in  their  theology. 

Though  Japanese  Christians  are  largely  on  the  side  of  liberal  theology. 
they  are  not  in  any  way  in  favor  of   Unitarianism   or   even    Universalism. 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B.  »oi3 


KOZAKI:   CHKISTIANITV    IN   JAI'AN.  IOI3 

Some  years  ago  there  was  a  rumor  that  Japanese  people  were,  in  general, 
inclined  to  Unitarian  Christianity.  This  is  true  in  one  sense.  Where  there 
are  bigoted,  narrow  Christians,  these  so-called  Liberalists  may  have  soil  to 
thrive  on  ;  but  in  a  place  like  Japan  they  will  find  it  hard  work  even  to  gain 
a  foot- hold. 

There  was  a  time  when  Cliristianity  was  making  such  progress  that  in 
one  year  it  gained  forty  or  fifty  per  cent.  This  was  between  18S2  and  1888. 
Since  then  the  progress  in  our  churches  has  not  been  as  rapid  as  was 
expected.  Not  only  have  members  not  increased  in  such  proportion  as  in 
years  before,  but  in  some  cases  there  can  be  seen  a  decline  of  religious  zeal 
and  self-sacrificing  spirit.  Why  there  was  such  a  decline  it  is  not  hard  to  see. 
Among  various  causes  I  may  mention  three  principal  ones. 

I.  Public  sentiment  in  Japan  is  constantly  changing.  It  is  like  a  pen- 
dulum, now  going  to  one  extreme  and  then  to  another.  This  movement  of 
public  sentiment  within  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years  can  easily  be  traced. 
The  years  from  1877  to  1882  I  may  regard  as  a  period  of  reaction  and  of 
revival  of  the  anti-foreign  spirit. 

Then  the  pendulum  went  to  the  other  side.  It  was  a  period  of  western 
ideas,  and  covers  the  years  between  1882  and  1888.  It  was  no  wonder  that 
people  poured  into  Christian  churches  and  that  the  latter  made  unprece- 
dented strides  in  their  progress  within  that  short  period. 

But  the  pendulum  swung  to  its  extreme,  and  now  another  movement 
came  in.  The  signs  of  reactionary  and  anti-foreign  spirit  might  be  seen  in 
everything — in  customs,  in  sentiments,  in  public  opinion.  Then  the  cry, 
"Japan  for  the  Japanese,"  was  heard  in  all  the  corners  of  the  empire. 
Buddhism  which  has  been  regarded  for  years  as  a  religion  of  the  ignorant 
and  inferior  classes  is  now  praised  as  a  superior  religion,  far  above  Christianity, 
and  many  who  once  favored  the  adoption  of  Christianity  as  the  national 
religion  are  seen  publicly  in  Buddhist  ceremonies.  A  strong  sense  of  national 
feeling  has  been  aroused  among  all  classes,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  Chris- 
tians also  feel  its  influence. 

And  thus  doors  to  Christianity  seem  for  a  while  to  be  closed,  and  we 
have  a  great  decline  in  its  growth.  But  now  again  the  pendulum  has 
reached  the  other  extreme,  and  there  are  signs  that  a  new  era  is  about  to 
begin. 

2.  The  failure  to  unite  the  two  most  important  churches  of  Japan,  the 
Itachi  and  Kumiai,  may  be  regarded  as  another  cause  of  the  decline. 

3.  The  last  cause  may  be  attributed  to  the  unsettled  state  of  theological 
opinions.  Christians  in  Japan  received  the  Gospel,  at  first  much  as  young 
people  do,  without  much  deliberation.  But  when  thev  come  to  see  the 
things  more  deeply  and  begin  to  ask  questions,  they  find  that  some  of  their 
positions  are  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  light  of  modern  science  and  philo- 
sophy, and  that  on  many  points  there  is  large  room  for  improvement  and 
progress.     And  thus  we  have  already  done  away  with  some  Christian  doc- 


1014  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   TENTH   DAV. 

trines  which  are  regarded  as  essential  in  the  western  countries.  This  sifting 
of  theological  beliefs  may  be  regarded  as  natural  in  the  course  of  the  evo- 
lution of  our  theological  thoughts,  and  also  as  needful  for  Japanese  Chris- 
tianity. But  this  sifting  was  unsettling  to  our  faith,  and  thus  greatly  hin- 
dered for  a  time  the  progress  of  evangelistic  as  well  as  other  Christian 
works  in  general. 

One  word  as  to  the  future  prospect.  That  Japan  will  not  become  a 
Christian  nation  in  a  few  years  is  a  plain  fact.  But  that  it  will  become  one 
in  the  course  of  time  is  almost  beyond  doubt,  and  it  is  dnly  a  question  of 
time.  But  there  are  many  difHcult  problems  pressing  hard  upon  us  for 
solution. 

1.  The  first  problem  that  comes  under  our  notice  is  that  of  the  relation 
between  Christianity  and  our  nationality,  that  is  our  national  habit  and  spirit. 
And  this  cry  against  Christianity  has  become  so  popular  among  Buddhists, 
Shintoists  and  Reactionalists  that  they  make  it  the  one  weapon  of  their 
attack  against  Christianity. 

2.  The  relation  between  missionaries  and  native  Christians  is  another 
problem.  Japanese  Christians  will  never  be  contented  to  work  under  mission- 
ary auspices.  To  be  useful  to  our  country  the  missionaries  must  either 
cooperate  with  us  or  join  native  churches,  and  take  their  place  side  by  side 
with  native  workers.  •    .    '      -  ^ 

3.  The  problem  of  denominations  and  church  governments  is  another 
difficulty.  Of  course  we  shall  not  entirely  dispense  with  denominations 
and  sects.  We  think  we  can  reduce  by  a  good  deal  the  number  of  denomi- 
nations. But  just  how  to  start  and  proceed  with  this  movement  is  quite  a 
hard  problem.  So  also  with  the  form  of  church  government.  To  devise  a 
form  of  government  that  will  adapt  itself  to  our  country  and  its  need,  is 
quite  a  difficult  task. 

4.  Whether  we  need  any  written  creed,  and  if  so,  what  kind  of  creed  it 
is  best  to  have,  is  also  a  question. 

Japanese  Christians  must  solve  all  these  problems  by  themselves.  I 
believe  there  is  a  grand  mission  for  Japanese  Christians.  I  believe  that  it 
is  our  mission  to  solve  all  these  problems  which  have  been,  and  still  are, 
stumbling  blocks  in  all  lands,  and  also  it  is  our  mission  to  give  to  all  the 
Oriental  nations  and  the  rest  of  the  world  a  guide  in  true  progress  towards 
the  realization  of  the  glorious  Gospel  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ. 


REV.  HIROMICHI  KOZAKI.  JAPAN. 


"  I  nELIEVr  THERE  IS  A  GRAND  MISSION  FOR  JAl'ANKSE  CHRISTIANS.  I  BELIEVE  THAT  IT  IS 
OUR  MISSION  TO  SOLVE  ALL  THESE  PROBLEMS  WHICH  HAVE  BEEN  AND  ARE  STILL  STUMBLING 
IlLfXTKS  IN  AI.I.  LANDS  ;  AND  IT  IS  ALSO  OUR  MISSION  TO  GIVE  TO  ALL  THE  ORIENTAL  NATIONS  AND 
THE  RKST  OK  THE  WOKI.D  A  GUIDE  TO  TRl:R  PROGRKSS  AND  A  REALIZATION  OP  THE  GLORIOUS 
COSl'KI.  WHICH  IS  IN  JP.SIS   CHRIS1." 


THE     REDEMPTION    OF    SINFUL    MAN    THROUGH 

JESUS   CHRIST. 

By  Rev.  Dr.  D.  J.  Ke.nnedy,  of  Somerset,  Ohio. 

It  is  our  intention  in  this  paper  to  give  a  plain  but  necessarily  brief  and 
imperfect  exposition  of  the  divine  economy  for  the  redemption  and  salvation 
of  man  through  Christ  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

In  order  to  understand  the  doctrine  of  redemption  and  salvation  through 
Christ,  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider,  first,  the  condition  of  man  before  the 
fall  of  Adam ;  secondly,  the  condition  of  man  after  the  fall  and  before  the 
death  of  Christ;  thirdly,  the  condition  of  man  after  the  price  of  redemption 
had  been  paid  by  Christ. 

In  Adam  there  were  three  perfections.  There  was  the  perfection  of 
nature,  the  body  and  the  soul ;  there  was  the  supernatural  perfection,  or  the 
indwelling  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  sanctifying  grace ;  there  was  the  pre- 
ternatural perfection  of  immortality  in  the  body  and  of  harmony  in  the  soul 
in  and  vMth  itself.  According  to  Catholic  doctrine,  these  perfections  were 
not  personal  gifts  granted  to  Adam  as  an  individual ;  they  were  given  to 
him,  by  the  bounty  of  God,  as  to  the  father  and  representative  of  the  human 
race.  He  was  to  be  their  custodian,  not  only  for  himself,  but  also  for  his 
posterity.  If  he  remained  faithful,  all  these  gifts,  natural,  preternatural  and 
supernatural,  were  to  have  been  transmitted  to  his  descendants.  Had  Adam 
not  sinned,  his  children  would  have  been  born  perfect  in  nature,  adorned 
with  grace  and  supernatural  virtues  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  they 
would  not  have  been  subject  to  death,  and  there  would  have  been  perfect 
harmony  between  all  the  parts  of  their  nature  ;  the  lower  nature  would  have 
been  obedient  to  the  higher,  because  the  higher  and  nobler  faculties  of  man 
would  have  been  subject  to  the  commands  of  God  by  the  direction  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

By  an  act  of  free  will  all  was  lost.  Adam  chose  to  listen  to  the 
suggestions  of  the  tempter  rather  than  to  obey  the  command  of  God.  The 
Council  of  Trent  (Sess.  V.  de  Prec.  Orig.  Can.  i)  implicitly  declares  and 
defines  that  by  the  transgression  of  God's  command  the  first  man  lost  the 
justice  and  sanctity  in  which  he  had  been  constituted,  incurred  the 
anger  of  God,  together  with  the  penalty  of  death,  because  a  captive  under 
the  power  of  Satan  ;  and  the  whole  man,  both  in  body  and  soul,  was 
injured  and  changed  for  the  worse.  His  intellect  was  darkened,  his  will  for 
good  was  weakened  ;  passion  and  an  inclination  to  evil  was  the  rule,  not 
the  exception  ;  the  imagination   and  thought  of  man's  heart  were  prone  to 

1016 


KENNEDY:  REDEMPTION  THROUGH  CHRIST.       10 1 7 

evil    from   their  youth,  and  he  became  the  slave  of  Satan,  for,  writes   St. 
Peter,  "by  whom  a  man  is  overcome  of  the  same  also  is  he  the  slave." 

Adam  of  his  own  free  will  upset  the  first  order  of  God's  providence 
and  he  now  came  under  another  order.  He  was  powerless  to  repair  the 
injur)'  done,  because  the  gifts  and  graces  he  had  lost  were  gratuitous  favors, 
not  due  to  his  nature,  but  granted  through  pure  love  and  goodness  by  God  ; 
hence  their  restoration  was  subject  to  his  good  pleasure. 

Unfortunately  for  us  this  fall  of  the  father  of  the  human  race  affected 
his  posterity.  In  consequence  of  his  sin  we  too  were  deprived  of  the  super- 
natural perfections  that  he  possessed.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  original  sin  ; 
it  is  the  habitual  state  displeasing  to  God  in  which  the  souls  of  men  are  left 
since  the  father  of  the  human  race  offended  God  by  an  act  of  proud  diso- 
bedience. With  the  supernatural  grace  the  preternatural  gifts  were  also 
lost.  We  became  subject  to  death.  We  also  experience  the  stings  of  con- 
science, the  war  of  the  flesh  against  the  spirit,  which  would,  in  the  benevo- 
lent designs  of  Providence,  have  been  prevented  by  the  subjection  of  the 
mind  to  grace.  Our  nature,  also,  was  wounded,  like  the  nature  of  Adam, 
with  the  three  wounds  of  ignorance,  weakness  and  passion. 

Immediately'after  the  fall  God  promised  a  Redeemer  —  the  seed  of  the 
woman  that  was  to  crush  the  serpent's  head,  but  he  did  not  send  him  imme- 
diately ;  for  4,000  years  man  was  left  to  experience  the  sad  consequences  of 
the  fall.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  (De  Incarn.  Qu.  I,  art.  5  and  6),  and  other 
theologians  remark  that  the  Redeemer  did  not  come  immediately  after  the 
fall,  because  man,  who  had  sinned  by  pride,  should  be  humbled  so  that  he 
might  acknowledge  his  own  poverty  and  the  need  of  a  Saviour.  Neither 
was  the  coming  of  the  Redeemer  to  be  deferred  until  the  end  of  the  world, 
because  then  man  might  have  fallen  into  despair,  forgetting  God  and  his 
promises  and  the  rules  of  morals.  Moreover,  had  he  come  at  the  end  of 
the  world  men  would  never  have  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  the  sublime 
example  given  to  all  ages  by  the  Saviour.  This  Redeemer  was  the  Babe  of 
Bethlehem,  the  Son  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  his  name  was  called  Jesus, 
because  he  came  to  save  his  people  from  their  sins. 

And  now  we  come  to  consider  the  work  of  that  Saviour.  In  the  first 
place,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  God  could,  if  he  willed,  have  chosen 
another  method  of  redemption.  Being  Lord  of  all  things  he  might  have 
condoned  Adam's  offense  and  restored  to  man  his  lost  prerogatives  without 
demanding  any  atonement.  He  might,  if  he  willed,  have  accepted  in  satis- 
faction for  sin  the  salutary  penance  of  Adam  or  some  of  his  descendants 
(seeS.Thom.  de  Incarn.  Qu.  I,  Art.  2  ad  2).  But,  says  St.  Athanasius  (Serm. 
iii  Contra  Anianas),  "  in  this  we  must  consider  not  what  God  could  have 
done,  but  what  was  best  for  man,  for  that  was  chosen."  Away  then  with  all 
thoughts  of  excessive  rigor  on  the  part  of  God.  He  willed  to  redeem  and 
save  us  through  the  suffering"  and  merits  of  Christ,  because  it  was  better  for 
us  ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  gave  to  the  world  the  greatest  manifestation 
ever  known  of  his  own  goodness,  power,  wisdom  and  justice. 


10 1 S  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:  TENTH   DAY. 

The  doctrine  uf  Christ  was  sublime,  pure,  holy  and  salutary.  But  it  is 
not  sufficient  to  teach.  Whoever  wishes  to  change  men  and  convert  them 
from  their  evil  ways  cannot  be  contented  with  mere  words.  To  his  words 
must  be  added  the  influence  of  his  example,  especially  if  his  doctrine  be 
disagreeable  to  those  whom  he  wishes  to  convert.  Thus  it  was  with  our 
Saviour.     He  required  of  men  nothing  that  he  did  not  practice. 

But  the  saving  influence  of  Christ  is  to  be  found  principally  in  his 
death ;  because  by  his  death  he  reconciled  us  with  God,  freed  us  from  sin 
and  satisfied  God's  justice,  restored  us  to  grace  and  justification,  freed  us 
from  the  power  of  Satan,  and  made  us  once  more  the  children  of  God. 

After  his  ascension  into  Heaven  "he  sent  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit  of 
truth  and  love,  to  abide  forever  with  his  church,  which  is  to  continue  on 
earth  the  work  of  saving  souls.  Under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  she 
is  to  teach  men  the  way  of  truth  ;  she  is  the  depository  and  dispensation  of 
the  graces  merited  for  all  men  by  Christ,  she  is  the  guardian  of  the  sacra- 
ments, the  ordinary  channels  through  which  grace  is  conveyed  to  the  souls 
of  men,whether  they  be  infants  or  adults.  Not  that  grace  is  conferred  only 
by  the  sacraments  :  "  The  Spirit  breatheth  where  he  wills,"  and  if  we  ask 
anything  in  Christ's  name  the  Father  will  give  it.  Nay,  more,  the  Spirit  of 
grace  is  represented  as  continually  standing  at  the  gate  and  knocking,  that 
the  door  of  the  sinner's  heart  may  be  opened  to  admit  the  grace  of  God 
which  will  excite  within  him  horror  for  sin  and  a  desire  to  return  to  God. 

After  receiving  these  benefits,  men  must  work  out  their  salvation  in 
fear  and  trembling  because  man  is  weak  and  can  fall  again.  Grace  and  the 
friendship  of  God  and  the  right  to  heaven  are  restored  ;  but  our  nature  is 
still  a  wounded  nature  ;  the  soul  is  not  in  perfect  harmony ;  the  unhappy 
inclination  to  evil  remains  in  us  even  after  baptism  and  justification,  for  a 
trial  and  as  an  occasion  to  practice  virtue,  say  the  fathers  of  the  Council  of 
Trent.  The  struggle  will  last  as  long  as  we  are  in  this  world,  and  those 
who  persevere  unto  the  end  shall  be  saved.  Only  those  who  have  been 
saved  and  are  now  with  God  can  see  the  full  intent  of  the  benefits  conferred 
upon  mankind  in  the  life,  teaching  and  death  of  the  Redeemer. 


RELIGION  IN  PEKING. 
By  Isaac  T.  Headland,  Profkssor  in  Peking  University. 

The  Chinese  are  often  supposed  to  be  so  poor  that,  even  if  they  wished 
they  would  not  be  able  to  support  Christianity,  were  it  established  in  their 
midst. 

Such  a  supposition  is  a  great  mistake,  not  to  mention  the  fact  that  they 
are  at  present  supporting  four  religions,  viz. :  Confucianism,  Buddhism, 
Taoism  and  Mohammedanism  ;  a  glance  at  the  condition  of  any  city  or 
village  is  enough  to  convince  one  of  the  fact,  that  whatever  the  Chinese  wish 
to  do,  and  undertake  to  do,  they  are  abundantly  able  to  do. 

The  country  swarms  with  people — poor  people — people  who  are  so 
very  poor  that  there  are,  no  doubt,  thousands  who  starve  every  year.  It  is 
said  that  just  outside  of  the  (Ch'ien  men)  gate,  which  stands  immediately  in 
front  of  the  emperor's  palace,  more  than  four  hundred  people  froze  to  death 
in  a  single  cold  night  during  the  past  winter.  In  front  of  this  gate  is  a 
bridge,  called  Beggars'  Bridge,  where  half  naked  men  and  boys  may  be 
seen  at  any  time  —  except  when  the  emperor  himself  passes  —  eating  food 
which  would  not  be  eaten  by  a  respectable  American  dog. 

But  while  this  is  all  true  it  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  there  are  more 
temples  in  Peking  than  there  are  churches  in  Chicago.  There  are  temples  of 
all  sorts  and  of  all  sizes,  from  the  little  altar  built  outside  the  door  of  the 
watchman's  house  on  the  top  of  the  city  wall  to  the  great  Lama  temple, 
which  covers  many  acres  of  ground,  having  an  idol  of  Buddha  one  hundred 
feet  tall,  and  one  thousand  five  hundred  priests  to  conduct  the  worship. 

Similar  to  this  great  Buddhist  temple  is  the  great  Confucian  temple, 
not  so  large,  and  without  priests,  but  equally  well  built  and  well  kept.  The 
large  Taoist  temple,  immediately  outside  of  the  west  side-gate,  is  expensive 
and  well  supported,  and  contains  many  priests,  while  the  large  grounds  of 
the  Mohammedans,  with  their  twenty-one  mosques,  are  worthy  to  be  ranked 
with  those  above  mentioned.  Besides  these,  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  the 
Temple  of  the  Moon,  the  Temple  of  Earth,  the  Temple  of  Heaven,  and  the 
Temple  of  Agriculture,  are  all  immense  structures  of  the  most  costly  tvpe. 
These  are  all  state  temples  where  the  emperor  performs  worship  for  all  the 
l)eople,  and  the  annual  sacrifices  of  cattle  and  sheep  are  by  no  means  inex- 
[)ensive.  There  are  few  churches  in  the  United  States  which  cost  more  than 
5500,000,  but  some  of  those  I  have  just  mentioned  would  far  exceed  if  not 
more  than  double  that  amount.  The  Roman  Catholics  have  shown  their 
wisdom  in  erecting  cathedrals,  which,  though  not  so  expensive,  far  surpass 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

lOIQ 


1020  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    EIGHTH    DAV. 

the  others  in  beauty,  design  and  workmanship.  They  have  three  very  tine 
cathedrals  —the  East,  the  South,  and  the  North, — the  least  of  which  would 
be  an  ornament  to  any  city  in  the  United  States. 

There  are  temples  in  the  enclosures  of  the  gates  ;  temples  beside  almost 
every  large  well  ;  temples  near  many  of  the  large,  old  trees ;  while  every 
grave  (and  the  whole  of  China  may  be  said  to  be  a  great  cemetery)  is  an 
altar  where  incense  and  paper  are  burned  every  year.  Add  to  this  the  fact 
that  every  home  has  its  tablets  and  is  in  a  certain  sense  a  temple,  and  one 
can  get  some  idea  of  the  number  of  temples,  and  the  amount  of  worship 
performed  in  and  about  this  great  capital.  There  are  more  than  two  thous- 
and temples  in  Peking,  and  more  than  ten  thousand  domestic  shrines  (I 
have  heard  Chinese  say  that  there  are  more  than  thirty  thousand  shrines)  and 
yet  the  Chinese  are  often  supposed  to  be  lacking  in  the  religious  instinct. 

The  Hills,  fifteen  miles  west  of  Peking  have  likewise  very  many  tem- 
ples. ~  . 

These  are  not  merely  small  temples.  Some  of  them  are  surrounded  by 
high  walls,  from  the  sides  of  which  grow  trees  a  foot  or  more  in  diameter, 
and  seventy-five  feet  tall,  while  on  top  of  a  monument  a  Pi  YUn  Ssu,  built 
several  hundred  years  ago,  during  the  Ming  Dynasty,  is  a  cedar  more  than 
six  inches  in  diameter. 

The  number  of  temples  in  the  city  that  are  entirely  out  of  repair  is  not 
small.  In  the  purchase  ot  our  mission  premises  we  have  become  the  pos- 
sessors of  no  less  than  three  temples,  while  one  stands  at  our  south- 
west, and  another  at  our  northwest  corner,  another  at  the  southwest  of  our 
W.  F.  M.  S.  property,  another  in  front  of  our  hospital  gate,  and  still  another 
near  a  large  well  back  of  our  houses.  The  first  one  purchased  has  been 
turned  into  a  dining-room  for  the  Preparatory  School  of  the  Peking  Univer- 
sity. When  the  workmen  came  to  take  the  gods  out  of  this  temple,  they 
first  invited  them  to  go  out,  and  then  carried  them  out. 

Whether  or  not  it  may  be  considered  a  misfortune  that  tlie  Buddhists 
priests  are  a  company  of  beggars,  is  perhaps  largely  a  matter  of  opinion. 
Buddhism  was  established  by  a  prince  who  became  a  beggar  that  he  might 
teach  his  people  the  way  to  enlightenment,  and  they  are  but  following  his 
illustrious  example.  But  while  they  follow  in  the  matter  of  begging,  at  least 
a  large  part  of  them,  there  is  room  for  much  doubt  as  to  whether  most  of 
them  make  a  very  strenuous  effort  to  enlighten  the  people.  Indeed,  if  all 
the  facts  brought  to  light  in  our  foreign  hospitals,  and  especially  those  situ- 
ated near  the  Lama  temples  and  visited  by  the  priests,  were  set  forth  they 
would  reveal  a  condition  of  things,  among  a  class  of  priests,  not  very  differ- 
ent, perhaps,  from  that  which  called  forth  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 
But  these  facts  are  of  such  a  character  as  to  be  fit  only  for  a  medical 
report. 

It  need  not  be  considered  a  matter  of  wonder  then  that  the  morals  of 
the  people  are  not  better  than  they  are.     "Like  priest,  like  people." 


'  -ia*>»*-'^'-' 


PROF.  ISAAC  T.  HEADLAND,  PEKING  UNIVERSITY,  CHINA. 


"THERE  ARE  MORE  TEMI'LES  IN  I'EKING  THAN  THERE  ARE  CHURCHES  IN  CHICAGO.  THERE 
ARE  TEMI'LES  OF  ALL  SORTS  AND  OF  ALL  SIZES,  FROM  THE  LITTLE  ALTAR  BUILT  OUTSIDE  THE 
DOOR  OK  THE  watchman's  MOUSE  ON  THE  TOf  OK  THE  CITV  WALL  TO  THE  GREAT  LAMA  TEMHLR, 
WHICH  COVERS  MANY  ACRES  OK  GROUND,  AND  HAS  ONE  THOUSAND  FIVE  HUNDRED  PRIESTS  TO 
CONDUCT  THE  WORSHll"," 


1022  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    TENTH    DAY. 

"For  if  a  priest  be  foul,  on  whom  we  truste, 
No  wonder  is  it  a  lewid  man  to  ruste ! " 

says  Chaucer;  and  it  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  doubt  that  a  large  number 
of  the  Buddhist  priests  are  "foul."  They  are  not  all  so.  We  have  seen 
among  them  faces  which  carry  their  own  tale  ;  we  have  heard  voices  which 
carry  their  own  recommendations,  and  we  have  seen  conduct  which  could 
only  proceed  from  a  devoted  heart.  But  of  those  with  whom  we  have  come 
in  contact,  this  class  has  been  the  exception,  not  the  rule. 

At  Miao  Feng  Shan,  a  large  temple,  situated  above  the  clouds,  the 
priests  themselves,  I  have  been  told  by  a  Chinese  teacher,  support  a  com- 
pany of  prostitutes.  Certain  it  is  that  at  the  most  prosperous  of  the  temples 
are  found  some  of  the  worst  priests,  ai>  though  when  the  getting  of  money 
for  their  support  was  off  their  minds,  having  little  leffto  occupy  them,  they 
entertain  themselves  by  the  gratification  of  the  passions.  They  may,,  how- 
ever, like  many  other  priests,  be  misrepresented  by  their  own  people. 

By  "the  most  prosperous  temples"  we  mean  those  to  which  the 
most  pilgrimages  are  made.  Miao  Feng  Shan  is  forty  miles  west  of  Peking; 
and  another  fifty  miles  east  is  almost  equally  popular.  To  these  in  the 
springtimij  many  thousands  of  people  from  all  the  surrounding  country 
make  pilgrimages,  some  of  which  are  of  the  most  expensive  and  self-denying 
character,  while  others  exhibit  almost  every  form  of  humiliation  and  self-tor- 
ment— such  as  wearing  chains  as  prisoners,  tying  their  feet  together  so  as  to 
be  able  to  take  only  short  steps;  being  chained  to  another  man ;  wearing 
red  clothing  in  exhibition  of  their  sin;  or  prostrating  themselves  at  every 
one,  three  or  five  steps.  The  temple  worship  of  the  Jews,  at  its  most  pros- 
perous period,  was  not  more  largely  attended  than  is  this  worship  at  these 
temples. 

While  the  temples  are  enriched  by  the  gifts  or  subscriptions  of  these 
worshipers,  they  are  at  the  same  time  robbed  by  those  "pious  frauds"  who 
are  ready  at  all  tinies  to  sell  their  souls  for  the  sake  of  their  bodies. 
At  Miao  Feng  Shan  they  give  candles  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  those  pil- 
grims who  arrive  at  night,  to  enable  them  to  ascend  the  hill.  Here  these 
pious  frauds  get  their  candle,  ascend  the  hill  a  little  distance,  then  by  a  cir- 
cuitous route,  join  another  company  and  get  another  candle,  and  so  on  as 
long  as,  by  a  change  of  clothes,  they  can  escape  the  detection  of  those  dis- 
tributing the  candlO?.     Thus,  instead'  of  worshippers  they  become  thieves. 

One  thing  is  noticeable  as  we  pass  through  the  country  viFlages.  The 
houses  are  all  built  of  mud,  mud  walls,  mud  roof,  paper  windows  and  a  dirt 
tioor.  Kut  no  matter  how  poor  the  people  ma)'  be,  nor  what  the  character  of 
their  houses,  the  teinpU  of  the  vilUi'^e  is  alu'ays  made  of  good  brick.  I  have 
never  seen  .•*  house  in  a  country  village  better  than  the  temple  of  the  same 
village.  I  think  that  what  I  said  in  the  beginning  of  this  article  is  literally 
true  :  What  the  Chinese  wish  to  do  and  undertake  to  do  they  are  abundantly 
able  to  do. 


HEADLAND:    RELIGION    IN    PEKING.  IO23 

Dr.  C.  VV.  Mateer  says:  "It  has  been  estimated  that  each  family  in 
China  spends,  on  an  average,  about  a  dollar  and  a  half  each  year  in  the 
worship  of  ancestors,  of  which  at  least  two-thirds  is  for  paper  money.  China 
is  estimated  to  contain  about  eighty  million  families,  which  would  give 
eighty  million  dollars.  A  fair  estimate  for  the  three  annual  burnings  to  the 
vagrant  dead  would  be  about  six  thousand  dollars  to  each  hsien  or  county, 
which  would  aggregate  about  ten  million  dollars  for  the  whole  country. 
The  average  amount  burned  by  each  family  in  the  direct  worship  of  the  gods 
m  the  temples  may  be  taken  as  about  half  that  expended  in  the  worship  of 
ancestors,  or  forty  million  dollars  for  all  China.  Thus  we  have  the  aggre- 
gate amount  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  dollars  spent  annually 
in  China  for  paper  money  for  use  in  their  worship." 

While  it  is  impossible  to  make  a  correct  estimate  of  the  amount  of 
incem>e  burned  by  the  Chinese  in  their  worship,  we  can  nevertheless  get 
some  idea.  It  is  the  custom  to  burn  incense  three  times  per  day,  morning, 
noon  and  evening.  The  amount  burned  thus  by  each  family  in  the  homeland 
at  the  temple  amounts  to  about  four  dollars  per  year.  The  rich,  of  course, 
burn  many  times  this  amount,  and  some  of  the  poor  families  perhaps  not 
quite  so  much.  But  four  dollars  per  year  as  an  average  is  an  under  rather 
than  an  over-estimate  of  the  amount  of  incense  burned  by  each  family.  This 
being  true,  the  amount  of  incense  burned  by  eighty  million  families  would 
amount  in  one  year  to  the  enormous  sum  of  three  hundred  and  twenty  million 
dollars. 


THE  ELEVENTH  DA  Y. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTION. 
By  Prof.  F.  G.  Peabody,  of  Harvard  University. 

Christ,  the  great  individualist  of  history,  was  the  great  socialist  as  well. 
His  hope  for  man  was  a  universal  hope. 

But  how  can  it  be  that  the  same  teacher  can  teach  such  opposite  truths  ? 
How  can  Christ  appeal  thus  to  the  single  soul  and  yet  hope  thus  for  the 
Kingdom  ? 

We  reach  here  the  very  essence  of  the  Gospel  in  its  relation  to  human 
needs.  The  two  teachings,  that  of  the  individual  and  that  of  the  social 
order,  that  of  the  part  and  that  of  the  whole,  are  not  exclusive  of  each  other 
or  opposed  to  each  other,  but  are  essential  parts  of  the  one  law  of  Christ. 

Why  is  the  individual  soul  of  such  inestimable  value  ?  Because  of  its 
essential  part  in  the  organic  social  life.  And  why  is  the  Kingdom  of  God 
set  before  each  individual  ?  To  free  him  from  all  narrowness  and  selfish- 
ness of  aim. 

The  way  to  make  a  better  world  is  first  of  all  to  make  your  own  soul 
better,  and  the  way  to  make  your  own  soul  better  is  to  stir  it  with  the  sense 
of  the  common  life.  And  so  the  same  master  of  the  problem  of  life  becomes 
at  once  the  most  positive  of  individualists  and  the  most  visionary  of  socialists. 
His  first  appeal  is  personal :  "Sanctify  thyself."  His  second  call  is  the 
common  life:  "For  their  sakes" — and  the  end  and  the  means  together 
make  the  motto  of  a  Christian  life — "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself." 
Such  is  Christ  in  his  dealing  with  the  social  question. 

And  now,  having  unfolded  before  ourselves  the  principle  of  his  teach- 
ing, let  us  go  on  to  see  its  practical  application  to  the  questions  which  con- 
cern the  modern  world.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  problem  of  poverty, 
and  on  the  other  the  problem  of  wealth,  each  with  its  own  perils  both  to  the 
persons  involved  and  to  the  welfare  of  us  all.  There  is  the  problem  of  the 
employer  and  the  problem  of  the  employed;  each  with  its  responsibility,  its 
irritations  and  its  threats. 

Christ  comes  into  the  midst  of  modern  society  with  the  principle  he  has 
made  clear — the  principle  of  the  Christian  individual  giving  himself  to  the 
social  order — and  the  door  of  each  one  of  these  social  problems  swings  open 
as  he  comes  and  Christ  passes  through  from  room  to  room,  the  master  of 
them  all. 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B.  1024 


PEABODY:  CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS.      IO25 

What  has  Christ  to  say  to  the  problem  of  poverty  ?  What  is  the  Chris- 
tian's way  of  dealing  with  the  poor  ?  As  we  look  back  over  the  long  history 
of  Christian  charity,  it  might  seem  as  if  one  would  have  to  say  of  it  that  it 
was  the  history  of  one  long  and  costly  mistake.  From  the  beginning  till 
now  Christians  have,  of  all  people,  most  indulged  themselves  in  indiscrimi- 
nate almsgiving,  fostering  pious  frauds,  encouraging  mendicancy,  often 
holding  poverty  itself  to  be  a  virtue  and  often  embarrassing  the  work  of 
scientific  relief. 

Such  criticisms  indicate  how  the  Church  of  Christ  has  failed  to  grasp 
the  method  of  Christ.  The  fact  is  that  the  Christian  Church  has  been  so 
deeply  impressed  with  one-hajf  of  Christ's  truth — the  worth  of  the  individ- 
ual— that  it  has  often  forgotten  the  other  half — the  service  of  the  whole. 

Meantime,  what  is  Christ's  own  attitude  toward  poverty  ?  Every  soul, 
he  says,  no  matter  how  humble  or  depraved,  is  essential  to  God's  kingdom. 
It  has  its  part  to  take  in  the  perfect  whole.  Every  soul  ought  to  be  given  a 
chance  to  do  and  be  its  best.     It  must  be  helped  to  help  itself. 

Thus  Christian  charity  is  not  the  mere  relief  of  temporary  distress,  or 
the  alms  which  may  tempt  to  evil ;  it  is  personal,  painstaking  interest — the 
taking  trouble  to  lift  up  ;  the  dismounting,  as  you  pass,  like  the  Samaritaii, 
pouring  into  the  wounds  of  the  fallen  one  the  oil  and  wine  you  had  meant 
for  yourself ;  the  putting  the  victim  of  circumstances  on  your  own  beast,  and 
taking  him  where  he  shall  be  cared  for  and  healed. 

Christian  charity  sees  in  the  individual  that  which  God  needs  in  his 
perfect  world  and  trains  it  for  that  high  end.  There  is  more  Christian 
charity  in  teaching  a  trade  than  in  alms,  in  finding  work  than  in  relieving 
want.  * 

What  Christ  wants  is  the  soul  of  his  brother  and  that  must  be  trained 
into  personal  power,  individual  capacity,  self  help.  Thus,  true  Christian 
charity  is  at  one  with  the  last  principle  of  scientific  charity.  It  is  the  trans- 
forming of  a  helpless  dependent  into  a  self-respecting  worker. 

Such  is  Christ  in  dealing  with  the  poor.  And  now  we  turn,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  the  opposite  end  of  the  social  order.  What,  I  ask  again,  has 
Christ  to  say  to  the  rich  ?  What  is  the  Christian  theory  of  wealth  and  its 
rights  and  uses  ?  One  might  again  reply,  as  he  looked  at  some  sign  of  the 
time,  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  Christian  theory  of  wealth  in  the 
modern  world.  The  same  awful  warning  which  Christ  once  uttered  against 
tlie  rich  of  his  time  seems  to  be  needed  in  all  its  force  by  many  rich  men"^ 
to  (l.iy. 

But,  in  reality,  this  condemnation  of  Jesus  was  directed  not  against  the 
fact  of  we.iith.but  against  the  abuses  and  perils  of  wealth.  He  was  thinking 
of  men's  souls,  and  he  saw  with  perfect  distinctness  how  wealth  lends  to 
liarden  and  shrivel  the  soul.  One  of  the  severest  tests  of  character  which 
our  time  affords  has  to  be  borne  by  the  rich.  Wealth  provides  a  severer 
school  for  the  higher  virtues  of  life,  and  the  man  or  woman  who  can  really 

65 


1026  PARLIAMENT    I'Al'EKS:    ELEVENTH    DAY. 

learn  the  lesson  o{  that  school  has  gained  one  of  the  hardest,  but  also  one  of 
the  most  fruitful  experiences  of  modern  times.  Wealth  is  like  any  other 
gift  of  God  to  you,  like  your  health,  or  your  intellectual  powers,  or  your  force 
of  character;  indeed,  it  is  often  the  result  of  these  other  gifts,  and  the  same 
responsibility  goes  with  all.  They  are  all  blessings  which,  selfishly  used, 
become  the  curses  of  life^  Your  bodily  strength  may  be  the  source  of  destruc- 
tive passions;  your  intellectual  gift  may  leave  you  a  cynic  or  a  snob;  your 
wealth  may  shrivel  up  your  soul.  But,  taken  as  trusts  to  use,  the  body  and 
brain  and  wealth  are  all  alike  gifts  of  God  which,  the  more  they  are  held  for 
service,  the  more  miraculously  they  enrich  and  refresh  the  giver's  life.  There 
are  three  ways  with  which  you  may  deal  with  such  problems  as  the  business 
world  of  to-day  affords.  One  is  to  run  away  from  them  as  the  early  monks 
and  hermits  ran  away  from  the  world  of  earlier  times.  Precisely  this  is  the 
spirit  of  the  new  monasticism — the  spirit  of  Count  Tolstoi,  the  spirit  of  many 
a  communistic  colony,  calling  men  away  from  all  the  struggle  of  the  worjd  to 
seclusion  and  simplicity.  It  is  not  fighting  the  battle  of  life,  but  it  is  running 
away. 

A  second  way  to  deal  with  the  world  is  to  stay  in  it  but  to  be  afraid  of 
it.  Many  good  people  do  their  business  timidly  and  anxiously,  as  if  it 
ought  not  to  interest  them  so  much.  That  is  a  very  common  relation  of  the 
Christian  to  business.  His  religion  and  his  business  are  enemies.  The 
world  he  has  to  live  in  is  not  God's  world. 

There  is  a  third  way  to  take  the  world  of  business.  It  is  to  believe  in 
it ;  to  take  it  as  the  test  of  Christian  life  in  the  modern  age.  It  is  not  all 
clean  or  beautiful,  but  it  has  the  capacity  of  being  shaped  to  worthy  and 
useful  ends.  It  is  as  when  a  potter  bends  over  his  lump  of  clay  and  finds  it 
a  shapeless  mass  that  soils  the  hands  which  work  it,  yet  knows  that  his  work 
is  not  to  wash  his  hands  of  it,  but  to  take  it  just  as  it  is  and  work  out  the 
shapes  of  beauty  and  use  which  are  possible  within  the  limits  of  the  clay. 
So  the  Christian  takes  the  business  world.  In  this  warfare  of  industry, 
which  looks  so  shapeless  and  unpromising,  the  Christian  sees  the  possibili- 
ties of  service.  It  is  not  very  clean  or  beautiful,  but  it  can  be  shaped  and 
molded  into  an  instrument  of  the  higher  life.  That  is  the  Christian's 
task  in.  the  business  world. 

We  hear  much  of  the  philanthropy  of  the  presept  age,  and  certainly 
there  never  was  an  age,  in  which  so  many  prosperous  people  t'elt  sostrojigly 
called  to  generosity  and  benevolence.  But  the  most  profitable  philan- 
thropy which  this  age  is  to  see  is,  after  all,  not  to  come  through  what  wc 
call  charity,   but  through  better  methods  in  the  business  world. 

In  an  English  volume  of  essays,  published  a  few  years  ago,  the  author 
describes  what  he  calls,  "Two  Great  Philanthropists."  One  was  a  foumlci 
of  orphan  asylums  and  chariiies,  a  kind  and  noble  man  ;  the  other  wa.> 
Leclaire,  the  beginner  of  the  system  which  gives  every  employe  an  interest 
in  the  business  of  the  firm  ;  and  the  second,  so  thought  this  essayist,  w.i.- 
the  better  philanthropist.     He  was  right. 


TEABODY:  CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS.     IC27 

The  Christian  in  business  to-day  is  looking  for  every  stable  relation 
between  employer  and  employed.  Cooperation  is  to  him  better  than  com- 
petition. He  sees  his  own  life  in  the  light  of  the  common  good.  The 
Christian  in  business  discovers  that  good  lodgings  for  the  working  cla;ses 
are  both  wise  charity  and  good  business.  The  Christian  in  business  holds 
his  sagacity  and  insight  at  the  service  of  public  affairs.  He  is  not  ensna  ed 
in  the  meshes  of  his  own  prosperity.  He  owns  his  wealth ;  it  does  not  own 
him.  The  community  leans  on  him  instead  of  his  being  a  dead  weight  on 
the  community. 

Let  us,  finally,  follow  the  principle  of  Christ  one  step  further  still.  '?e- 
yond  the  rich  and  the  poor,  beyond  the  employers  and  the  employed  of  'he 
present  social  world  there  appear  on  the  horizon  of  modern  society  still  lar^rer 
schemes  and  dreams  of  some  better  future  which  shall  make  our  present 
social  problems  superfluous.  Now,  what  is  Christ's  attitude  to  such  hopes  as 
these  ?     What  is  the  relation  of  Christ  to  the  plans  of  Socialism  ? 

First  of  all,  as  we  have  already  seen,  it  is  plain  that  Christ  cannot  be 
claimed  for  any  one  theory  of  the  function  of  government  or  the  orde:  of 
society.  He  repeatedly  refused  to  be  involved  in  such  questions.  He  dwelt 
not  in  the  region  of  such  special  schemes,  but  in  the  region  of  universal  pna- 
ciple. 

But  let  not  the  Christian  suppose  from  this,  that  Christ's  theory  of  prop- 
erty is  more  conservative  or  more  encouraging  to  the  hoarding  of  wealth  thj.n 
these  plans  of  change.  His  theory  is  in  reality  much  more  radical.  For  it 
holds,  not  that  part  of  your  property  is  not  your  own  and  ought  to  be  put  at 
the  service  of  the  general  community;  Christ  holds  that  all  we  get  is  a  gift 
to  us  from  the  common  life,  and  that  we  owe  both  it  and  ourselves  to  the  cor.i- 
mon  good. 

We  do  not  own  our  wealth;  we  owe  our  wealth.  This  is  no  easy  doc- 
trine. It  is  a  more  sweeping  one  than  any  revolution  which  the  socialist 
proposes. 

The  difference  may  be  stated  in  a  formula.  The  thorough-going  indi- 
vidualist of  the  present  order  says  :  "Each  one  for  himself;  that  is  the  best 
law  of  society.  Each  one  of  us  is  to  be  responsible  for  himself  and  himse.f 
alone."  Then  the  socialist  says  :  "No,  that  is  mere  selfishness  and  anarchv. 
Let  all  of  us,  on  the  contrary,  be  responsible  for  the  life  of  each.  Let  us 
enlarge  and  strengthen  the  power  of  government,  until  at  last  the  state, 
which  is  but  another  name  for  all  of  us,  sees  that  each  of  us  is  happy." 

But  Christ  carries  us  beyond  both  the  individualist  and  the  socialist  in 
his  program  of  society,  for,  he  says,  the  true  order  of  the  world  is  when  each 
of  us  cares  for  all  of  us,  and  holds  his  own  life,  his  power,  money,  service, 
as  a  means  of  the  common  good.  The  dream  of  Socialism  and  the  reactiop. 
of  Individualism  are  comprehended  and  reenforced  by  this  teaching  of  the 
infinite  value  of  the  individual  as  the  means  by  which  the  better  society  is 
to  come  in.     The  Socialistic  dream  of  the  future  is  of  a  cooperation  whic!; 


1028     PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

shall  be  compulsory — a  dictatorial  government ;  the  Christian's  dream  is  of 
a  cooperation  which  shall  be  voluntary,  free,  personal.  The  one  makes 
of  society  an  army  with  its  discipline  ;  the  other  makes  of  it  a  family  with 
its  love.  In  one  we  are  officers  and  privates  ;  in  the  other  we  are  brethren. 
So  Christ  stands  in  the  midst  of  these  baffling,  complex  questions  of  the  pres- 
ent times — questions  of  wealth  and  poverty,  questions  of  employers  and 
employed,  questions  of  revolution  and  reform,  questions  of  individualism 
and  socialism.  The  two  views  seem  in  absolute  opposition.  Individualism 
means  self-culture,  self-interest,  self-development.  Socialism  means  self- 
sacrifice,  self-forgetfulness,  the  public  good.  Christ  means  both.  Cultivate 
yourself,  he  says,  make  the  most  of  yourself,  enrich  yourself,  and  then  take 
it  all  and  make  it  the  instrument  of  self-sacrifice.  Give  the  perfect  devel- 
oped self  to  the  perfect  common  good.  The  only  permanent  socialism 
must  be  based  on  perfected  individualism.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  to 
come  of  itself,  it  is  to  come  through  the  collective  consecration  of  individ- 
ual souls. 

Such,  I  suppose,  is  the  message  which  Christ  has  been  from  the  begin- 
ning trying  to  explain  to  this  world.  Over  and  over  again  the  world  has 
been  stirred  by  great  plans  of  external  change,  political,  legislative  or 
social  plans,  and  always  Christ  has  stood  for  internal  change,  the  reforma- 
tion of  the  community  through  the  regeneration  of  its  individuals.  So 
stands  Christ  to-day.  To  every  outward  plan  which  is  honest,  he  says  : 
"Go  on  and  God  speed  you  with  all  your  endeavors  for  equality,  liberty,  fra- 
ternity; but  be  sure  of  this,  that  no  permanent  change  will  rule  the  lives  of 
men  until  men's  hearts  are  changed  to  meet  it." 

My  friends,  it  is  time  that  the  modern  world  h^ard  once  more,  with  new 
emphasis,  this  doctrine  of  Christ,  which  is  so  old  that  to  many  modern 
minds  it  may  seem  almost  new.  We  are  beset  by  plans  which  look  for 
wholesale,  outright,  dramatic  transformation  in  human  affairs,  plans  for 
redeeming  the  world  all  at  once,  and  the  old  way  of  Christ,  the  way  of 
redeeming  one  soul  at  a  time,  looks  very  slow  and  unpicturesque  and  tire- 
some. 

None  the  less,  believe  me,  the  future  of  the  world,  like  its  past,  lies  in 
just  such  inward,  personal,  patient,  spiritual  reform.  Out  of  the  life  of  the 
individual  flows  the  stream  of  the  world.  It  is  like  some  mighty  river  flow- 
ing through  our  midst  which  we  want  to  use  for  daily  drink,  but  which  is 
charged  with  poison  and  turbid  with  refuse.  How  shall  we  cleanse  this 
flowing  stream  ?  Try  to  filter  it  as  it  sweeps  by  with  its  full  current ;  but 
the  task  is  prodigious,  the  impurity  is  persistent,  the  pollutions  keep  sweep- 
ing down  on  us  from  the  sources  of  the  stream.  And  then  the  wise  engin- 
eer seeks  those  remote  sources  themselves.  He  cleanses  each  little  brook, 
each  secret  spring,  each  pasture  bank,  and  then  from  those  guarded  sources 
the  great  river  bears  down  purity  and  health  to  the  great  world  below.  So 
the  method  of  Christ  purifies  the  modern   world.      It  seeks  the  sources  of 


PROI-'.  C.  R.  [IF.NHKRSON'. 
RKV    ANNA  i;.  SI'EXCF.R. 

Ri'.v.  R.  A.  humh;. 


PROK.  K.  <;.  PKABODV. 
PROK.  RICHARD   I'.  I'.I.N'. 
I)R   J.  A.  S.  CRANl     |;KV). 


1030  PARLIAMENT^    PAPERS:    ELEVENTH    DAY. 

life  in  the  individual  soul,  and  then  out  of  the  myriad  such  springs  which 
lie  in  the  hearts  of  men  the  great  stream  of  human  progress  flows  into  its 
own  purer  and  broader  future,  and  the  nations  drink  and  are  refreshed. 


RELIGION  AND  THE    ERRING   AND    CRIMINAL 

CLASSES. 

By  Rev.  Anna  G.  Spencer. 

The  first  relation  of  religion  to  the  erring  and  criminal  classes  is  that 
of  supplying  the  sense  of  right  and  wTong,  by  which  we  distinguish 
between  actions  as  good  and  bad.  Its  second  relation  is  that  of  a  subtle 
and  interior  element  in  varying  moral  definitions. 

The  sharpest  contrast  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  dealing 
with  the  criminal  and  vicious  lies  in  this,  that  in  the  old  civilization  the 
offender  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  hasty  and  individual  judgment  of  his 
superior  and  ruler,  while  in  modern  civilization  the  meanest  and  worst  of 
evil-doers  has  the  protection  of  a  recognized  code,  which  is  based  upon  the 
agreement  of  many  minds  and  wills.  This  change  is  largely  due  to  the 
twin  enlargement  of  the  social  and  religious  ideas  by  which  the  state  took 
the  place  of  the  narrow  family  rule,  and  the  church  took  the  place  of  the 
local  family  altar.  ' 

The  history  of  modern  penology  is  a  part  of  the  social  and  moral  his- 
tory of  the  leading  Christian  nations.  Modern  progress  in  penology  is 
marked  by  seven  distinct  steps,  namely:  I.  The  establishment  of  the 
rights  of  all  free-born  men  to  a  trial  by  law.  2.  The  abolition  of  slavery, 
which  brought  all  men  under  the  cegis  of  one  legal  code.  3.  The  substitu- 
tion of  the  penalty  of  imprisonment  for  varied  forms  of  physical  torture,  and 
the  limitation  of  the  death  penalty  to  a  smaller  number  of  crimes  and  those 
more  universally  condemned  by  all  men.  4.  The  recognition  of  national 
responsibility  toward  offenders  by  which  each  state  accepts  the  task  of  con- 
trolling and  caring  for  its  own  criminals  instead  of  transporting  them  out- 
side its  bounds.  5.  The  acceptance  of  the  principle  that  even  a  convicted 
criminal  has  rights,  rights  to  decent  and  humane  treatment,  which  social 
custom  must  regard.  6,  The  inauguration  of  a  system  of  classification,  not 
only  of  offences  as  more  or  less  heinous,  but  of  offenders  as  more  or  less 
guilty,  according  to  circumstances.  7.  The  beginning  of  experimental 
efforts  in  industrial  and  educational  directions  toward  the  reformation  of 
the  criminal  and  erring,  that  is,  their  making  over  into  a  required  model  of 
citizenship. 

The  radical  changes  in  the  treatment  of  the  criminal  and  erring  classes 
which  mark  so  conspicuously  the  last  forty  years,  changes  which  have  revolu- 


SPENCER:  RELIGION   AND    THE    ERRING.  1 03  I 

tionized  this  branch  of  social  relation,  all  proceed,  whether  consciously  or  not, 
from  one  fundamental  principle,  namely,  that  every  man  and  every  woman, 
liowever  criminal  and  erring,  is  still  a  man  and  woman,  a  legitimate  mem- 
l)er  oi  the  human  family,  with  inalienable  rights  to  protection  and  justice. 
This  principle  fibers  itself  upon  three  distinct  contributions  of  the  Christian 
religion  to  our  Western  civilization.  These  three  contributions  are  ^rs/, 
the  democratic  social  idea;  second,  vt.  conviction  of  the  sacredness  of  all 
human  life ;  third,  the  elevation  of  tenderness  to  a  high  place  in  the  scale  of 
virtues.  When  the  Christian  religion  declared  that  each  soul  was  its  own, 
whether  of  bond  or  free,  Jew  or  Gentile,  man  or  woman,  its  own  to  give  to 
the  Divine  in  loving  service,  it  proclaimed  a  declaration  of  independence 
which  must  perforce  eventuate  in  the  recognized  self-ownership  and  control 
of  each  human  being's  person  and  estate.  The  idea  of  the  worth  and  use  of 
the  single  soul  which  was  at  the  heart  of  Jesus'  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  gave  to  our  civilization  a  conviction  that 
the  body  of  man  in  which  the  soul  was  enshrined  should  not  be  hurt  or  slain. 
The  ideal  character  which  the  Christian  Church  worshipped  in  Christ,  plac- 
ing as  it  did  tenderness,  sacrifice  and  service  at  the  regal  height  of  human 
virtue, gave  an  irresistible  impulse  to  those  sentiments  and  inspired  a  passion 
of  human  love.  The  contribution  of  the  Christian  religion  to  our  civilization 
has  borne  direct  fruit  in  the  great  change  from  tyranny  and  brutality  to  jus- 
tice and  humanity  in  the  administration  of  the  accepted  moral  law. 

The  most  recent  tendencies  of  religion  in  this  field  are  reformatory, 
those  which  aim  to  make  the  criminal  and  erring  over  into  law-abiding  and 
respectable  members  of  society.  There  are  two  sides  of  this  new  reform- 
atory movement  in  penology,  one  which  touches  medical  and  one  educa- 
tional science.  The  first  is  busied  with  the  pathology  of  crime  and  vice,  or 
the  influence  of  heredity  and  original  endowment,  the  other  has  to  do  with 
the  culture  of  the  morally  defective  and  makes  much  of  the  effect  of 
environment  and  training  upon  that  original  endowment.  The  new  sci- 
entific element  in  religion  has  given  us  social  science  of  which  enlight- 
ened penology  is  part.  The  relation  of  this  new  religion  to  the  criminal 
aiul  erring  classes  is  not  only  the  tenderness  of  human  sympathy  which 
would  not  that  any  should  perish;  it  is  the  consecration  of  human  wisdom 
to  social  betterment  that  shall  yet  forbid  that  any  shall  perish.  In  this 
ideal  the  call  is  not  only  to  justice  for  the  criminal  and  erring  after  they 
come  within  the  scope  of  social  control,  but  it  is  the  call  also  to  a  study  of 
those  conditions  in  the  individual  and  in  society  which  make  for  crime  and 
vice  :  and  above  all  it  is  the  call  for  the  lifting  of  all  the  weaker  souls  of 
uur  common  humanity  upon  the  winged  strength  of  its  wisest  and  best. 


THE     RELATIONS     OF     THE     ROMAN     CATHOLIC 
CHURCH  TO  THE  POOR  AND  DESTITUTE. 

By  Charles  F.  Donnelly.   Read  by  Rt.  Rev.  John  J.  Keane,  D.D. 

The  Christian  Church  was  from  the  beginning  always  solicitous  for  the 
poor,  even  in  her  early  struggles  and  in  the  persecution  she  was  then  under- 
going. 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  church  the  primitive  Christians  established 
means  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  the  sick  and  travelers  in  distress  or  needing 
shelter,  hospitals  for  lepers,  societies  for  the  redemption  of  captive  slaves, 
congregations  of  females  for  the  relief  of  indigent  women,  associations  of 
religious  Women  for  redeeming  those  of  their  sex  who  were  leading  dissolute 
lives,  and  hospitals  for  the  sick,  the  orphaned,  the  aged  and  afflicted  of  all 
kinds,  like  the  Hotel-Dieu,  founded  in  Paris  in  the  seventeenth  century  and 
still  perpetuated. 

The  church  was,  it  may  be  said  almost  unreservedly,  the  only  almoner 
to  the  poor  in  primitive  times — up  to  the  period  when  modern  history  begins; 
for  charity  was  not  a  pagan  virtue,  and  man  had  not  been  taught  it  until  the 
Redeemer's  coming;  so  the  religious  houses,  the  monasteries,  convents,  asy- 
lums and  hospitals  were  the  great  houses 'of  refuge  and  charity  the  poor  and 
needy  had  to  resort  to  in  their  distress  in  later  times. 

With  the  Lutheran  movement  began  the  suppression  of  the  convents 
and  monasteries,  which  had  been  the  fortresses  of  the  poor  in  the  past,  and 
che  land  and  houses  so  devoted  to  charity  and  religion  passed  from  the  hands 
of  their  pious  owners,  by  confiscation,  into  the  control  of  the  governments, 
thus  leaving  the  poor  without  any  organized  means  of  aid  or  provision  for 
their  assistance. 

The  church,  keenly  alive  to  the  conditions  arising,  soon  found  her  sons 
and  daughters  equal  to  the  emergencies  attending  the  disturbances  of  the 
methods  of  poor  relief  followed  by  her  for  centuries.  Then  came  a  grand 
procession  of  noble  men  and  women,  devoting  their  lives  to  the  cause  of 
charity  and  the  salvation  of  their  fellow  creatures,  and  foremost  in  the  ranks 
were  Ignatius  Loyola  and  Francis  Xavier  and  their  followers,  to  teach  the 
ignorant  and  assist  the  poor,  not  only  in  European  countries  but  in  remoter 
regions  of  Asia  and  among  the  Indians  and  negroes  of  America,  while  the 
followers  of  St.  Francis  and  St.)  Dominic  labored  in  their  pious  ways  at  the 
work  to  which  their  saintly  founders  had  consecrated  their  lives  centuries 
before  the  government  aid  to  the  poor  was  dreamed  of. 

But  there  appeared  in  the  seventeenth  century  a  man  surpassing  all  who 
preceded  him  in  directing  the  attention  of  mankind  to  the  wants  and  necessi- 

1033 


DONNELLY:   THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  POOR.        IO33 

ties  of  liic  poor  and  to  the  work  of  relieving  them — the  great  and  good  St. 
Vincent  tie  I'aui,  whose  name  and  memory  will  ever  be  revered  while  the 
Church  of  Christ  entlures.  Horn  April  24,  1576,  in  the  little  village  of  I'ouy, 
near  Dax,  south  of  Bordeaux,  bordering  on  the  Pyrenees ;  he  was  ordained 
priest  in  1 600,  and  later  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks  and  was  sold  as  a 
slave  at  Tunis.  He  escaped  and  found  his  way  to  Rome.  After  a  time  he 
resolved  to  devote  his  life  to  the  poor.  He  established  rapidly  hospitals  for 
foundlings,  houses  for  the  aged  poor,  a  hospital  for  the  galley  slaves  at  Mar- 
seilles, the  Congregation  of  Priests  of  the  Mission,  parochial  confraternities 
for  charitable  work.  Companies  of  Ladies  for  the  service  of  the  Hotel-Dieu, 
and  the  Daughters  of  Charity,  who  are  better  known  in  our  country  as  the 
Sisters  of  Charity,  and  whose  charitable  and  self-sacrificing  lives  serve  as  a 
constant  reminder  to  us  of  our  own  duty  to  the  sick  and  destitute.  Saint  Vin- 
cent de  Paul's  life  closed  the  27th  of  September,  1660. 

The  work  of  founding  ecclesiastical  charitable  organizations  did  not 
cease  with  his  labors,  nor  has  it  ceased  at  the  present  day.  It  will  be  well  to 
recall  at  this  point  a  few  of  the  many  active  rather  than  the  contemplative 
orders  and  congregations  that  we  may  be  reminded  of  the  constant  care  exer- 
cised by  the  church  over  those  in  need,  and  here  it  should  also  be  mentioned 
that  while  such  deserving  praise  is  given  Saint  Vincent  de  Paul  for  laying  the 
foundations  for  the  most  active  religious  communities  ever  established  under 
the  auspices  of  the  church,  there  were  others  who  preceded  him  early  in  the 
same  direction,  but  without  achieving  the  same  success,  and  conspicuously  the 
Alexian,  or  Cellite  Brothers,  founded  in  1325  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  devoted  to 
nursing  the  sick,  especially  in  times  of  pestilence,  the  care  of  lunatics  and 
persons  suffering  from  epilepsy.  In  1572  the  congregation  of  the  Brothers 
Hospitallers  of  Saint  John  of  God  was  also  founded  for  the  care  of  the  sick, 
infirm  and  poor. 

Twenty  years  after  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  ended  his  life  of  charity  there 
was  founded  at  Rheims,  in  1680,  the  congregation  of  the  Brothers  of  the 
Christian  Schools  for  the  instruction  of  poor  children;  in  1804  the  Christian 
Brothers  were  founded  in  Ireland,  mainly  for  the  education  of  poor  youths; 
at  Ghent  the  congregation  of  Brothers  of  Charity  in  1809,  who  devote  their 
lives  to  aged,  sick,  insane  and  incurable  men  and  to  orphans,  abandoned 
children,  and  the  deaf,  dumb  and  blind;  at  Paris  in  1824  the  Sisterhood  of 
Bon  Secours  was  established  for  the  care  of  the  sick;  in  1828  the  P'athers 
of  the  Institute  of  Charity;  in  Ireland  in  183 1  the  Community  of  the  Sisters 
of  Mercy  was  founded  for  visiting  the  sick,  educating  the  poor  and  protect- 
ing destitute  children,  and  this  religious  body  of  women  has  now  several 
hundred  houses  established  in  different  parts  of  the  world.  For  the  reclama- 
tion and  instruction  of  women  and  girls  who  had  fallen  from  virtue  the 
Nuns  of  the  Good  Shepherd  were  established  in  1835.  At  St.  Servan,  in 
Brittany,  some  peasant  women,  chiefly  young  working  women  and  domestic 
servants,  instituted  the  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor  in   1840,  having  for  their 


1034  PARLIAMIiNT    PAPERS:    ELEVENTH    DAY. 

object  the  care  of  the  aged  poor,  irrespective  of  sex  or  creed,  and  they,  too, 
have  hundreds  of  houses  in  nearly  all  the  large  cities  of  the  world. 

Nearly  all  the  orders,  congregations  and  societies  here  mentioned  are 
to-day  represented  by  many  hundreds  of  their  members  and  houses  through- 
out, not  only  the  United  States,  but  all  the  countries  of  North  and  South 
America.  And  some  of  them  existed  on  this  continent  when  the  only  path- 
ways across  it  were  made  by  the  Indian  and  the  wild  beast  of  the  primeval 
forests;  for  Catholicity  had  its  home  here  before  the  other  denominations 
professing  the  Christian  religion  to-day  had  existence,  and  when  the 
ancestors  of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States  were  professing  the  same 
faith  as  the  great  founders  of  many  of  the  charities  mentioned  and  were 
co-workers  with  them  in  their  pious  labors. 

The  consideration  of  the  relations  of  the  church  to  the  poor  necessa- 
rily involves  observing  the  relations  of  the  state  to  the  poor  as  well,  that  is, 
the  reasoning  on  which  is  based  the  claim  of  the  right  of  support  by  the 
citizen  from  the  state  in  time  of  need,  rather  than  from  the  church.  Is  the 
state  the  best  almoner? 

Under  the  modern  system  of  poor,  laws  it  is  evident  that  all  the  work 
of  charity  is  not  accomplished  by  the  governments  either  in  England  or  in 
our. own  country,  to  which  we  transplanted  the  poor  laws  enacted  by  parlia- 
ment in  their  entirety.  The  thousands  of  private  charitable  and  philan- 
thropic organizations  which  exist  in  England  and  the  States  of  America 
to-day,  to  supplement  the  work  of  the  overseers  of  the  poor  and  other 
functionaries  engaged  in  the  administration  of  the  public  charities,  is  an 
overwhelming  repudiation  of  the  claim  that  laws  for  the  relief  of  the  poor 
make  all  the  provision  for  them  which  is  necessary. 

With  the  experience  of  the  ages  behind  it  the  church  goes  forward  in 
the  work  of  assisting  the  poor  rather  than  abandon  the  greatest  of  Chris- 
tian duties  to  the  state  to  perform.  Other  denominations  of  Christians  are 
generally  rivaling  her  in  the  work,  and  there  they  can  meet  on  common 
ground  with  her. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  within  a  few  years  great  changes  will  be  made 
by  the  Catholic  Church  itself  in  the  administration  of  many  of  its  charities 
throughout  the  world.  Some  of  its  organizations  are  greatly  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  studying  new  systems  and  methods  of  relief  growing 
out  of  the  social  conditions  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  slei\der  equip- 
ment of  the  poor  child  in  the  past  for  the  part  he  had  to  play  in  life ;  the 
continuous,  or  casual,  administration  of  alms  to  the  destitute,  instead  of  lead- 
ing them  kindly  and  firmly  forward  from  dependence  on  others  to  self-help 
and  self-reliance,  are  not  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  present  or  to  antici- 
pate the  requirements  of  the  future,  i 

In  the  United  States  there  are  over  seven  hundred  Catholic  charitable 
institutions,  the  inmates  of  which  are  maintained  almost  entirely  by  the 
contributions  of  their  co-religionists,  who,  with  their  fellow  citizens  of  other 


HIS  HOLINESS  POPF,  LF.O  XHI. 


"  WHILE    THKKEKORE.    WE    UKSTOW    Ul'ON    THE    CITIZENS    OF    THE    GREAT 

KF.I'L'BLIC  WELL  MEKITEI)  I'HAISE,  WE  EXl'RESS  THE  FERVENT  HOPE  THAT  THEIK  NOBLE 
LXUEKTAKING  MAY,  OIHER  NATIONS  UNHINC  WITH  THEM  AND  LENDING  THEIR  AID,  HAVE  A 
»IOST  I'KOSI-KROl'S  ISSUE,  THAT  WILL  I'KOVR  OH  GREAT  USE  IN  STIMULATING  THE  INGENUITY'  OP 
MAN,  IN  I'RllMCniNC.  11IK  DKVKLOI'M  ENT  OK  NA1UUK  AND  IN  ENCOURAGING  ALL1HE  FINE  ARTS." 


1036  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    ELEVENTH    DAY. 

denominations,  share  in  the  burden  of  general  taxation,  proportionately  to 
their  means,  in  maintaining  the  poor  at  the  public  charitable  institutions 
besides.  A  truly  anomalous  condition,  but  arising  from  the  strong  adhet- 
ence  of  Catholics  to  the  idea  that  charity  is  best  administered,  where  not 
attended  to  individually,  by  those  in  the  religious  life,  who  give  to  the  poor 
of  their  means,  not  through  public  officers  and  bureaus,  but  through  those 
who  serve  the  poor  in  the  old  apostolic  spirit,  with  love  of  God  and  their 
less  fortunate  neighbor  and  brother  actuating  them.  In  the  scheme  of  the 
dispensation  of  public  charity  relief  is  extended  on  the  narrow  ground  that 
there  is  some  implied  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  state  to  maintain  the 
citizen  in  his  necessities  in  return  for  service  rendered  or  expected  ;  but  the 
church  imposes  the  burden  on  the  conscience  of  every  man  of  helping  his 
neighbor  in  distress,  apart  from  any  service  done  or  expected,  and  teaches 
that  all  in  suffering  are  entitled  to  aid,  whether  they  live  within  or  without 
the  territory ;  neither  territory,  nor  race,  nor  creed  can  limit  Christian 
charity.  "In  its  relation  to  the  poor  the  church  will  always  be  in  the  future, 
as  she  has  been  -in  the  past,  in  advance  of  the  state  in  all  examples  of 
beneficence. 

[Bishop  Keane,  who  read  the  paper  in  the  absence  of  Mr.  Donnelly, 
paused  during  the  reading  and  said  :] 

I  would  like  to  interject  three  principles  right  here.  First,  I  wish  to 
draw  a  distinction  between  poverty  and  destitution.  Christ  would  bless 
poverty,  but  Christ  would  never  bless  destitution.  Christ  was  poor,  his 
apostles  were  poor,  but  Christ  and  his  apostles  never  were  miserable  or  des- 
titute. It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Church  of  God  gives  any  sanc- 
tion or  benediction  to  destitution  or  wretchedness. 

The  second  principle  is  this,  as  has  been  superbly  shown  this  morning: 
Christianity  stands  for  two  great  ideas — individualism  and  communism, 
socialism.  Our  divine  Lord  said  :  "  Whatever  ye  do  for  the  least  one  of 
these  ye  do  for  me."  He  meant  that  whatever  was  done  for  any  individual 
soul,  human  like  ours,  though  a  miserable,  poor,  suffering  body,  that  in  it  we 
are  to  recognize  the  great  unity  of  all  in  Christ. 

The  third  principle  was  this  :  All  these  holy  men  and  women,  in  order 
to  consecrate  themselves,  lived  in  retirement,  fully  appreciating  the  fact  that 
they  were  not  running  away  from  the  World,  but  that  they  did  so  in  order  to 
do  the  Lord  better  service.  And  iJo,  in  the  great  normal  schools  and  insti- 
tutions where  they  take  in  the  greater  fullness  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  that 
they  may  go  out  and  do  better  work.  My  heart  was  glad  when  I  listened  last 
night  and  heard  our  good  friend,  the  Hindu,  confess  that  for  years  he  did 
not  know  where  he  was  going  to  get  his  next  meal.  That  was  the  way 
with  these  poor  Franciscan  monks.'  They  were  reduced  to  poverty  in  order 
that  they  might  better  consecrate  themselves  to  the  service  of  God  every- 
where. 


WOMEN  OF  INDIA. 
By  Miss  Jeanne  Sorabji,  of  Bombay. 

It  has  been  said  to  me  more  than  once  in  America  that  the  women  of  my 
country  prefer  to  be  ignorant  and  in  seclusion  ;  that  they  would  not  welcome 
anybody  who  should  attempt  to  change  their  mode  of  life.  To  these  I  would 
give  answer  as  follows  :  The  nobly  born  ladies,  Zananas,  shrink,  not  from 
thirst  for  knowledge,  but  from  contact  with  the  outer  world.  If  the  customs 
of  the  country,  their  castes  and  creeds  allowed  it,  they  would  gladly  live  as 
other  women  do.     They  live  in  seclusion,  not  ignorance. 

They  make  perfect  business  women.  They  manage  their  affairs  of  state 
in  a  manner  worthy  consideration. 

The  women  of  India  are  not  all  secluded,  and  it  is  quite  a  natural  thing 
to  go  into  homes  and  find  that  much  is  being  done  for  the  uplifting  of  women. 
Schools  and  colleges  were  open  where  the  women  may  attain  to  heights  at 
first  thought  impracticable.  The  Parsee  and  Brahman  women  in  Bombay 
twenty  years  ago  scarcely  moved  out  of  their  houses,  while  to-day  they  have 
their  libraries  and  reading-rooms,  they  can  converse  on  politics,  enjoy  a  con- 
versation and  show  in  every  movement  culture  and  refinement  above  the  com- 
mon. Music,  painting,  horsemanship  come  as  easily  to  them  as  spelling  the 
English  language  correctly.  The  princes  of  the  land  are  interesting  them- 
selves in  the  education  of  the  women  around  them.  Foremost  among  these 
is  the  Maharajah  of  Mysore,  who  has  opened  a  college  for  women,  which  has 
for  its  pupils  Hindu  ladies,  maidens,  matrons  and  widows  of  the  highest  caste. 
This  college  is  superintended  by  an  English  lady,  and  has  all  the  departments 
belonging  to  the  ladies'  colleges  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  of  England. 

There  are  schools  and  colleges  for  women  in  Bombay,  Poona  and 
Guzerat;  also  in  Calcutta,  Allahabad,  Missoorie  and  Madras.  The  latter 
college  has  rather  the  lead  in  some  points  by  conferring  degrees  upon 
women.  The  Victoria  high  school  has  turned  out  grand  and  noble  women, 
so  also  has  the  new  high  school  for  women  in  the  native  city  of  Poona. 
These  schools  have  Christian  women  as  principals.  The  college  of  Ahme- 
dabad  has  a  Parsee  (Christian)  ladv  at  its  head.  What  women  have  done 
women  can  do. 

Let  me  mention  the  Pundita  Rambai,  and  in  companionship  with  her 
Cornelia  Sorabji,  B.A.,  LL.D.  These  are  women  for  a  nation  to  be  proud 
of.  There  are  others  worthy  of  your  notice — the  poet,  Sumibai  Goray  ;  the 
physician,  Dr.  Anandibai  Joshi,  whom  death  removed  from  our  midst  just  as 
she  was  about  starting  her  grand  work,  and  the  artist  of  song,  Mme.  Thereze 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1037 


1038     I'ARLIAMKNT  PAI'EUS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

Langrana,  whose  God-given  voice  thrills  the  hearts  of  men  and  women  in 
London.  My  countrywomen  have  been  at  the  head  of  battles,  guiding  their 
men  with  word  and  look  of  command.  My  countrywomen  will  soon  be 
spoken  of  as  the  greatest  scientists,  artists,  mathematicians  and  preachers  of 
the  world. 


BUDDHA. 

By  Rt.  Rev.  Zitsuzen  Ashitsu,  of  Japan. 

I  will  explain  the  highest  human  enlightenment,  Buddha,  according  to 
the  order  of  its  five  attitudes  : 

1.  Denomination.  Buddha  is  a  Sanskrit  word  and  translated  as  Kak- 
usha  in  the  Chinese  language.  The  word  "  Kaku  "  means  "enlighten,"  so 
that  one  who  enlightened  his  own  mind  and  also  enlightened  those  of  others 
was  respectively  called  Buddha.  Buddha  has  three  personalities.  The 
first  is  entirely  colorless  and  formless,  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  has  the 
nature  of  etemality,  omnipresence,  and  unchangeableness.  The  second  is 
the  personality  of  the  result  which  the  Buddha  attained  by  refining  his 
action,  a  state  of  the  mind  free  from  lust  and  evil  desire  but  full  of  enlight- 
ened virtues  instead.  It  includes  the  enlightenment  of  one's  own  mind,  and 
also  the  enlightenment  of  the  minds  of  others.  The  third  personality  spon- 
taneously appears  to  all  kinds  of  beings  in  any  state  and  condition  in  order 
to  preach  and  enlighten  them  equally. 

These  three  personalities  are  the  attributes  of  the  Buddha's  intellectual 
activity,  and  at  the  same  time  they  are  the  attributes  of  his  one  supreme 
personality.  We  also  are  provided  with  the  same  attributes.  Then  what  is" 
the  difference  between  the  ordinary  beings  and  Buddha,  who  is  most 
enlightened  of  all?  Nothing,  but  that  he  is  developed  by  his  self-culture  to 
the  highest  state,  while  we  ordinary  beings  have  our  intellect  buried  in  the 
dust  of  passions.  If  we  cultivate  our  minds,  we  can,  of  course,  clear  off  the 
clouds  of  ignorance  and  reach  to  the  same  enlightened  platform  with  the 
Buddha. 

2.  Personality.  The  person  of  Buddha  is  perfectly  free  from  life  and 
death.  We  call  it  Nehan  or  Nirvana.  Nehan  is  divided  into  four  classes  : 
(i)  Honrai  Jishoshojo  Nehan  is  the  name  given  to  the  nature  of  Buddha 
which  has  neither  beginning  nor  end,  and  is  entirely  clear  of  lust  like  a  per- 
fect mirror.  But  such  an  excellent  nature  as  I  just  mentioned  is  not  the 
peculiar  property  of  Buddha,  but  every  being  in  the  universe  has  just  the 
same  constitution.  (2)  Uyo  Nehan  is  the  name  given  to  the  state  little 
advanced  from  the  above,  when  we  perceive  that  our  solicitude  is  fleeting 
our  lives  are   inconstant,  and  even  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  ego.     In 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  U. 


ASHITSU:    BUDDHA.  IO39 

this  state  our  mind  is  quite  empty  and  clear,  but  there  still  remains  one 
thinij,  the  body.  So  it  is  called  "  Uyo  "  or  "something  left."  (3)  Muyo 
Nehan  is  the  state  in  which  our  body  and  intellect  come  to  entire  annihila- 
tion, and  there  is  nothing  traceable.  Therefore  this  state  is  called  "  Muyo" 
or  "nothing  left."  (4)  Mujusho  Nehan  is  the  highest  state  of  Nirvana.  In 
this  state  we  get  a  perfect  intellectual  wisdom  ;  we  are  not  any  more  sub- 
ject to  birth  and  death.  Also,  we  become  perfectly  merciful  :  we  are  not 
content  with  the  indulging  state  of  highest  Nirvana  ;  but  we  appear  to 
the  beings  of  every  class  to  save  them  from  prevailing  pains  by  imparting 
the  pleasure  of  Nirvana. 

These  being  the  principal  grand  desires  of  Buddhahood,  the  four  merci- 
ful vows  are  accompanied  with  them,  namely :  I  hope  I  can  save  all  the 
beings  in  the  universe  from  this  ignorance  !  I  hope  I  can  abstain  from  my 
inexhaustible  desires  of  ignorance  !  I  hope  I  can  comprehend  the  boundless 
meaning  of  the  doctrine  of  Buddha !  I  hope  I  can  attain  the  highest 
enlightenment  of  Buddhaship  ! 

Out  of  these  four  cla.sses  of  Nirvana  the  first  and  last  are  called  the 
Nirvana  of  Mahayana,  while  the  remaining  are  that  of  Hinayana. 

3.  Principle.  The  fundamental  principle  of  Buddha  is  the  mind,  which 
may  be  compared  to  a  boundless  sea,  into  which  the  thousand  rivers  of  Bud- 
dha's doctrines  flow  ;  so  it  is  Buddhism  which  comprehends  the  whole  mind. 
The  mind  is  absolutely  so  grand  and  marvelous  that^even  the  heaven  can 
never  be  compared  in  its  highness,  while  the  eaith  is  too  short  for  measuring 
its  thickness.  It  has  the  shape  neither  long  nor  short,  neither  round  nor 
square.  Its  existence  is  neither  inside  nor  outside,  nor  even  in  the  middle 
part  of  the  bodily  structure.  It  is  purely  colorless  and  formless,  and  appears 
freely  and  actively  in  every  place  throughout  the  universe.  But  for  the  con- 
venience of  studying  its  nature  we  call  it  True  Mind  of  Absolute  Unity. 
Every  form  or  figure  such  as  heaven,  earth,  mountains,  rivers,  trees,  grasses, 
even  a  man,  or  what  else  it  might  be,  is  nothing  but  the  grand  personality 
of  absolute  unity.  And  as  this  absolute  unity  is  the  only  object  with  which 
Buddha  enlightens  all  kinds  of  existing  beings,  so  it  is  clear  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  Buddha  is  the  mind. 

4.  Function.  Three  sacred  virtues  are  essential  functions  of  Buddha, 
which  are  the  sacred  wisdom,  the  graceful  humanity,  and  the  sublime  cour- 
age. (1)  The  sacred  wisdom  is  also  called  absolute  wisdom.  Wisdom  in 
ordinary  is  a  function  of  mind  which  has  the  power  of  judging.  When  it 
is  acting  relatively  to  the  lusts  of  mind  it  is  called  in  Buddhism  relative 
wisdom,  and  when  standing  alone,  without  relation  to  ignorance  or  super- 
stition, it  is  called  absolute  wisdom.  (2)  The  graceful  humanity  is  a  pro- 
duction of  wisdom.  When  intellectual  light  shines  through  the  clouds  of 
the  ignorant  superstition  of  all  beings,  they  are  free  from  suffering,  misery, 
and  endowed  with  an  enlightened  pleasure.  The  object  of  Buddha's  own 
enlightenment  is  to  endow  with  pleasure  and  happiness   all  beings,  without 


1040     PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

making  the  slightest  distinction  among  them.  (3)  Although  the  Buddha 
had  these  two  virtues  of  wisdom  and  humanity,  he  could  never  save  a  being 
if  he  had  not  another  sacred  virtue,  namely,  courage.  But  he  had  such  a 
wonderful  courage  that  he  gave  up  his  imperial  princehood,  full  of  luxury 
and  pleasure,  simply  for  the  sake  of  fulfilling  his  desire  of  salvation.  Not 
only  this,  but  he  will  spare  no  trouble  or  suffering,  hardship  or  severity,  in 
order  to  crown  himself  with  a  spiritual  success. 

5.  Doctrine.  After  Shaka  Buddha's  departure  from  this  world,  two 
disciples,  Kasho  and  Suan,  collected  the  dictations  of  his  teachings.  This 
is  the  first  appearance  of  Buddha's  book,  and  it  was  entitled  "  The  Three 
Stores  of  Hinayana"  (Sanzo),  which  means,  it  contains  three  different 
classes  of  doctrine  :  (i)  Kyo,  a  principle — the  principle  which  is  perma- 
nent and  is  taken  as  the  origin  of  the  law  of  Buddhism.  (2)  Ritsu,  a  law  or 
commandment — the  commandments  founded  by  the  Buddha,  to  stop  human 
evils.  (3)  Ron,  an  argument — all  the  arguments  or  discussions  written  by 
•  his  disciples  or  followers. 

These  three  stores  being  a  part  of  Buddhist  works,  there  is  another 
collection  of  three  stores  which  is  called  that  of  Mahayana,  compiled  by  the 
disciples  of  the  Buddha. 

Both  the  Hinayana  and  Mahayana  were  prevailing  together  among 
the  countries  of  India  for  a  long  time  after  the  Buddha's  departure.  But 
when  several  hundred  years  had  passed  they  were  gradually  divided  into 
three  parts.  One  of  them  has  been  propagated  toward  northern  countries, 
such  as  Thibet,  Mongolia,  Manchuria,  "etc.  One  has  been  spread  eastward 
through  China,  Corea  and  Japan.  Another  branch  of  Buddhism  still 
remains  in  the  southern  portion  of  Asiatic  countries,  such  as  Ceylon,  Siam, 
etc.  These  three  branches  are  respectively  called  Northern  Mahayana, 
Eastern  Mahayana  and  Southern  Hinayana  ;  and  at  present  Eastern  Maha- 
yana in  Japan  is  the  most  powerful  of  all  Buddhism. 

The  difference  between  Mahayana  and  Hinayana  is  this  :  The  former 
is  to  attain  an  enlightenment  by  getting  hold  of  the  intellectual  constitution 
of  Buddha,  while  the  latter  teaches  how  to  attain  Nirvana  by  obeying 
strictly  the  commandments  given  by  Buddha.  But  if  you  would  ask  a  ques- 
tion, which  is  the  principal  part  of  Buddhism,  I  should  say,  it  is,  of  course, 
Mahayana,  in  which  is  taught  how  to  become  Buddha  ourselves,  instead  of 
Hinayana. 


THE  GENERAL  BELIEF  LN  THE  NEED  OF 
VICARIOUS  SACRIFICES. 

By  Professor  Conrad  von  Orelli,  of  Basel.  ' 

Strictly  speaking,  the  question  whether  the  belief  in  the  necessity  o{ 
vicarious  atonement  is  generally  accepted,  cannot  be  answered  in  the 
affirmative,  for  many  savage  tribes  entertain  only  vague  conceptions  and 
obscure  allusions  to  such  atonement.  And  of  the  Asiatic  tribes,  the  Indians 
especially  took  a  different  course  in  their  religious  views.  The  Brahman- 
ical  and  Buddhistic  religions  are,  indeed,  deeply  permeated  with  the 
thought  of  redemption,  holding  that  man  was  chained  a  thousand-fold  to  a 
sensual  world  which  was  replete  with  evil,  and  that  he  could  be  saved  only 
by  abstinence  and  seclusion,  hence  by  a  sacrifice  of  the  most  individual 
character. 

But  the  ancient  Indian  penitent,  by  self-torture,  tried  to  release  himself 
from  contact  with  the  evil  world,  and  the  teachings  of  Buddhism  aim  only 
at  self-salvation,  which  no  one  oan  bring  about  for  others  and  which  every- 
body had  to  secure  for  himself,  though  Buddha  points  out  the  true  road  to' 
salvation. 

Compared  with  Judaism  and  Christianity,  on  which  it  otherwise 
depended,  Islam  lays  but  little  stress  on  sacrifices,  though  neither  Buddhism 
nor  Islam  discard  them  entirely. 

It  is  an  indisputable  fact  that  tribes  of  various  races  and  at  different 
stages  of  civilization  had  some  knowledge  of  vicarious  suffering,  from 
which  they  expected  the  conciliation  of  an  enraged  God.  But  a  desire  for 
salvation  we  find  expressed  everywhere  in  some  way  or  other.  Aside  from 
Christianity,  it  is  the  strongest  with  the  very  Indian  religions  whose 
pessimistic  conceptions  of  the  world  are  entirely  concentrated  in  the  above 
mentioned  desire. 

.A.  consciousness  of  guilt,  though  more  intense  in  some  than  in  others, 
is  present  in  all  nations.  It  urges  them  to  atone  by  voluntary  suffering, 
for  the  voice  of  nature  tells  them  that  sin  and  punishment,  guilt  and 
atonement  are  inseparable.  Hence  the  general  custom  of  fasting,  self- 
torture  and  eventually  suicide.  A  desire  for  intercession  was  likewise, 
prevalent.  As  a  rule,  the  priest  was  regarded  the  mediator,  who  interceded 
on  behalf  of  the  sinner.  But  even  gods  were  sometimes  implored  to  plead 
for  the  guilty  before  other  gods.  We  find  this  in  the  "penitential  psalms" 
of  the  ancient  Babylonians  (composed  two  thousand  years  B.  C),  which 
have    become    known    to    us    by   the  deciphering  of  these  old   documents. 

•Translated  by  Mr.  Martin  Friedberg,  of  Toledo,  Ohio. 

66  1041 


1042     PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

These  prayers,  written  in  the  touching,  imploring  language  of  the  Baby- 
lonians, furnish  a  remarkable  proof  how  vividly  the  light-minded  Babylon- 
ians felt  the  sorrows  of  life  and  the  stings  of  conscience.  By  fasting,  sacri- 
fices and  long  litanies  they  endeavored  to  pacify  a  raging  deity.  But  what 
Twant  to  emphasize  in  particular  is  the  fact  that  they  were  in  the  habit  of 
asking  a  kindly  disposed  god  to  intercede  for  them  with  an  indignant  one. 
Frequently  the  petitioner  applies  to  a  number  of  gods  to  plead  for  him. 
Here  we  recognize  the  conviction  that  human  gifts  and  human  representa- 
tion are  insufficient,  but  that  a  divine  mediator  and  conciliator  had  to 
interpose  for  the  sinner.     . 

On  the  other  hand,  we  meet  with  numerous  proofs  that  the  atonement 
must  emanate  from  the  transgressor  himself  or  'by  one  representing  him. 
The  animal  sacrifice  is  looked  upon  as  an  installment  on. the  surrender  of  a 
human  soul.  It  is  in  the  remotest  ages,  therefore,  that  we  find  human  sac- 
rifices, where  one  man  suffers  death  for  another  man  by  being  offered  to  God 
in  that  manner.  This  would  have  been  impossible  had  not  the  feeling  of 
solidarity  been  developed  in  them  more  strongly  than  in  modem  genera- 
tions of  individualistic  tendencies. 

Man  stands  before  his  God  not  only  as  an  individual,  but  a  member  of 
a  family,  tribe,  or  nation,  so  that  the  individual  is  charged  with  the  sin  of 
all,  and  all  with  that  of  the  individual.  Succeeding  generations  especially 
•had  to  atone  for  the  sins  of  their  ancestors.  In  this  respect,  the  story  of  the 
' partly  pagan  Gibeonites  related  in  the  Bible  (2  Sam.  xxi.  i)  is  exceedingly 
instructive.  They  demanded  of  David  that,  in  atonement  of  a  bloody  deed 
committed  by  Saul,  seven  sons  of  the  house  of  Saul  be  delivered  unto  them 
and  be  hung  up  unto  the  Lord,  in  order  that  the  drouth  which  God  had 
visited  upon  the  land  in  punishment  of  Saul's  misdeed,  might  cease.  David 
complied  with  their  request  and  "water  dropped  upon  them  out  of  heaven." 
This  conception  was  common  to  both  the  Israelites  and  the  heathens.  In 
the  Old  Testament  this  solidarity  of  the  nations  is  frequently  emphasized  ; 
it  is  the  foundation  ot  Isaiah  liii.,  tor  otherwise  how  could  one  just  man  suffer 
tortures  and  death  in  atonement  for  the  sins  of  a  whole  nation  ?  Moreover, 
this  prophetic  chapter  shows  most  beautifully  that  a  sacrifice,  in  order  to 
atone  for  the  sins  of  others,  must  be  pure  and  voluntary.  The  purer,  the 
nobler,  and  the  more  guiltless  the  sacrifice,  the  more  voluntarily  death  on 
behalf  of  others  is  met,  the  more  efficient  the  atonement.  Everywhere  the 
priests,  who  had  to  perform  deeds  of  atonement,  were  held  to  greater  purity 
and  sacredness  than  the  lay  members  of  the  congregation.  How  powerful 
the  desire  for  conciliation  with  their  gods  was,  even  with  those  nations  that 
were  the  victims  of  paganism,  is  taught  us  by  their  terrible  human  sacrifices. 

It  must,  indeed,  have  been  a  mighty  force,  which  made  mothers 
renounce  their  dearest  children,  which  gave  them  strength  to  remain 
untouched  by  the  moanings  of  their  beloved,  and  to  witness  their  agony 
without  grief.     It  was  the  fear  of  God  that  performed  such  miracles  of  inhu- 


RT.  RKV.  ZITSUZEN'  ASHITSU. 


"  IS  IT  NOT  KEALLY  A  REMARKAULIC  liVliNT  IN  HUMAN  1I1S10KV  THAT  SUCH  A  LARGE  NIMUER  OF 
THE  DELEGATES  OF  DIFFERENT  CREEDS  ARE  COME  TOGETHER  FROM  EVEKV  CORNER  OF  THE 
WORLD  AS  IN  A  CONCERT  TO  DISCUSS  ONE  I'ROliLKM  OF  HLMANI'l  V,  UNIVERSAL  liRrviHERHOOll 
WITHOUT  THE  LEAST  JEALOUSV  ?  VOU  OCCIDENTAL  NATIONS,  WORKING  IN  HARMONY,  HAVE 
WROUGHT  OUT  THE  MATERIAL  CIVILIZATION  OF  THE  PRESENT  CENTURY.  UVT  WHO  WILL  IT  I!K 
THAT  ESTABLISHES  THE  SI'IRH  UAL  CIVILIZATION  OF  HIE  TWENTIETH  CENTl  R\  ?  IT  MUST  n: 
YOU 


1044  ■   PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

raanity,  yet  intense  though  this  fear  of  incurring  the  wrath  of  God  may 
have  been,  it  lacked  the  essential  element  of  purity.  But  vague  as  the  con- 
ception of  God  was  with  those  nations  who  considered  the  shedding  of 
human  blood  a  sacred  act,  it  displays  the  influence  of  conscience,  which 
made  itself  more  or  less  felt.  "  By  your  violation  of  the  divine  order  and 
commands  you  have  brought  upon  yourself  the  displeasure  of  the  Deity,  and 
forfeited  body  and  soul,  unless  yoU  atone  for  your  sins  by  sacrificing  what  is 
dearest  to  you." 

Receiving  all  these  expressions  and  manifestations  of  the  different 
nations,  we  can  arrive  at  but  one  conclusion.  Only  such  religion  will  satisfy 
man  as  gratifies  this  burning  desire  for  true  conciliation  by  offering  him  an 
absolutely  perfect  sacrifice. 

Christianity  recognizes  the  desire  for  salvation,  and  without  exception 
emphasizes  it  as  firmly  as  Buddhism  does,  while  more  definitely  than  the 
atter  it  connects  it  with  sin,  by  which  all  men  are  doomed  to  judgment. 
It  denies  that  man  through  his  own  efforts  or  his  own  virtues  can  be  released 
from  the  curse  of  sin.  And  for  this  reason  a  sacrifice  for  atonement  con- 
stitutes its  central  figure. 

The  sacrifice  that  has  made  adequate  amends  for  the  sins  of  all  men,  is 
the  Son  of  Man,  who  voluntarily  delivers  himself  unto  death.  Being  con- 
nected with  all  mankind  by  a  feeling  of  solidarity,  he  can  come  to  the  res- 
cue of  all.  But,  at  the  same  time,  he  is  not  selected  arbitrarily,  but  chosen 
by  God  and  destined  by  him  for  his  great  mission.        , 

After  eternal  reflections  of  love,  God  himself  has  made  this  reconcilia- 
tion with  the  world  of  sinners  possible.  Thus  vanishes  the  conception  of  a 
passionate,  raging  God,  who  had  to  be  appeased  by  man. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  Christianity  embodies  the  thought  that  is  extant 
in  Mosaism,  and  to  a  certain  extent  in  other  religions,  that  where  immor- 
ality prevailed  or  where  sin  had  been  convmitted,  the  holiness  of  God 
demanded  atonement,  and  it  required  a  sacrifice  to  reconcile  God  with  the 
world  of  sinners.  Jesus  Christ  was  the  lamb  chosen  by  God  as  that  sacri- 
fice. John  the  Baptist  designates  him  (John  i.  29)  as  "  The  Lamb  of  God, 
which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  Jesus  himself  announced  that  the 
aim  and  object  of  his  life  in  this  world  was  to  deliver  it  up  for  the  salvation 
of  mankind,  or,  in  other  words,  to  save  others  by  his  vicarious  death. 

Especially  in  decreeing  the  holy  communion,  Jesus  designated  himself 
as  significantly  as  possible  as  the  victim,  who  dies  for  the  benefit  of  all 
men,  and  whose  death  will  secure  eternal  life  for  all,  and  his  blood  will  be 
the  means  of  taking  away  sin.  No  just  critic  can  deny  these  words,  and  no 
impartial  exegesis  can  misinterpret  them.  Without  a  single  exception  the 
Apostles  testify  to  this  divine  fact.  Their  chief  mission  did  not  consist  in 
promulgating  a  new  religion,  or  a  new  morality  of  law,  but  to  preach  the 
Gospel  and  to  bring  glad  tidings  to  man.  The  substance  of  these  tidings 
was  Christ,  the  Son  of  Man  by  his  resurrection,  whom  they  had  recognized 


VON   ORELLI:   VICARIOUS   SACRIFICES.  IO45 

as  the  Son  of  God  and  the  founder  of  a  new  heavenly  life.  They  preached 
the  risen  Christ.  But  not  the  fact  that  a  man  had  risen  from  the  grave,  but 
that  this  man  was  raised,  he  who  had  met  death,  according  to  his  own  words, 
for  the  purpose  of  atoning  for  the  sins  of  all  men,  was  the  cause  of  their 
joyous  faith. 

True,  while  they  associated  with  him  in  life  they  had  become  convinced 

by  his  words  and  deeds  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God  in  a  much  higher  sense 

than  other  human  beings,  and  that  he  had  brought  a  truly  new  life  to  this 

•  world;  but  his  resurrection  from  the  grave  gave  them  absolute  certainty  as 

to  his  divinity. 

He  was  the  embodiment  of  all  the  diyine  thoughts,  indicated  and 
expressed  in  their  sacrificial  rites  and  prophecies.  He  was  the  pure,  fault- 
less Lamb,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  sublime  High-priest,  for  he  had  deliv- 
ered up  body  and  soul  as  a  vicarious  sacrifice  for  all  mankind.  He  was  the 
absolutely  perfect  "  Servant  of  the  Lord,"  who  pleased  his  God  when  he 
walked  in  the  humble  disguise  of  a  servant,  and  who  renounced  rank  and 
dignity  in  the  hour  of  his  deepest  disgrace  and  the  anguish  of  death.  But  he 
was  also  the  true  Son  of  God,  the  "  Messianic  King,"  who  had  brought  down 
to  us  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  with  all  its  might  and  all  its  gifts,  and  which 
is  to  be  embraced  by  all  the  nations. 

To-day,  where  the  researches  into  the  history  of  religions  affords  us  a 
wider  perspective  of  the  religious  development  of  man  than  ever  before,  we 
can  recognize  anew  and  to  a  greater  extent  that  Christ  satisfies  all  the  desires 
and  fulfils  all  the  hopes  which  had  moved  and  inspired  the  ages  of  heathen- 
ism with  relation  to  God.     The  deep  woe  ringing  through  the  ages,  and 
emanating  from  the  poisonous  sting  of  sin,  the  misery,  brought  on  by  a  guilty 
conscience,  by  a  sinful  estrangement  from  God,  finds  on  Golgotha  consola- 
tion and  forgiveness,  for  here  the  atoning  sacrifice  had  been  rendered  by  him 
who  was  the  Son  of  Man,  and  who  was  bound  to  all  men  by  the  strong  ties 
of  solidarity.     He  conveyed  to  mankind  the  higher  motives  of  life  which 
overcome  death.     Jews  and  heathens  alike  felt  this  solidarity  which,  as  we 
are  constituted  by  nature,  fnvolves  guilt  and  punishment ;   but  Christ,  who 
was  not  of  this  world,  introduced  a  new  era  of  bliss  and  life,  which  consti- 
tutes as  the  recipients   of  divine   mercy  all   who  embrace    his    teachings. 
Nobody  ever  solved  the  dark  mysteries  of  life  and   death.     But  all  ever 
attempted  by  man   in  this  direction  finds  its  explanation  in  the  salvation 
offered  by  Christ.     Man's  former  conceptions  of  sin  and   death  appear  as 
dark  and  seductive  illusions  when  compared  with  the  revelations  of  God.    In 
Christ  we  find  all  that  the  noblest  and  best  ever  wished  and  longed  for. 
Nothing   is  more  wonderful   in   his  revelation    than  that    salvation  comes 
through  suffering,  and  indeed  through  the  suffering  of  the  just  and  guiltless 
for  the  sins  of  all.     Here  the  deepest   love  is  manifested  as  the   mightiest 
power  of  salvation  and  redemption.     It  is  the  love  of  God,  who,  in  the  dis- 
guise of  man,  erected  at  the  cross  the  most  sacred  altar  for  the  bliss  of  all 
mankind. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  ISLAM  ON  SOCIAL 
CONDITIONS. 

By  Mohammed  Webb. 

In  order  to  realize  the  influence  of  Islam  upon  social  conditions  and  to 
comprehend  and  appreciate  the  teachings 'of  Mohammed,  his  whole  life  and 
apparent  motives  must  be  inspected  and  analyzed  carefully  and  without  pre- 
judice. We  must  learn  to  read  between  the  lines  of  so-called  history.  When 
we  have  done  this  we  shall  find  that  the  ethics  he  taught  are  identical  with 
those  of  every  other  prominent  religious  system.  That  is  to  say,  he  presented 
the  very  highest  standard  of  morality,  established  a  system  of  worship  calcu- 
lated to  produce  the  best  results  among  all  classes  of  his  followers  and  made 
aspiration  to  God  the  paramount  purpose  of  life.  Like  every  other  truly  inspired 
teacher  he  showed  that  there  were  two  aspects  or  divisions  of  the  spiritual 
knowledge  he  had  acquired — one  for  the  masses  who  were  so  thoroughly  occu- 
pied with  the  affairs  of  this  world,  that  they  had  only  a  very  small  portion  of 
their  time  to  devote  to  religion,  and  the  other  for  those  who  were  capable  of 
comprehending  the  higher  spiritual  truths  and  realized  that  it  was  better  to 
lay  up  treasures  for  the  life  to  come  than  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  this  world. 
But  his  purpose,  clearly,  was  to  secure  the  most  perfect  moral  results  by 
methods  applicable  to  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  humanity. 

In  analyzing  the  sayings  of  the  prophet,  aside  from  the  Koran,  we  should 
always  bear  in  mind  the  social  conditions  prevalent  among  the  Arabs,  at  the 
time  he  taught,  as  well  as  the  general  character  of  the  people.  Presuming 
that  Mohammed  was  truly  inspired  by  the  Supreme  Spirit,  it  is  quite  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  he  used  quite  different  methods  of  bringing  the  truth  to 
the  attention  of  the  Arabs  twelve  hundred  years  ago  from  those  which  he 
would  follow  before  an  audience  of  intelligenf,  educated  people  in  this 
nineteenth  century. 

There  are  a  number  of  objections  to  Islam  raised  by  Western  people 
which  I  would  like  to  reply  to  fully,  but  the  very  limited  time  allotted  to  me 
prevents  my  doing  so. 

The  chief  objection,  and  the  first  one  generally  made,  is  polygamy.  It 
is  quite  generally  believed  that  polygamy  and  the  Purdah,  or  seclusion  of 
females,  is  a  part  of  the  Islamic  system.  This  is  not  true.  There  is  only 
one  verse  in  the  Koran  which  can  possibly  be  distorted  into  an  excuse  for 
polygamy,  and  that  is,  practically,  a  prohibition  of  it.  I  never  met  but  two 
Mussulmans  in  my  life  who  had  more  than  one  wife.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  sayings  of  the  Prophet  nor  in  the  Koran  warranting  or  permitting  the 
Purdah.    During  the  life  of  the  Prophet  and  the  early  caliphates  the  Arabian 

1046 


WEBB:    ISLAM    AND    SOCIAL   CONDITIONS.  IO47 

women  went  abroad  freely,  and,  what  is  more,  were  honored,  respected  and 
fully  protected  in  the  exercise  of  their  rights  and  privileges. 

Islam  has  been  called  "The  religion  of  the  sword,"  and  there  are 
thousands  of  good  people  in  America  and  Europe  who  really  believe  that 
Mohammed  went  into  battle  with  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the  Koran  in 
the  other. 

The  truth  is  that  the  Prophet  never  encouraged  nor  consented  to  the 
propagation  of  Islam  by  force,  and  the  Koran  plainly  forbids  it.     It  says  : 

"  Let  there  be  no  forcing  in  religion  ;  the  right  way  has  been  made  clearly 
distinguishable  from  the  wrong  one.  If  the  Lord  had  pleased  all  who  are 
on  the  earth  would  have  believed  together ;  and  wilt  thou  force  men  to  be 
believers  ?" 

And  in  the  2d  Sura,  258th  verse,  it  says :  "  Let  there  be  no  compulsion 
in  religion.  Now  is  the  right  way  made  distinct  from  error;  whoever,  there- 
fore, denieth  Taghoot  (literally  error)  and  believeth  in  God  hath  taken  hold 
on  a  strong  handle  that  hath  no  flaw  therein.  And  God  is  he  who  heareth, 
knoweth." 

Our  Prophet  himself  was  as  thoroughly  non-aggressive  and  peace-loving 
as  the  typical  Quaker,  and,  while  he  realized  that  a  policy  of  perfect  non-resist- 
ance would  speedily  have  resulted  in  the  murder  of  himself  and  every  Miis- 
sulman  in  Arabia,  he  urged  his  followers  to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  violent 
collisions  with  the  unbelievers,  and  not  to  fight  unless  it  was  necessary  in 
order  to  protect  their  lives.  It  can  be  shown,  too,  that  he  never  in  his  life 
participated  in  a  battle  and  never  had  a  sword  in  his  hand  for  the  purpose  of 
killing  or  maiming  a  human  being. 

It  has  been  charged  thai  slavery  is  a  part  of  the  Islamic  svstem  in  the 
face  of  the  fact  that  Mohammed  discouraged  it,  and  the  Koran  forbids  it, 
making  the  liberation  of  a  slave  one  of  the  most  meritorious  acts  a  person 
can  perform.  But  in  weighing  the  evidence  bearing  upon  this  subject  we 
should  never  lose  sight  of  the  social  and  political  conditions  prevalent  in 
Arabia  at  the  time  the  Prophet  lived  and  the  Koran  was  compiled. 

It  has  also  been  said  that  Mohammed  and  the  Koran  denied  a  soul  to 
woman  and  ranked  her  with  the  animals.  The  Koran  places  her  on  a  per- 
fect and  complete  equality  with  man,  and  the  Prophet's  teachings  often  place 
her  in  a  position  superior  to  the  males  in  some  respects.  Let  me  read 
you  one  passage  from  the  Koran  bearing  upon  the  subject.  It  is  the  35th 
verse  of  the  33d  Sura  : 

"Truly  the  men  who  resign  themselves  to  God  (Moslems),  and  the 
women  who  resign  themselves ;  and  the  believing  men,  and  the  believing 
women;  and  the  devout  men,  and  the  devout  women;  and  the  men  of  truth, 
and  the  women  of  truth;  and  the  patient  men,  and  the  patient  women;  and 
the  humble  men,  and  the  humble  women ;  and  the  men  who  give  alms, 
and  the  women  who  give  alms ;  and  the  men  who  fast,  and  the  women  who 
fast ;  and  the  chaste  men,  and  the  chaste  women  ;  and  the  men  and  women 


1048    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

who  oft  remember  God  ;  for  them  hath  God  prepared  forgiveness  and  a  rich 
recompense." 

Could  anything  have  been  written  to  emphasize  more  forcibly  the  per- 
fect equality  of  the  sexes  before  God  ? 

The  property  rights  which  American  women  have  enjoyed  for  only  a 
few  years  have  been  enjoyed  by  Mohammedan  women  for  twelve  hundred 
years ;  and  to-day  there  is  no  class  of  women  in  the  world  whose  rights  are 
so  completely  protected  as  those  of  the  Mussulman  communities. 

And  now,  having  endeavored  to  dispel  some  of  the  false  ideas  concern- 
ing Islam,  which  have  been  current  in  this  country,  let  me  show  you  briefly 
what  it  really  is  and  what  its  natural  effects  are  upon  social  conditions. 
Stated  in  the  briefest  manner  possible,  the  Islamic  system  requires  belief  in 
the  Unity  of  God  and  in  the  inspiration  of  Mohammed.  Its  pillars  of  prac- 
tice are  physical  and  mental  cleanliness,  prayer,  fasting,  fraternity,  alms -giv- 
ing and  pilgrimage.  There  is  nothing  in  it  that  tends  to  immorality,  social 
degradation,  superstition,  nor  fanaticism.  On  the  contrary  it  leads  on  to  all 
that  is  purest  and  noblest  in  the  human  character ;  and  any  professed  Mus- 
sulman who  is  unclean  in  his  person  or  habits  or  is  cruel,  untruthful,  dishon- 
est, irreverent  or  fanatical,  fails  utterly  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  religion 
he  professes. 

But  there  is  something  more  in  the  system  than  the  mere  teaching  of 
morality  and  personal  purity;  it  is  thoroughly  practical,  and  the  results,  which 
are  plainly  apparent  among  the  more  intelligent  Moslems,  show  how  well  the 
Prophet  understood  human  nature.  It  will  not  produce  the  kind  of  civiliza- 
tion that  we  Americans  seem  to  admire  so  much,  but  it  will  make  a  man 
sober,  honest  and  truthful  and  will  make  him  love  his  God  with  all  his  heart 
and  with  all  his  mind,  and  his  neighbor  as  himself. 

Every  Mussulman  who  has  not  become  demoralized  by  contact  with 
British  civilization  prays  five  times  a  day  — not  whenever  he  happens  to  feel 
like  it  —  but  at  fixed  periods.  His  prayer  is  not  a  servile,  cringing  petition 
for  some  material  benefit,  but  a  hymn  of  praise  to  the  one  incomprehensible, 
unknowable  God,  the  omnipotent,  omniscient,  omnipresent  Ruler  of  the 
Universe.  He  does  not  believe  that  by  argument  and  entreaty  he  can  sway 
the  judgment  and  change  the  plans  of  God,  but  with  all  the  force  of  his  soul 
he  tries  to  soar  upward  in  spirit  to  where  he  can  gain  strength,  to  be  pure  and 
good  and  holy  and  worthy  of  the  happiness  of  the  future  life.  His  purpose 
is  to  rise  above  the  selfish  pleasures  of  earth  and  strengthen  his  spirit  wings 
for  a  lofty  flight  when  he  is,  at  last,  released  from  the  body. 

Before  every  prayer  he  is  required  to  wash  his  face,  nostrils,  mouth, 
hands  and  feet ;  and  he  does  it.  During  youth  he  acquires  the  habit  of 
washing  himself  five  times  a  day,  and  this  habit  clings  to  him  through  life 
and  keeps  him  physically  clean. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  only  Musselmans  who  drink  whisky  and 
gamble,  are  those  who  wear  European  clothing  and  imitate  the  appearance 


V. 


c 


1050  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   ELEVENTH   DAY. 

and  habits  of  the  Englishmen.  I  have  never  seen  a  drunken  Mussulman 
nor  one  who  carried  the  odor  of  whisky  or  beer  about  with  him.  But  I 
have  heard  that  some  of  those  who  had  become  Anglicized  and  have  broken 
away  from  the  Moslem  dress  and  customs  actually  do  drink  beer  and 
whisky  and  smoke  cigarettes. 

I  have  been  in  mosques  where  from  five  hundred  to  three  thousand 
Mussulmans  were  gathered  to  pray,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  prayer,  I 
was  hemmed  in  by  a  hundred  of  them  who  were  eager  to  shake  my  hand 
and  call  me  their  brother.  But  I  never  detected  those  disagreeable  odors 
which  suggest  the  need  of  extended  facilities  for  bathing.  I  have,  repeat- 
edly recalled  this  fact  while  riding  on  the  elevated  railways  in  New  York 
and  in  two  or  three  public  assemblages  in  London. 

Prostitution  and  marital  infidelity,  with  scandalous  newspaper  reports  of 
divorce  proceedings,  are  quite  impossible  to  a  Mussulman  community  where 
European  influences  have  no  foothold.  A  woman  toiling  over  a  washtub  to 
support  a  drunken  husband  and  several  children,  and  a  poor  widow  with 
her  little  ones  turned  into  the  street  for  the  non-payment  of  rent,  are  epi- 
sodes that  never  occur  where  Islamic  laws  and  customs  prevail.  Woman 
takes  her  place  as  man's  honored  and  respected  companion  and  help-mate, 
and  is  the  mistress  of  her  home  whenever  she  is  disposed  to  occupy  that 
position.  Her  ..rights  are  accorded  to  her  freely.  She  finds  her  pleasure 
and  recreation  at  home  in  the  pure  atmosphere  of  her  husband's  and  chil- 
dren's love,  and  the  peaceful  refining  occupations  of  domestic  life.  Both 
she  and  her  husband,  as  well  as  their  children,  are  taught  and  believe  that 
it  is  better  to  retire  at  9:00  P.M.,  just  after  the  last  prayer  of  the  day,  and 
arise  before  daybreak  and  say  the  morning  prayer  just  as  the  first  rays  of 
the  sun  are  gilding  the  eastern  horizon. 

Another  feature  of  the  Islamic  social  life  that  has  impressed  me  is  the 
utter  absence  of  practical  joking.  There  is  little  or  no  sarcasm,  bitter 
irony,  cruel  wit,  among  the  Mussulmans  calculated  to  cause  their  fellows 
chagrin,  shame,  or  annoyance,  wounding  the  heart,  and  breaking  that  bond 
of  loving  fraternity  which  should  subsist  between  men.  The  almost  uni- 
versal disposition  seems  to  be  to  cultivate  unselfishness  and  patience,  and 
to  place  as  little  value  as  possible  upon  the  things  of  this  world. 

In  the  household  of  the  true  Mussulman  there  is  no  vain  show,  no 
labored  attempt  to  follow  servilely  the  fashions,  including  furniture  and 
ornaments,  in  vogue  in  London  and  Paris.  Plainness  and  frugality  are 
apparent  everywhere,  the  idea  being  that  it  is  far  better  to  cultivate  the 
spiritual  side  of  our  nature  than  to  waste  our  time  and  money  trying  to 
keep  up  appearances  that  we  hope  will  cause  our  neighbors  to  think  that 
we  have  more  money  than  we  really  have  and  are  more  aesthetic  in  our 
tastes  than  we  really  are. 

"But,"  some  one  may  say,  "what  about  the  story  that  a  Mussulman 
believes  that  he  will  go  directly  to  paradise  if  he  dies  while  trying  to  kill  a 


WEBB:   ISLAM    AND   SOCIAL   CONDITIONS.  IO51 

Christian  ?"  This  is  one  of  the  numerous  falsehoods  invented  by  enemies 
of  the  truth,  to  injure  as  peaceful  and  non-aggressive  a  class  of  people  as 
the  world  has  ever  seen. 

A  Mussulman,  if  he  is  hungry  and  has  no  lodging-place,  may  walk 
into  the  house  of  a  brother  Mussulman  and  be  sure  of  a  cordial,  hospitable 
welcome.  He  will  be  given  a  seat  at  the  frugal  meal,  and  a  place  where 
he  can  spread  his  sleeping  mat.  One  of  the  best  of  Islamic  social  customs 
is  hospitality.  Many  Mussulmans  are  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  to  give 
a  home  and  food  to  a  poor  brother,  believing  that  God  has  thus  favored 
them  with  the  means  of  making  themselves  more  worthy  to  inherit  para-- 
dise. 

The  greeting,  Assalam  Aleikum — "  Peace  be  with  thee,"  and  the 
response,  AUikitm  salaam — "  With  thee  be  peace  " — have  a  true  fraternal 
sound  in  them  calculated  to  arouse  the  love  and  respect  of  any  one  who 
hears  them. 

I  have  seen  it  asserted  that,  under  the  Islamic  system,  a  high  state  of 
civilization  is  impossible.     Stanley  Lane-Poole  writes  as  follows  : 

"  For  nearly  eight  centuries  under  her  Mohammedan  rulers  Spain  set  to 
all  Europe  a  shining  example  of  a  civilized  and  enlightened  state  .  .  .  Art, 
literature  and  science  prospered  as  they  then  prospered  nowhere  else  in 
Europe.  Students  flocked  from  France  and  Germany  and  England  to  drink 
from  the  fountains  of  learning  which  flowed  only  in  the  cities  of  the  Moors. 
The  surgeons  and  doctors  of  Andalusia  were  in  the  van  of  science  ;  women 
were  encouraged  to  devote  themselves  to  serious  study,  and  a  lady  doctor  was 
not  unknown  among  the  people  of  Cordova.  Mathematics,  astronomy  and 
botany,  history,  philosophy  and  jurisprudence,  were  to  be  mastered  in  Spain 
and  in  Spain  alone.  The  practical  work  of  the  field,  the  scientific  methods 
of  irrigation,  the  arts  of  fortification  and  shipbuilding,  the  highest  and  most 
elaborate  products  of  the  loom,  the  graver  and  the  hammer,  the  potter's 
wheel  and  the  mason's  trowel  were  brought  to  perfection  by  Spanish  lords. 
In  the  practice  of  war,  no  less  than  in  the  arts  of  peace,  they  long  stood 
supreme." 

And  what  has  become  of  this  grand  civilization,  traces  of  which  we  still 
see  in  some  of  the  Spanish  cities  and  the  splendid  architecture  of  the  Mogul 
emperors  of  India  ?  It  is  to  be  seen  here  in  Chicago,  and  wherever  there  is 
a  manifestation  of  materialistic  progress  and  enlightenment. 

So  long  as  the  pure  teachings  of  the  Prophet  were  followed  the  Moslem 
development  was  pure  and  healthy,  and  much  more  stable  and  admirable 
than  the  gaudy  materialism  that  finally  developed  and  brought  with  it  utter 
ruin.  True  civilization,  a  civilization  based  upon  purity,  virtue  and  fraternal 
love,  is  the  kind  of  civilization  that  exists  to-day  among  the  better  classes  of 
Mussulmans,  and  brings  with  it  a  degree  of  contentment  and  happiness 
unknown  amid  the  tumult  of  the  Western  social  system. 

The  devout  Mussulman,  one  who  has  arrived  at  an  intelligent  compre- 


1052  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   ELEVENTH    DAY. 

hension  of  the  pure  teachings  of  the  Prophet,  lives  in  his  religion  and  makes 
it  the  paramount  principle  of  his  existence.  It  is  with  him  in  ail  his  goings 
and  comings  during  the  day,  and  he  is  never  so  completely  occupied  with 
his  business  or  worldly  affairs  that  he  cannot  turn  his  back  upon  them  when 
the  stated  hour  of  prayer  arrives  and  present  his  soul  to  God.  His  loves, 
his  sorrows,  his  hopes,  his  fears  are  all  immersed  in  it ;  it  is  his  last  thought 
when  he  lies  down  to  sleep  at  night  and  the  first  to  enter  his  mind  at  dawn, 
when  the  voice  of  the  Muezzin  rings  out  loudly  and  clearly  from  the  minaret 
of  the  mosque,  waking  the  soft  echoes  of  the  morn  with  its  thrilling,  solemn, 
majestic  monotones,  "Come  to  prayer;  prayer  is  better  than  sleep." 


WHAT  HAS  JUDAISM  DONE.  FOR  WOMAN? 
By  Miss  Henrietta  Szold. 

The  whole  education  conferred  by  Judaism  lies  in  the  principle  that  it 
did  not  assign  to  woman  an  exceptional  position  ;  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  by 
taking  cognizance  of  the  exceptional  f)osition  assigned  to  woman  by  brute 
force,  and  occupied  by  her  on  account  of  her  physical  constitution  and 
natural  duties,  Judaism  made  that  education  effectual,  and  uninterrupted  in 
its  effects. 

In  the  tangled  maze  of  history,  let  us  single  out  the  thread  that  marks 
the  development  of  Jewish  woman.  In  Jewish  history,  as  in  that  of  the  rest 
of  mankind,  leaders  are  only  milestones. 

Our  question  calls  for  the  spiritual  data  about  the  typical  woman  whom 
Judaism  has  prepared  for  nineteenth  century  work.  To  discover  them,  we 
must  go  back  to  twice  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  to  the  woman  that  pre- 
sided over  the  tent  of  Abraham. 

In  that  tent,  whatever  incipient  Judaism  did  for  man,  that  precisely  it 
did  for  woman  :  it  made  man,  created  male  and  female,  aware  of  his  human 
dignity,  and  laid  it  upon  him  as  a  duty  to  maintain  that  dignity.  With  the 
defining  of  man's  relations  to  his  family,  begins  the  refinement,  the  human- 
ity of  civilization. 

Abraham  stands  out  in  a  historic  picture  of  mankind  as  the  typical 
father.  He  it  was  of  whom  it  was  known  that  he  would  "command  his 
children  and  his  household  after  him,  that  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  the 
Lord,  to  do  righteousness  and  justice." 

What  was  Sarah's  share  in  this  paramount  work  of  education  ?  Ishmael 
was  to  be  removed  in  order  that  Isaac,  the  disciple  of  righteousness  and 
justice,  might  not,  by  bad  example,  be  lured  away  from  "  the  way  of  the 
Lord."  In  connection  with  this  plan,  wholly  educational  in  its  aims,  it  is 
enjoined  upon  Abraham  :  "  In  all  that  Sarah  may  say  unto  thee,  hearken 
unto  her  voice." 


SZOLD:   JUDAISM   AND  'WOiMAN.  IO53 

The  next  generation  again  illustrates,  not  the  sameness  in  function,  but 
the  equality  in  position,  of  man  and  woman.  Isaac  and  Kebekah  differ  in 
their  conception  of  educational  discipline  and  factors. 

Yet  whatever  may  have  been  the  difference  of  opinion  between  them 
with  regard  to  interference  in  their  children's  affairs,  before  their  chddren, 
father  and  mother  are  completely  at  one,  for  when  the  first  suspicion  of  dis- 
pleasure comes  to  Esau,  it  reaches  him  in  Isaac's  name  alone.  We  are  told 
that  "  then  saw  Esau  that  the  daughters  of  Canaan  were  evil  in  the  eyes  of 
Isaac,  his  father."  Isaac,  the  executive,  had  completely  adopted  the  tactics 
of  Rebekah,  the  advisory  branch  of  the  government. 

In  Rebekah  we  are  shown  the  first  social  innovator,  the  first  being  to 
act  contrary  to  tradition,  and  the  iron-bound  customs  of  society.  She, 
refuses  to  yield  to  birth  its  rights,  in  a  case  in  which  were  involved  the 
higher  considerations  of  the  guardianship  of  truth.  And  this  reformer  was 
the  traditionally  conservative  woman,  Rebekah. 

Such  are  the  ideals  of  equality  between  man  and  woman  that  have  come 
down  to  as  from  the  days  of  the  Patriarchs.  Such,  furthermore,  was  the 
basis  upon  which  the  position  of  woman  in  Judaism  was  fixed,  and  such  in 
turn,  the  ideal  towards  which  the  Jewish  woman  was  to  aspire. 

Women  continued  to  be  held  in  high  esteem.  We  hear  of  the  mothers 
of  the  greatest  men,  of  Jochebed,  the  mother  of  Moses,  and  of  Hannah,  the 
mother  of  Samuel  and  the  sole  director  of  his  career.  We  still  hear  of 
fathers  and  mothers  acting  in  equal  conjunction,  as  in  the  disastrous  youth 
of  Samson.  The  law  ranges  them  together:  "If  a  man  have  a  stubborn 
and  rebellious  son,  who  hearkeneth  not  to  the  voice  of  his  father,  or  to  the 
voice  of  his  mother,  and  they  chastise  him,  and  he  will  not  hearken  unto 
them,  then  shall  his  father  and  his  mother  lay  hold  on  him."  We  have  evi- 
dence of  woman's  dignity  in  the  parallel  drawn  by  the  prophets  between  the 
relation  of  Israel  to  God  and  that  of  a  wife  to  her  husband,  most  beautifully 
in  this  passage  which  distinguished  between,  the  husband  of  a  Jewish 
woman  and  the  lord  of  a  mediaeval  Griseldis  :  "  And  it  shall  happen  at  that 
day,  saith  the  Lord,  that  thou  shalt  call  me  hhi  (my  husband),  and  shalt  not 
call  me  any  more  Ba' ali  (my  lord).  And  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  for- 
ever :  Yea,  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  in  righteousness  and  justice,  and  in 
lovingkindness,  and  in  mercy.  And  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  in  faith- 
fulness." 

I5ut  Israel  was  a  backsliding  nation.  Even  its  purity  of  family  life  was 
sullied,  as  for  instance  at  Gibeah,  and  by  David.  Yet  it  remains  true  that 
throm^h  good  and  evil  times  the  ideals  were  maintained,  and  in  the  end 
practice  was  influenced  into  conformity  with  them.  Subtler  signs  than 
Kfxss  historic  events  show  both  truths — show  that  practice  degenerated, 
•■^lul  show  that  it  was  reconstructed  on  the  basis  of  never-abandoned  ideals. 
Eniphatic  assertions  of  the  exalted  position  of  women  are  dangerous.  They 
involve  the  concession  that  man  has  the  authority  to  establish  or  refuse. 


1054     PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

instead  of  leaving  the  economy  of  the  moral  world  as  God  has  ordained  it. 
Any  tendency  to  create  an  inequality,  be  it  to  the  detriment  or  to  the 
aggrandizement  of  woman,  is  fatal  to  her  true  dignity. 

The  prophet  Malachi  sets  forth  the  whole  misery  of  those  later  days, 
culminating  in  disregard  of  woman,  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  Jewish 
principle  and  ideal  of  woman's  co-equality  with  man,  as  well  as  the  cause  of 
her  dethronement  from  his  side.  He  says  :  "  The  Lord  hath  been  witness 
between  thee  and  the  wife  of  thy  youth  against  whom  thou  hast  indeed 
dealt  treacherously ;  yet  is  she  thy  companion  and  the  wife  of  \.)\y  covenant." 

The  last  of  the  prophets,  the  contemporary  of  the  Scribes,  ushers  us  into 
the  halls  of  the  Talmud.  Here  the  prophet's  utterances  still  reverberate : 
'He  who  forsakes  the  love  of  his  youth,  God's  altar  weeps  for  him;"  "A 
man  should  be  careful  lest  he  afflict  his  wife,  for  God  counts  her  tears." 
Less  suggestive  of  disordered  affairs  is  :  "  He  who  sees  his  wife  die  before 
him  has,  as  it  were,  been  present  at  the  destruction  of  the  sanctuary  itself, 
around  him  the  world  grows  dark."  "  Love  your  wife  like  yourself,  honor 
her  more  than  yourself,"  smacks  of  the  equivocal  distinction  of  mediaeval 
times,  and  of  a  convulsive  desire  to  hide  the  existing  condition  of  affairs. 
"If  thy  wife  is  small,  bend  down  to  her  to  take  counsel  from  her,"  indi- 
cates a  return  to  natural,  unstrained  relations.  "  He  who  marries  for  money, 
his  children  shall  be  a  curse  to  him,"  is  a  practical  maxim  applicable  not  only 
in  ancient  times,  and  finally,  the  early  ideal  is  realized,  in  "A  man's  home 
means  his  wife." 

The  question  arises.  How  came  it  about  that  early  realities  turned  into 
fit  subjects  for  poetry,  aphorism  and  chivalrous  sayings,  but  were  absent  from 
every-day  life  sufficiently  often  to  justify  the  prophet's  wrath  ?  It  all  lies  in 
this :  Israel's  sons  married  the  daughters  not  of  a  stranger,  but  of  a  strange 
god. 

It  was  the  Israelite's  crown  of  distinction  that  his  wife  was  his  companion, 
whose  equality  was  so  acknowledged  that  he  made  with  her  a  covenant.  But 
this  crown. was  dragged  in  the  mire  when  he  married  the  daughter  of  a  strange 
god.  • 

Direst  misfortune  taught  Israel  the  folly  of  worshiping  strange  gods, 
but  the  blandishments  of  the  daughters  of  a  strange  god  produced  the  enact- 
ment of  many  a  law  by  the  rabbis  of  the  Talmud.  Here  was  the  problem 
that  confronted  them:  Israel's  ideals  of  womanhood  were  high,  but  the  nations 
around  acted  according  to  a  brutal  standard,  and  Israel  was  not  likely  to 
remain  untainted.  They  solved  it  in  a  truly  Jewish  way, — both  in  the  Jewish 
spirit  and  on  a  Jewish  basis  As  always  in  Judaism,  they  dealt  with  a  con- 
dition, and  strove,  by  modifying  it,  to  realize  the  ideals  of  their  theory. 

Judaism  had  taken  cognizance  of  the  fact  that  the  practice  of  the 
nations  about,  with  regard  to  woman,  varied  widely  from  Jewish  ideals. 
Clear  of  vision,  the  Lawgiver-Prophet  could  not  fail  to  see  that  Israel,  stiff- 
necked,  unmindful  of  its  mission,  participating  in  the  human  fault  of  assert- 


SZOLD:   JUDAISM    AND    WOMAN.  IO55 

ing  brute  strength  over  the  physically  weak,  would  soon  adopt  the  lower 
standards  unless  restrained  by  iron-handed  law  Thus  Mosaic  legislation 
recognizes  the  exceptional  position  occupied  by  woman,  and  profits  by  its 
knowledge  thereof  to  lay  down  stringent  regulations  ordering  the  relation  of 
the  sexes.  We  have  the  rights  of  woman  guarded  with  respect  to  inherit- 
ance, to  giving  in  marriage,  to  the  marriage  relation,  and  with  regard  to 
divorce.  But  woman's  greatest  safeguard  lay  in  the  fact  that  both  marriage 
and  divorce  among  the  Jews  were  civil  transactions,  connected  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  formality. 

An  authority  describes  the  Jewish  view  of  marriage  as  standing  between 
that  of  the  common  law,  which,  according  to  Blackstone,  "  considers  mar- 
riage in  no  other  light  than  as  a  civil  contract,"  and  that  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  which  "  holds  marriage  to  be  a  sacrament  and  as  such 
indissoluble."  He  says  :  "Between  these  two  extreme  views  stands  that  of 
the  Jewish  law."  The  act  of  concluding  marriage  is  there  certainly  also 
considered  as  a  contract,  which  requires  the  consent  of  both  parties  and  the 
performance  of  certain  formalities  similar  to  other  contracts,  and  which 
under  certain  circumstances  can  be  dissolved.  But,  inasmuch  as  marriage 
concerns  a  relation  which  is  based  on  morality  and  implies  the  most  sacred 
duties,  it  is  more  than  a  mere  civil  contract.  In  such  a  contract  the  mutual 
duties  and  rights  emanate  from  the  optional  agreement  of  the  contracting 
parties,  while  those  who  enter  upon  the  state  of  married  life  must  submit  to 
the  reciprocal  duties  which  have  been  imposed  by  religion  and  morality. 
Adultery  is  not  me  ely  infidelity  toward  the  conjugal  partner,  but  a  violation 
of  a  divine  order,  a  crime  which  cannot  be  condoned  by  the  offended  party; 
it  invalidates  the  very  foundation  of  that  marriage,  so  as  to  make  its  con- 
tinuation absolutely  impossible.  '  Under  Jewish  jurisdiction  the  husband 
was  compelled  to  divorce  his  wife  who  had  been  found  guilty  of  adultery. 

The  laws  and  regulations  of  divorce  are  full  and  detailed.  A  passage 
often  quoted,  in  order  to  give  an  idea  of  the  Jewish  divorce  law,  is  the  fol- 
lowing:  "  The  school  of  Shammai" — inclining  to  Biblical  ordinances — 
"says  that  a  wife  can  be  divorced  only  on  account  of  infidelity.  The 
school  of  Hillel  says  that  the  husband  is  not  obliged  to  give  a  plausible 
motive  for  divorce — he  may  say  that  she  spoiled  his  meal.  R.  Akiba 
expresses  the  same  idea  in  another  way  :  he  may  say  that  he  has  found  a 
more  beautiful  woman."  And  those  that  wish  to  throw  contempt  upon 
the  Jewish  law  add  that  the  school  of  Hillel,  the  milder  school,  is  followed 
in  practical  decisions.  This  is  one  of  the  cases  in  which  not  the  whole 
truth  IS  told.  In  the  first  place,  a  woman  has  the  same  right  to  apply  for  a 
divorce,  without  assigning  any  reason  which  motives  of  delicacy  may 
prompt  her  to  withhold.  The  idea  underlying  this  seeming  laxity  is  that 
when  a  man  or  a  woman  is  willing  to  apply  for  a  divorce  on  so  trivial  a 
ground,  then,  regard  and  love  having  vanished,  in  the  interest  of  morality 
a  divorce  had  better  be  granted,  after  due  efforts  have  been  made  to  effect 


1056     PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

a  reconciliation.  In  reality,  however,  divorce  laws  were  far  from  being  lax. 
The  facts  that  a  woman  who  applied  for  a  divorce  lost  her  dowry,  and  in 
almost  all  cases  a  man  who  applied  for  it  had  to  pay  it,  would  suffice  to 
restrain  the  tendency.  Rabbinowicz  remarks  about  a  certain  law,  that  it 
shows  that  the  rabbis  sought  to  diminish  divorces  as  much  as  possible. 
Moreover,  and  this  is  the  cHnching  fact,  divorces  were  very  rare. 

The  important  points  characterizing  the  Jewish  divorce  law,  and  dis- 
tinguishing it  far  beyond  that  of  other  nations  of  antiquity,  are  these  :  A 
man,  as  a  rule,  could  not  divorce  his  wife  without  providing  for  her ;  he 
could  not  summarily  send  her  from  him,  as  was  and  is  the  custom  in  East- 
.ern  countries,  but  wa^  obliged  to  give  her  a  duly  drawn  up  bill  of  divorce- 
ment ;  and  women  as  well  as  men  could  sue  for  a  divorce. 

Besides  these  important  provisions  regulating  woman's  estate,  there 
are  various  intimations  in  the  Talmud  of  delicate  regard  paid  to  the  finer 
sensibilities  of  women. 

These  and  such  are  the  provisions  which,  originating  in  the  hoary  past, 
have  intrenched  the  Jewess'  position  even  unto  this  day.'  Whatever  she  may 
be,  she  is  through  them.  But  what  is  she  ?  You  have  heard  of  the  Jewish 
custom  which  bids  the  Jewish  mother,  after  her  preparations  for  the  Sabbath 
have  been  completed  on  Friday  evening,  kindle  the  Sabbath  lamp  ?  That 
is  symbolic  of  the  Jewish  woman's  influence  on  her  own  home,  and  through 
it  upon  larger  circles.  She  is  the  inspirer  of  a  pure,  chaste  family  life,  whose 
hallowing  influences  are  incalculable  ;  she  is  the  center  of  all  spiritual 
endeavors,  the  confidante  and  fosterer  of  every  undertaking.  To  her  the 
Talmudic  sentence  applies  :  "  It  is  woman  alone  through  whom  God's  bless- 
ings are  vouchsafed  to  a  house.  She  teaches  the  children,  speeds  the  hus- 
band to  the  place  of  worship  and  instruction,  welcomes  him  when  he  returns, 
keeps  the  house  godly  and  pure,  and  God's  blessings  rest  upon  all  these 
things." 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE. 
By  Professor  Richard   T.  Ely,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

Christianity  is  a  social  force  above  everything  else.     Its  social  charac- 
ter  is   a   distinguishing' feature  of  Christianity.     Other  religions  are   also- 
social  forces,  but  it  strikes  me  that  in  the  degree  to  which   Christianity  car- 
ries its  social  nature  we  have  one  of  its  essential  peculiarities. 

He  who  would  understand  Christianity  must  begin  with  a  considera- 
tion of  Judaism.  While,  as  a  general  principle,  this  is  admitted  by  all,  it 
is  overlooked  by  many  in  their  treatment  of  the  social  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity. Judaism  was  a  social  force  which  worked  chiefly  within  national 
boundaries,  and  its  aim  within  the  nation  was  to  establish  an  ideal  common- 
wealth in  which  neither  pauperism  nor  plutocracy  should  be  known.      But 


V. 

y. 


V. 


67 


1058    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

we  may  go  even  further  and  say  that  it  was  the  avowed  aim  that  Israel 
should  be  kept  free  from  both  poverty  and  riches.  This  prayer  of  Agur  is 
simply  an  expression  of  a  national  ideal  never  fully  attained,  but  never  for- 
gotten by  noble  souls  in  Israel.  Every  revival  of  pure  religion  meant  an 
effort  to  reach  this  ideal  of  national  life.  The  prophets  were  great  social 
reformers  who  voiced  the  yearning  cry  of  the  nation  for  righteous  social 
relations.  The  Jewish  law  was  to  the  weak  a  bulwark,  and  to  the  oppressed 
a  stronghold  ;  to  assaulted  feebleness  a  fortress  ;  for  all,  in  time  of  distress, 
a  refuge.  It  was  thus  that  Israel  found  the  law  a  delight.  It  is  the  social 
law  of  which  we  speak,  and  not  the  ceremonial  law.  The  true  Jewish  priest 
and  prophet  regarded  righteousness  which  did  not  include  a  brotherly 
aim  as  but  filthy  rags.  All  the  legislation  of  Moses  had  in  view  the  develop- 
ment of  a  national  brotherhood,  and  as  a  means  for  the  accomplishment  of 
this  end,  it  aimed  to  prevent  the  separation  of  Israel  into  widely  separated 
social  classes.  Economic  extremes  in  conditions  were  dreaded  and  to  pro- 
duce equality  of  opportunity  was  the  desire  of  every  true  Hebrew  leader. 
Facilities  for  the  development  of  the  faculties  of  all  naturally  followed  from 
the  faithful  application  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Mosaic  legisla- 
tion. At  the  same  time  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  was  never  designed  to 
to  be  a  pure  democracy.  An  aristocratic  element  was  favored,  because  it 
)vas  endeavored  to  secure  the  leadership  of  the  wise  and  gifted,  and  obedi-. 
ence  to  this  leadership  was  enjoined  on  all.  Sedition  and  rebellion  were 
regarded  as  crimes.  Equality  of  all  in  faculties  and  in  fitness  for  govern- 
ment were  absurdities  not  entertained. 

The  provisions  relating  to  land  and  interest  were  perhaps  the  most 
important  features  of  the  social  legislation  of  Moses.  ^The  land  belonged 
-to  the  Almighty,  and  it  was  held  by  the  children  of  Israel  under  strictly 
limited  tenure.  j/Ut  was  a  trust  designed  to  afford  provision  for  each  family. 
It  could  by  no  means  be  monopolized  without  an  infraction  of  the  funda- 
mental law,  and  such  a  thing  as  modern  speculation  in  land  violated  the 
conditions  of  the  land  tenure.  The  purpose  of  the  land  was  to  furnish  a 
subsistence  and  to  promote  the  acquisition  of  a  competence — but  by  no 
means  of  a  great  fortune. 

The  laws  regulating  interest  were  even  more  radical.  Interest  was 
forbidden  by  Moses  because  the  receipt  of  interest  would  have  militated 
against  the  fundamental  social  purposes  which  Moses  desired  to  accomplish. 
Loans  were  to  be  made  to  assist  a  brother,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  gain. 
"Thou  shalt  open  thine  hand  wide  to  thy  brother,  to  thy  poor  and  thy 
needy  in  thy  land."  At  least  two  things  were  evidently  dreaded  in  the 
taking  of  interest — the  growth  of  inequality  among  them  and  the  oppor- 
tunity it  afforded  for  economic  gain  without  direct  personal  exertion. 

The  regulations  concerning  slavery  were  also  aimed  at  these  dangers, 
and  in  them  we  find  the  enunciation  of  the  truth  that  private  property 
exists  for  social  purposes.     The  institution  of  slavery  was  relatively  mild 


ELY:   CHRISTIANITY   AS   A    SOCIAL   FORCE,        1059 

among  the  Hebrews,  and  provision  was  made  for  the  release  of  the 
Hebrew  bondman  and  bondwoman  after  a  brief  period  of  service.  The 
foreigner  was  excluded  from  this  brotherhood,  and  even  when  kind  treat- 
ment of  the  stranger  is  enjoined,  he,  after  all,  is  regarded  as  one  separated 
from  the  range  of  complete  ethical  obligation. 

Jesus  came  with  an  avowed  determination  to  do  two  things — to  break 
down  the  ceremonial  law,  which  confined  within  narrow  limits  the  circle  of 
brotherhood  rendering  it  merely  national,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  extend 
to  universality  the  benefits  of  the  social  law  of  Moses.  And  it  was  of  this 
law  that  he  said  not  one  jot  or  tittle  should  pass  away  until  all  should  be 
fulfilled.  Jesus  did  not  proclaim  himself  the  Son  of  Abraham,  which  would 
have  implied  national  brotherhood,  but  the  Son  of  Man,  which  implied 
brotherhood  as  wide  as  humanity. 

Christianity,  then,  as  a  social  force,  seeks  to  universalize  the  socio-eco- 
nomic institutions  of  the  Jews.  •  But  it  mast  be  remembered  in  this  connec- 
tion that  it  is  the  letter  that  killeth,  but  the  spirit  which  giveth  life.  The 
exact  law  of  Moses  respecting  land  and  interest,  for  example,  cannot  be 
reproduced  in  modern  society.  But  all  who  profess  allegiance  to  Christ 
must  endeavor  to  universalize  their  spirit.  The  church  is  a  universal  anti- 
poverty  society,  or  she  is  false  to  her  founder.  It  is  hoped  that  I  will  not 
be  misunderstood  in  saying  that  she  also  stands  for  anti-millionairism, 
because  extremes  are  subversive  of  brotherhood. 

Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  favors  the  development  of  the  most 
diverse  social  institutions  and  the  development  of  a  grand  public  life,  because 
these  mean  fraternity .yfiWhat  is  private  separates ;  what  is  public  draws 
together./rArt  galleries,  for  example,  when  private,  mean  withdrawal  and 
withholcnng  the  products  of  the  mind  of  man,  while  public  art  galleries  sig- 
nify public  uses  of  that  which  is  essentially  public  in  its  nature.  As  a  social 
force,  Christianity  favors  private  frugality  and  generous  public  expenditures. 
We  may  express  all  this  and  something  more  in  the  statement  that  Chris- 
tianity means  social  solidarity,  or  it  means  nothing.  Social  solidarity  means 
the  recognition  of  the  identity  of  all  human  interests,  and,  truly  understood, 
it  promotes  the  identification  of  oneself  with  humanity.  Fullness  of  life  in 
everv  department  must  be  sought  in  hiiman  society.  tj 

iX/TLndividualism,  as  ordinarily  understood,  is  anti-Christian,  because  it^ 
m/ans  social  isolation  and  disintegration.^^^ndividual  liberty,  as  frequently 
proclaimed,  means  the  right  of  one  man  ta  injure  others  to  the  full  extent  of 
his  capacity  and  resources.  The  claim  to  this  liberty  (which  is  not  liberty 
at  all  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word)  is  anti-Christian.  Individual  salvation, 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  is  an  impossibility,  because  it  implies  a 
denial  of  that  which  is  fundamental  in  Christianity.  It  is  false  Christianity 
which  fails  to  recognize  the  needs  of  others  and  centers  itself  on  individual 
salvatioii,  neglecting  what  the  Apostle  James  called  "  pure  and  undefiled 
religion,"  namely,  ministration  to  one's  fellows. 


I060  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    ELEVENTH    DAY. 

The  social  life  of  this  land  of  ours  would  proclaim  the  value  of  Chris- 
tianity, if  it  could  in  its  true  sense  be  called  a  Christian  land.  But  we  cannot 
be  called  such  a  land.  We  do  not  attempt  to  carry  out  the  principles  of 
fraternity,  and  any  claim  that  we  do  is  mere  ignorance  or  pretense  — hypoc- 
risy of  the  kind  condemned  by  Christ  in  the  strongest  language.  It  does 
not  avail  us  to  make  long  prayers  while  we  neglect  widows  and  orphans  in 
need.  He  who  did  this  in  the  time  of  Christ  violated  the  principles  of 
national  brotherhood.  He  who  does  so  now,  violates  the  principles  of  uni- 
versal brotherhood. 

Shall  a  land  be  cilled  Christian  which  slaughters  human  beings  need- 
lessly by  the  thousand  rather  than  introduce  improvements  in  railway  trans- 
portation simply  because  they  cost  money  ?  That  is  exalting  material  things 
above  human  beings.  Shall  a  city  like  Chicago  be  called  Christian^  main- 
taining its  grade  crossings  and  killing  innocent  persons  by  the  hundred 
yearly,  simply  because  it  would  cost  money  to  elevate  its  railway  tracks  ? 
To  make"  the  claim  for  our  country  that  it  is  a  Christian  land  is  a  cruel 
wrong  to  Christianity.  If  we  were  animated  by  the  spfrit  of  Christianity  we 
would  do  away  at  the  earliest  moment  with  such  abuses  as  these  and  others 
which  daily  in  factory  and  workshop  maim  and  mutilate  men,  women  and 
children. 

Christianity  as  a  social  force  stands  for  progress.  Christ  gave  the  spirit 
to  which  the  legislation  of  every  country  and  every  time  should  seek  to  con- 
form, and  he  established  a  goal  far  in  advance  of  the  men  of  the  time,  and 
inspiring  all  true  followers  with  a  desire  to  reach  this  goal  and  strengthen- 
ing them  in  their  efforts  to  attain  it.  He  gave  an  impulse  which  can  never 
fail  to  make  for  progress  so  long  as  society  exists. 

Christianity  as  a  social  force  makes  not  only  for  progress,  but  for  peace- 
ful progress,  which  in  the  end  is  the  most  rapid  and  secure  progress.  Christ 
encouraged  patience  and  long  suffering  along  with  tireless  effort  and  daunt- 
less courage.  Christianity  carries  with  it  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  an 
aristocracy  Rulership  was  recognized  and  obedience  to  constituted  author- 
ity taught  as  a  Christian  duty.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  all  kings  and  rulers 
of  men  were  taught  that  they  held  their  offices  from  God  as  a  sacred  trust. 
We  all  know  the  parable  of  the  talents  and  its  interpretation  is'  clear.  All 
mental  and  physical  strength  and  all  material  resources  are  to  be  used  not 
for  oneself,  but  for  the  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  all  humanity.  Inequali- 
ties in  attainment  were  implicitly  recognized,  but  inequality  was  thus  to  be 
made  an  instrument  of  progress.  Ignorance  finds  support  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  wise  :  strength  is  debtor  to  weakness. 

We  may  thus  say  that  Christianity  as  a  social  force  stands  for  the  con- 
servation of  energy.  It  seeks  the  utilization  of  all  human  power  for  the 
advancement  of  the  welfare  of  man,  and  it  tends  to  preserve  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  past  because  it  means  peaceful  progress.  It  may  be  thus  said 
that  Christianity  stands  for  progress  emphatically,  but  for  conservative 
progress. 


HENDERSON:   SOCIALISTIC    REFORM.  IO61 

Christianity  means  a  mighty  transformation  and  turning  of  things 
upside  down,  and  while  it  seeks  to  bring  about  the  most  radical  changes  in 
peace,  it  has  forces  within  it  which  nothing  can  withstand  and  resistance  to 
which  is  sure  to  result  in  revolutionary  violence.  Yet  in  the  end  the  peace 
of  Christ  must  triumph. 


INDIVIDUAL    EFFORT    AT    REFORM     NOT 
SUFFICIENT. 

By  Prof.  C.  R.  Henderson,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

By  reform  is  meant  a  change  of  ourselves  or  of  others  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  moral  level ;  and  the  proposition  I  would  illustrate  is  this  :     PVe  can- ' 
not  ignore  socialized  effort  embodied  in  physical  form   without  great  loss  oj 
power  and  efficiency.  "  .  .     " 

Many  of  those  who  are  zealous  for  social  and  communal  enterprises  do 
not  always  make  it  clear  that  they  see  the  necessity  for  individual  and  spirit- 
ual regeneration  of  character.  There  is  no  real  ground  for  (difference 
between  those  who  advocate /(frj<?«a/ action  and  those  who  plead  for  social { 
action. 

Individual  and  spiritual  effort  are  indispensable.  The  correlated  and 
complementary  truth  is  that  individual  effort  at  reform  must  be  a  part  of 
a  social  plan,  and  spiritual  forces  must  become  embodied  if  they  are  to  be 
redemptive. 

The  materials  for  a  man's  life  are  on  the  field  when  he  arrives  ;  are  not 
created  by  him,  but  given  to  him.  Nature  gives  the  physical  environment 
of  our  lives,  colors  our  skin,  shapes  our  frame,  determines  our  temperament, 
limits  our  strength.  Nature  may  be  modified  by  human  action,  but  within 
strict  limits.  Language  is  a  social  product.  No  single  Cadmus  invented  the 
alphabet.  Language  is  more  than  an  instrument  of  individual  thought ;  it 
is  a  social  agent  for  determining  in  advance  what  each  man  shall  think,  and 
feel  and  do.  In  literature  we  discover  the  ripe  fruits  of  the  meditations, 
reflections,  observations,  sufferings,  aspirations  of  all  past  races.  Ceremon- 
ies, conventionalities,  etiquette,  customs,  moral  requirements,  rites,  maxims, 
proverbs  arise  by  slow  accretions  out  of  the  shadowy  past.  There  have  been 
no  known  authors  ;  the  race  is  the  author.  Law  exists,  with  government, 
before  the  man  is  born.  It  is  a  social  growth,  not  a  legislative  creation  out 
of  nothing.  It  dominates  the  individual  and  his  hand  is  lifted  against  it 
only  to  be  palsied. 

To  change  the  individual  all  this  Social  environment  must  be  consid- 
ered.    So  far  as  the  social  fact  is  helpful  we  may  use  it ;  we  ought  to  use  it. 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


1062  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    ELEVENTH    DAY. 

When  that  environment  is  saturated  with  evil,  we  must  have  much  charity 
for  the  individual  trespasser,  and  attack  the  system  which  enslaves  him. 

Let  us  bring  these  rather  abstract  statements  into  the  light  of  concrete 
problems. 

1.  How  can  we  reform  the  "abnormal  man  ?"  The  dependent  pauper, 
the  defective  in  mind,  the  delinquent  criminal — how  shall  we  save  these  and 
help  them  to  live  a  genuinely  human  life  ?  Schiffle  says :  "  Social,  and  not 
merely  individual  evil,  immorality  and  lawlessness  grow  to  be  a  widespread 
power,  and,  temporarily,  a  collective  power  superior  to  law  and  morality. 
This  power  appears  in  the  debasement  and  corruption  of  society.  It  organ- 
izes itself  into  a  formidable  army  to  fight  against  morals  and  law,  as  in  the 
'  dangerous  classes.' "  These  organized  bandits  have  their  halls,  clubs  and 
associations  in  all  our  great  cities.  They  crack  their  whips  over  political 
conventions  and  dictate  measures  arid  nominations  to  mayors  and  governors 

??^V''  '  ^""^  councils.  These  facts  are  enough  to  show  that  to  save  one  abnormal 
man  out  of  this  ruin  we  must  go  systematically  and  unitedly  to  work.  Guer- 
illa fighting  has  its  place,  but  organization  of  armies  alone  will  contend  suc- 
cessfully with  entrenched  forces  led  by  the  prince  of  darkness. 

2.  We  may  take  the  labor  movement  as  an  illustration  of  the  necessity 
of  united  arid  geneial  action.  Back  of  all  foul  abuses  of  cooperation — abuses 
which  are  the  legitimate  fruit  of  centuries  of  oppression,  misrule  and  enforced 
ignorance — is  the  sublime  motive  of  this  labor  reform.  There  is  a  struggle 
of  humanity  to  live  a  genuine  human  life. 

This  movement  has  a  profound  religious  significance,  for  its  inmost 
impetus  comes  from  God  and  its  ideals  lead  to  God.  If  for  fifty  years  the 
labor  agitators  have  been  obliged  to  make  their  way  with  rude  weapons  along 
an  obstructed  path,  the  fault  is  not  all  their  own.  An  intelligent  and  dis- 
criminating sympathy  of  religious  people  with  what  is  good  in  the  trades 
union  movement  would  diminish  the  tendency  to  use  the  language  and  arms 
of  militancy. 

3.  Turn  now  to  the  commercial  man.  For  him  also,  love,  joy,  right- 
eousness and  peace  are  elements  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  bank  and 
the  factory  are  his  sanctuary  where  God  is  praised  or  blasphemed. 

It  is  on  this  path  of  universal  law  and  general  labor  unions  that  we 
must  travel  if  our  religious  merchant  can  dare  to  be  honest  and  humane. 
Wealth  does  not  render  the  richest  trafficker  independent  of  social  help  in 
the  formation  of  his  own  character.  To  his  aid  must  come  the  masses  if  he 
can  warh  the  blood  of  guilt  from  his  own  garments.  The  sheltered  preacher 
of  individual  morality  declares  that  he  does  not  need  state  law  to  make  him 
honest,  chaste,  just,  loving  and  benevolent.  This  is  only  in  part  true.  Law 
has  done  more  for  his  moral  education  than  he  thinks.  Christian  people 
generally  are  greatly  influenced  in  their  moral  standards  by  statutes  of  com- 
mercial law.  Religious  manufacturers  were  not  aware  that  they  were 
murdering  their  employes  with  dust  until  told  by  the  inspector !     Drastic 


> 


7)  ^ 

-  X 

iii    ^ 


1064  PARLIAiMENT    PAPERS:   ELEVENTH    DAY. 

legislation  and  trades  union  pressure  alone  broiight  snch-racn  to  their  moral 
sense.     Is  there  no  need  of  socio/ help  for  personal  perfection? 

If  any  Christian  man  is  ready  to  defend  the  thesis  that  these  questions 
are  secular  and  not  religious,  I  am  ready  to  say  that  that  man  is  worse  than 
an  infidel. 

4.  lutemational  Morality  is  made  possible  by  social  cooperation,  and 

'  by  that  alone.  France  alone  cannot  disarm  ;  nor  can  victorious  Germany. 
The  great,  powerful  and  rich  nation  must  ask  the  consent  of  its  neighbors 
to  be  able  to  obey  one  of  the  clearest  and  simplest  duties  of  ordinary  moral- 
ity, "Thou  shalt  do  no  murder." 

In  missions  the  church  meets  the  slave  trade  in  the  heart  of  Africa  and 
the  cursed  drink  traffic  on  all  continents.  Does  any  man  imagine  that  mere 
individual  effort  would  be  adequate  here,  or  even  sermons  without  legisla- 
tion ? 

The  usefulness  of  Christian  missions  in  India  depends  greatly  on  the 
discipline  of  the  British  army  and  on  the  habits  of  European  sailors  and 
merchants.  "  After  thirty-one  years  spent  in  India,  Archbishop  Jeffries  makes 

y    this  terrible  charge  :     '  For  one  really  converted  Christian,  as  the  proof  of 

^missionary  labor,  the  drinking  practices  of  England Tiave  made  a  thousand 
Vdrunkards.' "    British  rum  has  not  only  reduced,  but  actually  obliterated  the 

-  iHottentot.  In  East  Africa  German  merchants  import  liquor  in  face  of 
Mohammedan  protest.  It  is  said  the  Congo  land  was  bought  with  alcohol, 
and  even  savages  protested  against  this  factor  of  "  Christian  "  commerce. 
To  endure  this  crime  without  protest  is  not  meekness,  but  stupidity  and 
cowardice. 

In  every  city  and  in  every  commonwealth  immense  resources  of  money 
and  energy  are  squandered  and  lost  from  want  of  understanding  and  fellow- 
ship between  the  churches.  In  many  cities  the  teachers  of  vice  and  crime 
are  permitted  by  the  authorities  to  undo  the  work  of  the  missionaries.  The 
preacher  begs  for  a  hearing  and  the  local  political  tyrant  laughs  and  insults, 
bribes  and  domineers. 

But  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  new  era.  Cooperation  is  the  watchword  of 
the  hour.  "  Union  in  essentials  "  carries  with  it  the  promise  of  moral  tri- 
umphs. The  good  citizen  will  use  his  political  power  to  overthrow  politi- 
cal obstacles  to  reform  ;  as  head  of  a  family  he  will  make  the  domestic  cir- 
cle the  nursery  of  all  virtue  and  charity  and  worship  ;  as  a  member  of  the 
church  he  will  seek  to  associate  his  labors  in  harmony  with  his  brethren  for 
the  common  welfare  ;  the  public  schools  will  enlist  his  interest  as  the  found- 
ation of  universal  intelligence  ;  and  through  all  his  individual  efforts  he  will 
sink  his  egoism,  his  conceit,  his  pride,  his  vanity,  his  ambition,  his  partisan- 
ship, his  sectarianism.  Above  all  will  be  the  banner  of  love,  whose  symbol 
is  the  cross;  the  cross  itself  not  a  badge  of  a  party  but  God's  own  sign  of 
universal  self-sacrificing  Fatherhood  and  Brotherhood, 


RELIGION  AND  LABOR. 
By  the  Rev.  James  M.  Cleary,  of  Minneapolis. 

"  No  man  can  outrage  with  impunity  that  human  dignity  which  God 
himself  treats  with  reverence,  nor  stand  in  the  way  of  that  higher  life  which 
is  the  preparation  for  the  eternal  life  of  heaven."  -  This  is  the  teaching  of 
Pope  Leo  in  our  age  of  Christian  civilization,  and  the  same  was  the  teach- 
ing of  Peter  at  Rome  and  Paul  at  Corinth. 

The  task  of  asserting  the  dignity  of  man  was  but  one  of  the  solemn 
duties  that  confronted  the  new  religion  at  its  birth.  It  found  the  children 
of  toil,  who  formed  the  majority  in  pagan  society,  slaves  in  bondage  to  a 
harsh,  disdainful,  ciuel  and  heartless  minority.  The  church  could  not  advo- 
cate the  total  abolition  of  slavery  without  completely  overturning  the  state 
of  society  and  creating  social  anarchy.  Wiser  than  pagan  philosophy,  she 
knew  how  to  confer  a  blessing  on  humanity  and  a  benefit  on  labor  without 
injustice  or  social  revolution.  "The  first  things  that  Christianity  did  for 
slaves  was  to  destroy  the  errors  which  opposed,  not  only  their  universal 
emancipation,  but  even  the  improvement  of  their  condition ;  that  is,  the 
first  force  which  she  employed  in  the  attack  was,  according  to  her  custom, 
the  force  of  ideas." 

The  constant  and  uniform  teaching  of  human  equality  could  not  fail  to 
improve  the  unhappy  condition  of  the  slave.  The  laws  of  the  church  reg- 
ulating the  marriage  bond  and  inspiring  reverence  for  the  home  and  family 
ties,  further  protected  the  children  of  the  slave  and  saved  from  hopeless 
servitude  countless  victims  of  "man's  inhumanity  to  man." 

This  fact  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  sublime  task  entrusted  to  the 
church  to  perform  was  the  social  and  moral  elevation  of  man.  The  church, 
faithful  to  its  dui\',  could  not  hazard  the  accomplishment  of  its  purpose  by 
a  rash  attempt  at  temporary  advantage.  This  observation  is,  perhaps,  nec- 
essary as  a  reply  to  those  who,  unmindful  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  cus- 
toms and  ideas  of  men,  when  the  church  began  its  marvelous  work,  are 
prone  to  censure  religion  for  not  having  more  promptly  accomplished  the 
total  abolition  of  slavery.  Liberty,  priceless  boon  that  it  is,  would  cease  to 
benefit  men  if  the  means  of  subsistence  were  wanting.  Man  above  all  other 
blessings  requires  first  wherewith  to  live,  and  it  was  imperative  that  uni- 
versal emancipation  be  the  result  of  gradual  progress  upward  to  be  a  lasting 
benefit  to  men  and  nations  long  accustomed  to  the  degradation  and  wretched 
dependence  of  vile  servitude.  The  man  who  tills  the  soil  must  learn  to 
know  how  to  care  for  the  fruits  of  his  labor,  if  he  will  reap  the  full  benefit 
of  his  personal  independence  and  freedom.     To  the  church  and  to  it  alone 

1065 


I066    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  ELEVENTH  DAY. 

belongs  the  undying  glory  of  finally  wiping  out  the  curse  of  slavery  among 
Christian  nations. 

The  church  having  taught  every  child  of  Adam  who  earned  his  bread 
by  laborious  toil  to  assert  his  own  dignity  and  to  understand  his  own  worth, 
and  having  led  a  hitherto  hopeless  multitude  from  the  dismal  gloom  of 
slavery  to  the  cheering  brightness  of -the  liberty  of  the  children  of  God, 
bravely  defended  the  rights  and  the  privileges  of  her  emancipated  children. 
'.'  The  church  has  guarded  with  religious  care  the  inheritance  of  the  poor." 
None  need  the  Divine  Comforter  more  than  the  weary  children  of  toil,  and 
none  need  and  have  received  the  sympathy  of  the  church  as  they  do. 

In  his  exhaustive  encyclical  on  the  condition  of  labor  Leo  XIIL  lays 
down  the  principle  that  the  workman's  wages  is  not  a  problem  to  be  solved 
by  the  pitiless  arithmetic  of  avaricious  greed.  The  wage-earner  has  rights 
which  he  cannot  surrender,  and  which  no  man  can  take  from  him,  for  he  is 
an  intelligent,  responsible  being,  owing  homage  to  God  and  duties  to  human 
society.  His  recompense,  then,  for  his  daily  toil  cannot  be  measured  by  a 
heartless  standard  of  supply  and  demand,  or  a  cruel  code  of  inhuman  eco- 
nomics, for  man  is  not  a  money-making  machine,  but  a  citizen,  of  earth  and 
an  heir  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

,  The  definition  of  a  minimum  wage,  given  by  Leo  XHL,  as  "sufficFent 
to  enable  a  man  to  maintain  himself,  his  wife  and  his  children  "  in  decent 
frugality,  shows  how  clearly  he  understands  the  rights  of  individuals  and  the 
best  interests  of  human  society.  "  Homeless  men  are  reckless."  The  homes 
of  the  people  are  the  safeguards  of  national  stability.  Religion  sanctifies 
domestic  life  by  sustaining  the  inviolability  of  the  marriage  bond,  and  by 
constantly  reminding  fathers  and  mothers  of  their  first  and  holiest  duty  to 
their  offspring,  the  duty  of  leading  them  to  learn  the  love  of  God  and  the' 
love  of  the  neighbor.  Hence  the  duties  of  the  wife  and  mother  should 
retain  her  at  her  own  hearthstone.  Modern  society  can  never  justly  boast 
of  its  enlightenment  and  progress  while  because  of  insufficient  wages  paid 
to  labor,  mothers  and  children  are  chained  to  the  wheels  of  industrialism. 

While  the  church  shows  such  ceaseless  concern  for  the  welfare  of  labor, 
and  has  so  bravely  contended  for  the  rights  of  the  poor,  she  has  not  failed 
to  remind  them  of  the  duties  that  they  owe  to  capital  and  vested  rights. 
Throughout  all  her  contests  with  barbarism,  feudalism  and  imperial  tyranny, 
the  church  suffered  her  greatest  persecutions  in  battling  for  the  rights  of 
the  people  against  the  encroachments  of  despotism.  But  "  Thou  shalt  not 
steal,"  and  "Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  goods,"  are  divine  injunc- 
tions which  the  church  has  faithfully  taught  to  all  classes  of  men.  She  has 
guarded  the  rights  of  ownership,  saved  from  destruction  and  caused  to  be 
restored  to  the  rightful  proprietors  much  of  the  goods  of  this  world. 

Labor  has  a  right  to  freedom  ;  labor  has  also  a  right  to  protect  its  own 
independence  and  liberty.  Hence  labor  unions  are  lawful  and  have  enjoyed 
the  sanction  and  protection  of  the  church  in  all  ages.     But  labor  must  use 


CLEARV:  RELIGION  AND  LABOR. 


1067 


its  power  for  its  own  protection,  not  for  invading  the  rights  of  others.  That 
form  of  strike  by  which  labor  unions  use  unlawful  means  to  prevent  willing 
men,  who  are  anxious  to  earn  a  livelihood  for  their  families,  from  engaging 
in  honest  work,  can  in  no  way  be  defended  and  must  surely  fall  under  the 
unqualified  censure  of  religion. 

Religion's  duty  is  to  teach  the  rich  the  responsibilities  of  wealth  and 
the  poor  respect  for  order  and  law.  Hers  is  the  only  influence  that  has 
been  able  to  subdue  the  pride  and  the  passions  of  men,  to  refine  the  man- 
ners and  guide  the  conduct  of  human  society,  so  that  rich  and  poor  alike', 
mindful  of  their  common  destiny,  respect  each  other's  rights,  their  mutual 
dependence  and  the  rights  of  their  common  Father  in  Heaven. 


REV.  F.  A.  NOBLE,  D  D. 


THE  TWELFTH  DA  Y. 


RELIGION  AND  WEALTH. 
By  Rev.  Washington  Gladden,  D.D. 

Religion  and  wealth  ar^  two  great  interests  of  human  life.  In  a  perfect 
social  state  what  would  be  their  relations  ? 

What  is  religion  ?  Essentially  it  is  the  devout  recognition  of  a  Supreme 
Power.  It  is  belief  in  a  Creator,  a  Sovereign,  a  Father  of  men,  with  some 
sense  of  dependence  upon  him  and  obligation  to  him.  In  its  most  perfect 
expression  religion  conceives  of  the  Supreme  Being  as  infinite  in  power  and 
wisdom  and  perfect  in  goodness,  and  represents  him  as  holding  communica- 
tion with  his  children,  and  seeking  to  make  Ihem  partakers  of  his  perfection 
and  his  blessedness. 

The  religious  life  is  the  life  according  to  God,  the  life  whose  key-note  is 
harmony  witR  the  divine  nature  and  conformity  to  the  divine  will.  If  all  men 
were,  in  this  highest  sense  of  the  word,  religious,  should  we  have  wealth 
among  us  ? 

To  answer  this  question  intelligently  we  must  first  define  wealth.  The 
economists  define  wealth  as  consisting  in  exchangeable  goods.  But  the  popu- 
lar use  of  the  word  is  hardly  covered  by  the  economic  definition;  some  meas- 
ure of  abundance  is  generally  connoted.  There  is  vastly  more  hi  the  hands 
of  the  men  of  Europe  and  America  to-day  than  suffices  to  supply  their 
immediate  physical  necessities.  Our  question  is  whether,  if  all  men  lived 
according  to  God,  in  perfect  harmony  with  his  thought,  in  perfect  con- 
formity to  his  will,  the  world  would  contain  such  an  abundance  of  exchange- 
able goods  as  that  which  we  now  contemplate. 

Through  long  periods  and  over  wide  areas  the  prevalent  conception  of 
religion  has  involved  the  renunciation  of  riches.  Such  asceticism  could 
hardly  be  regarded  as  a  precept,  binding  upon  all,  but  must  rather  be  held 
as  a  "  counsel  of  perfection,"  applicable  to  the  elect  only.  For  some  must 
dig  else  none  can  beg ;  and  the  superior  sanctity  of  the  medicant  is  won 
through  the  worldliness  of  his  neighbors. 

The  monastic  rule  has  had  wide  vogue,  however,  in  Christian  commun- 
ions ;  and  great  numbers  of  saintly  men  have  adopted  the  rule  of  poverty. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  for  ages  the  ideal  of  saintliness  involved  the 
renunciation  of  wealth.  There  are  many  good  Protestants,  even  in  these 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1068 


GI^ADDEN:    RELIGION    AND    WEALTH.  I069 

days,  who  feel  that  there  is  an  essential  incompatibility  between  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth  and  the  attainment  of  a  high  degree  of  spirituality. 

Doubtless  the  ascetic  doctrine  respecting  wealth  seems  to  find  support 
in  certain  texts  of  the  New  Testament,  but  these  must  be  interpreted  in  the 
light  of  Jesus'  method,  in  which  "complementary  but  contrasted  elements  of 
truth  are  set  side  by  side,  each  of  them  being  slated  so  positively  as  to  lead 
to  a  verbal  contradiction  with  the  others." 

It  is  in  the  abuses  of  wealth,  doubtless,  that  devout  men  have  found  the 
chief  reason  for  their  skepticism  concerning  it  and  their  renunciation  of  it. 
.\  little  elementary  thinking  upon  these  questions  may  be  helpful  to  some 
minds.  Let  us  resolve  this  abstraction,  wealth,  into  its  concrete  elements. 
What  is  the  wealth  of  America  to-day  ?  It  consists  in  the  development  of 
the  earth's  resources.  These  material  resources  of  the  earth  readily  submit 
themselves  to  this  process  of  development  under  the  hand  of  man,  which 
processes  have  followed,  for  the  most  part,  natural  laws ;  these  grains  and 
fruits  and  roots  and  living  creatures  have  simply  been  aided  by  men  in  ful- 
filling the  law  of  their  own  life. 

Those  who  are  working  for  the  improvement  of  natural  products,  and 
for  the  development  of  the  earth's  resources,  and  for  the  utilization  of  nat- 
ural forces,  are  workers  together  with  God.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  not  only 
that  there  can  be  nothing  inherently  wrong  in  the  production  of  wealth,  but 
that  it  may  be,  and  indeed  ought  to  be,  essentially  a  religious  service.  Fur- 
ther, for  the  attainment  of  the  perfection  to  which  man  is  called,  wealth  is 
the  indispensable  condition.  In  order  that  men  may  realize  their  own  man- 
hood, may  fulfill,  in  any  adequate  degree,  the  law  of  their  own  being,  they 
must  live  beyond  the  reach  of  immediate  want.  In  addition,  only  an  abund- 
ance can  give  that  leisure  which  will  permit  the  higher  interests  of  man  to 
be  cultivated.  There  must  be  opportunity  for  study,  for  meditation,  for 
communion  with  nature  ;  there  must  be  time  and  facilities  for  travel,  that  the 
products  and  thoughts  of  all  climes  may  be  studied  and  compared ;  that 
human  experience  may  be  enlarged,  and  human  sympathies  broadened  and 
deepened.  The  wealth  which  is  represented  in  the  vast  aggregate  of 
machinery — ^the  machinery  of  production  and  transportation  — for  the  mul- 
tiplication of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life,  and  for  the  movement  of 
men  and  things  to  the  places  where  they  are  most  needed ;  the  wealth  which 
is  represented  in  schools,  colleges,  libraries,  cabinets,  galleries  of  art,  places 
of  public  assembly,  parks  and  pleasure  grounds,  charitable,  educational,  and 
missionary  funds,  is  part  of  the  necessary  provision  for  the  elevation  of  the 
human  race  to  its  best  estate. 

So  much  has  religion  to  say  concerning  the  production  of  wealth.  I 
am  sure  that  the  verdict  of  the  religious  consciousness  on  this  part  of  the 
question  must  be  clear  and  unfaltering. 

But  there  is  another  Important  inquiry.  What  has  religion  to  say  about 
the  distribution  of  wealth?     Can  we  discover  God's   plan  for  >his  distribu- 

.  •* 


lO/O  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

tion  ?  The  existing  practice  is  far  from  being  ideal.  To  everyone  accord- 
ing to  his  power,  is  the  underlying  principle  of  the  present  system  of  dis- 
tribution. Witness  the  recent  occupation  of  the  Cherokee  lands.  Such  a 
system  cannot  be  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  a  Father  to  whom  the  poor 
and  needy  are  the  especial  objects  of  care. 

What  other  rule  of  distribution  can  religion  suggest  ?  According  to 
the  divine  plan  the  function  of  wealth,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  perfection  of 
character  and  the  promotion  of  social  welfare.  Wealth  is  the  material  for 
character-building ;  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The 
divine  plan  must,  therefore,  be  that  wealth  shall  be  so  distributed  as  to 
secure  these  great  results.  And  religion,  which  seeks  to  discern  and  fol- 
low the  divine  plan,  must  teach  that  the  wealth  of  the  world  will  be  rightly 
distributed  only  when  every  man  Shall  have  as  much  as  he  can  wisely  use 
to  make  himself  a  better  man  and  the  community  in  which  he  lives  a  better 
community — so  much  and  no  more. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  divine  plan  is  yet  far  from  realization.  Other 
and  far  less  ideal  methods  of  distribution  a^e  recognized  by  our  laws,  and 
it  would  be  folly  greatly  to  change  the  laws  until  radical  changes  shall  have 
taken  place  in  human  nature.  But  the  inquiry  of  this  paper  Js  not  what 
politics  or  economics  have  to  say  about  the  production  and  distribution  of 
wealth,  but  what  religion  has  to  say  about  it. "  And  the  counsels  of  religion 
will  furnish  .to  us,  as  individuals,  far  higher  and  safer  principles  for  the 
*  guidance  of  our  conduct  than  those  which  are  current  in  the  political  or  the 
industrial  world.  - 


THE  HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS. 
By  the  Rev.  Edward  P.  Baker,  of  Hawaii; 

Little  Hawaii,  the  smallest  of  the  nations,  has  at  the"  same  time  more 
religion,  considering  its  size,  than  any  other  I  know  of.  In  one  Hawaiian 
town  alone  are  a  Roman  Catholic  church,  four  Protestant  churches,  speak- 
ing as  many  languages,  a  Chinese  Confucian  temple,  and  a  Japanese  Budd- 
histic temple.  There  was  in  that  place  some  months  ago  a  polyglot  religious 
meeting,  in  which  there  were  discourses  and  prayer,  in  five  languages — 
Hawaiian,  Portuguese,  Japanese,  Chinese  and  English.  The  different  nations 
of  which  that  meeting  was  composed,  heard,  as  at  Pentecost,  every  man 
speak  in  his  own  tongue. 

I  have  had  parliamentary  conferences  with  the  priests  of  Buddhism  to 
learn  from  them  their  methods  of  solving  the  problems  of  existence,  and 
have  listened  to  them  preaching  in  their  own  temples.  Buddhism  is  a  mis- 
sionary religion,  as  is  testified  by  the  erection  of  the  Buddhist  temple  in  the 
place  of  my  residence  by  funds  in  part  contributed  by  Japanese  Buddhists. 
Hawaii  is  an  important  stopping  place  in  the  journey  from  America  to  Asia, 


\ 


REV.  JAMES  M.  CLEARV.  MINNEAPOLIS. 

•'THE  KKLICilON  OF  GOD's  ONI.Y  ni-:COTTli;N  SON  WOULD  I'AII.  IN  ITS  MISSIO.VTO  .MAN  IK  IT  DID 
NOT  Arrl.V  EVERY  SUnLIME  FORCE  AT  ITS  COMMAND  IN  AIDI.Sf;  HUMANITY  TO  ENJOY  THE 
CKE.\TOr's  nOUNTEOfS  '".ll-TS,  LAVISHED  UrON  THE  WORLD  WITH  IMPARTIAL  BENEFICENCE." 


1072  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

and  it  is  important  that  tlie  United  States  assume  the  control  of  that  nation, 
which  is  too  small  to  govern  itself.  We  desire  civilized  government,  and 
90,000  people  are  not  enough  to  constitute  a  sovereign  independent  nation. 
If  the  United  States  does  not  act  the  part  of  the  Good  Samaritan  to  Hawaii, 
John  Bull  will.  The  Atlantic  Ocean  is  the  present  Mediterranean  of  the 
world,  but  the  future  Mediterranean  of  the  world  will  be  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
The  possessor  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands  will  hereafter  dominate  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  Hawaii,  the  land  where  the  hurricane  is  a  gentle  zephyr,  the  land 
of  fire  which  contains  the  two  greatest  volcanoes  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
the  land  which  God  has  not  yet  finished  creating  (new  land  was  actually 
formed  there  as  late  as  1877),  the  land  of  the  bread-fruit,  magnolia  and 
palm — this  land,  though  small,  sends  greeting  to  the  whole  world  assembled 
in  this  Parliament.  - 


THE  WORTH  OF   THE  BIBLE,  OR    COLUMNAR 
TRUTHS  IN  SCRIPTURE. 

By  Rev.  Joseph  Cook. 

The  worth  of  the  Bible  results,  in  the  fi^rst  place,  from  its  entire  faith- 
fulness to  the  strictly  self-evident  truths  of  reason  and  conscience.  These 
truths  are  the  supreme  tests  of  certainty.  They  are  the  same  in  life  and 
beyond  death,  yesterday,  to  day  and  forever. 

"The  sum  of  the  self-evident  eternal  truth,"  says  Lotze,  "is  the  model 
of  action  of  Omnipotence,  but  not  its  product." 

The  worth  of  the  Bible  results  from  the  fact  that  it  and  it  alone  con- 
tains the  record  of  the  life  and  teachings  and  death  of  Him  who  spake  as 
never  man  spake,  and  whose  sinlessness  forbids  His  possible  classification 
with  men. 

The  worth  of  the  Bible  results  in  the  next  place  from  its  containing,  as 
a  whole,  the  highest  religious  and  ethical  ideals  known  to  man.  There  is  in 
the  Bible,  taken  as  a  whole,  and  without  a  forced  interpretation,  a  coherent 
system  of  ethics  and  theology  and  an  implied  philosophy  dazzling  any  other 
system  known  to  any  age  of  the  world.  Max  Miiller  himself  asserts  that 
all  other  so-called  sacred  books  taken  together  cannot  for  an  instant  compete 
with  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

The  worth  of  the  Bible  results  also  from  the  fact  that  it  contains  a  reve- 
lation of  religious  truth  not  elsewhere  communicated  to  man. 

The  worth  of  the  Bible  results  also  from  its  being  the  chief  source  of 
the  highest  civilization  of  the  foremost  nations. 

The  worth  of  the  Bible  results  from  the  fact  that  it  is  the  most  powerful 
agency  known  to  history  in  promoting  the  social,  industrial  and  political 
reformation  of  the  world  by  securing  the  religious  regeneration  of  individual 


COOK:   THE    WORTH    OF   THE    BIBLE.  IO73 

lives.  It  is  certain  that  men  and  nations  are  sick,  and  that  the  Bible,  open 
and  obeyed,  heals  them. 

The  trustworthiness  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  revealing  the  way  of 
deliverance  from  the  love  of  sin  and  the  guilt  of  it,  has  well  been  called 
religious  infallibility.  I  provisionally  define  inspiration  as  the  gift  of  infal- 
libility in  teaching  the  way  of  life.  In  this  sense  and  within  this  scope,  the 
scriptures  as  a  whole,  I  do  most  solemnly  believe,  are.  inerrant  and  infalli- 
ble. This  theory  defines  inspiration  as  that  influence  which  preserves  the 
sacred  writers  from  all  errors  in  regard  to  doctrine  necessary  to  salva- 
tion. I  make  a  distinction  between  inspiration  and  dictation,  but  this  defin- 
ition is  not  inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  the  very  words  in  many  passages 
of  Holy  Scripture,  like  the  Lord's  Prayer  or  the  Ten  Commandments, 
seem  to  have  been  given  by  processes  equivalent  to  dictation.  The  defini- 
tion does  not,  in  form,  assert  verbal  inspiration,  but  secures  it  in  effect  in 
regard  to  whatever  in  Scripture  touches  the  way  of  life. 

In  asserting  the  religious  infallibility  of  the  scriptures,  I  assume  only 
two  things  : 

1.  The  literal. infallibility  of  the  strictly  self-evident  truths  of  Scripture. 

2.  The  veracity  of  Christ. 

The  inspiration  of  the  scriptures  is  to  be  proved  from  their  truth,  and 
not  their  truth  from  their  inspiration.  There  can  be  no  inspiration  of 
inveracity.  The  self-evident  truths  in  scripture,  as  everywhere  else,  are  not 
only  unchangeable,  unassailable  and  trustworthy  ;  they  are  actually  infalli- 
ble, and  they  are  the  spiritual  summits  on  which  the  cathedral  of  the  Holy 
Word,  with  all  its  columns,  architraves  and  pinnacles,  have  been  built. 

The  columnar  truths  of  Scripture  form  a  cathedral  and  God  inhabits.it. 
The  Old  Testament  is  the  nave  with  its  transepts  of  psalm  and  prophecy, 
the  New  Testament  is  the  choir  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  its  holy. of 
holies.  .\s  we  open  the  Bible  and  enter  the  great  portal  of  the  remote  nave 
of  the  cathedral  of  scripture,  the  unshaken  columnar  truths  we  meet  are  : 

1.  Monotheism. — It  is  a  fact  that  the  scriptures  teach  monotheism,  not 
polytheism,  not  pantheism,  not  atheism,  not  agnosticism.  It  has  resisted  all 
attack  and  dominates  the  enlightened  part  of  the  world  to-day. 

2.  Man's  Creation  in  the  Image  of  God. — This  means  God's  fatherhood 
and  man's  sonship.  It  means  God's  sovereignty  and  man's  debt  of  loyalty. 
It  means  the  unity  of  the  race.  It  means  susceptibility  to  religious  inspira- 
tion.    It  means  free  will  with  its  responsibilities. 

.V  The  Family. — The  ideal  of  the  family  set  up  in  scripture  is  mono- 
gamy. 

4.  The  Sabbatli. — A  column  set  up  early  and  seen  far  and  wide  across 
the  landscapes  of  time,  and  dominating  yet  their  most  fruitful  fields. 

5.  A  severe  view  0/ sin. — This  severe  view  of  sin  is  found  nowhere  out- 
side the  scriptures.  This  fall  from  the  Divine  Order  is  a  fact  of  man's 
experience  to  the  present  hour. 

68 


1074  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

6.  Hope  of  Redemption  through  undeserved  mercy,  or  the  Divine  grace. 
"  The  seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the  serpent's  head."  These  words 
are  the  germ  of  the  gospel  itself. 

7.  The  Decalogue,  the  central  portion  of  the  earliest  scriptures.  .A.11 
the  laws  in  the  books  in  which  the  Decalogue  is  found  cluster  around  it. 
Even  if  it  were  not  known  where  and  when  and  how  the  Decalogue  origi- 
nated, the  prodigious  fact  would  yet  remain  that  it  works  well.  It  came  into 
existence  in  the  midst  of  polytheistic  religions.  It  is  monotheistic.  It  is 
the  fountain  of  the  right  worship  of  the  one  true  God. 

8.  The  Psalms  are  a  whole  transept  of  pillars.  Nothing  like  them  as  a 
collection  can  be  found  in  all  antiquity.  Greece  has  spoken,  Rome  has  had 
the  ear  of  the  ages,  modern  time  has  uttered  all  its  voices,  but  the  Psalms 
remain  wholly  unsurpassed. 

9.  The  Great  Prophecies,  like  the  Psalms,  a  whole  transept  of  pillars. 
A  chosen  man  called  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  was  to  become  a  chosen 
family,  and  that  family  was  to  become  a  chosen  nation,  and  that  nation  gave 
birth  to  a  chosen  religious  leader,  who  was  to  found  a  chosen  church  to  fill 
the  earth.  This  was  to  be  the  course  of  religious  history,  and  it  has  been. 
The  Jews  were  to  be  scattered  among  all  nations  and  yet  preserved  as  a 
separate  people,  and  thev  have  been.  A  Messianic  hope  fills  the  souls  of 
Old  Testament  prophets.  He  who  was  to  appear  has  appeared.  Jerusalem 
was  to  have  been  destroyed  and  it  has  been.  The  Gospel  was  to  be  preached 
to  all  nations,  and  it  is  filling  the  whole  earth. 

10.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  stands  where  nave  and  transept  of  the 
Biblical  cathedral  open  into  the  choir.  There  stands  the  clustered  column, 
there  it  has  stood  for  ages,  and  there  it  will  stand  forever. 

1 1.  The  Lord's  Prayer. — It  has  its  foundations  in  the  profoundest  wants 
of  man ;  its  capital  in  the  boundless  canopy  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

12.  The  Character  of  Christ. — This  is  the  holy  of  holies  of  the  cathe- 
dral of  the  Scriptures.  The  gospels,  and  especially  the  Fourth  Gospel,  are 
the  inmost  sanctuary  of  the  whole  temple. 

Soul  whom  dazzled  ages  scan,  Sinless  soul  with  God  made  one, 

Man  in  God  and  God  in  man,  Seen  but  once  beneath  the  sun, 
Who  sees  him  the  Father  sees,  With  that  Vision  we  content, 

Who  loves  him  with  God  agrees.  Futures  veiled  do  not  lament. 

Bliss  were  it  to  see  afar  Every  star  about  him  wheels ; 

What  Time's  coming  wonders  are  ;  Every  penitent  he  heals  ; 

But  One  Highest  hath  been  here  ;  Higher  than  the  highest,  he; 

Higher  never  shall  appear.  Son  and  Soul  of  Deity. 

We  are  sinful  and  undone  ; 

God  and  man  the  Christ  makes  one  ; 

Rebels,  perjured,  lawless,  we; 

Ransom,  Ruler,  Healer,  He. 

13.  The  identification  of  Christ  7vith  the  Logos,  or  the  Eternal  Wisdom 
and  Reason,  and  of  Christ's  spirit  with  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  is  the 
supreme  columnar  truth  rising  from  the  side  of  the  sanctuary  in  the  holy  of 
iiolies  of  the  Biblical  cathedral. 


COOK:   THE    WORTH    OF   THE    BIBLE. 


1075 


14.  The  verifiable  promise  of  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  every  soul 
self-surrendered  to  God  in  conscience. 

15.  The  founding  of  the  Christian  Church,  which  is  with  us  to  this  day. 

16.  The  fruits  of  Christianity.  These  are  the  final  cluster  of  pillars 
rising  to  the  Eastern  window  that  looks  on  better  ages  to  come  and.  is  per- 
petually flooded  with  a  Divine  illumination.  • 

The  foundation  stones  beneath  all  the  pillars  and  beneath  the  altar  in 
the  cathedral  of  Revelation  are  the  strictly  self-evidftnt  truths  of  the  eternal 
reason  of  the  divine  Logos,  who  is  the  essential  Christ.  God  is  one,  and  so 
the  systems  of  Nature  and  of  Revelation  must  be  one.  And  all  the.strength 
of  the  foundation  stones  belongs  to  the  pillars  and  the  pinnacles  of  the 
cathedral  of  the  Holy  Word.  And  the  form  of  the  whole  cathedral  is  that 
of  the  cross.     And  the  cathedral  itself  is  full  of  a  cloud  of  souls. 

And  to  these  hymns  of  the  ages  let  us  add,  in  this  gathering  of  represent- 
atives of  many  religions,  an  anthem  of  our  own,  expressing  the  desire  of 
every  kindred  and  tongue  and  people  and  nation. 


On  the  glassy  sea  of  green, 
Flooded  with  God's  nodnilde  keen, 
Can  there  be  for  sin  a  screen  ? 
Omnipresence  none  can  flee  ; 
Flight  from  God  to  God  must  be. 

Evermore  with  God  must  I 
Dwell  in  strife  or  harmony  ; 
Evermore  my  changeless  past 
Gaze  on  me  from  out  the  vast ; 
Thou  art  first,  and  thou  art  last. 


Oh !  if  now  before  thy  face, 
In  thy  brightness  I  had  place, 
With  the  past  unscreened  from  me, 
Thou  from  whom  I  cannot  flee. 
How  could  peace  abide  with  me? 

Since  from  thee  in  heart  estranged. 
If  this  instant,  I,  unchanged. 
Were  in  heaven,  thou,  G<)d,dost  know. 
Highest  heaven  were  deepest  woe, 
I  and  it  are  varient  so. 


God,  O  God !  thy  likeness  give ; 

In  and  of  thee  let  me  live ; 

God,  O  God  I  for  sin  atone. 

By  thy  love  awake  my  own  ; 

I  must  face  thy  great  White  Throne. 

And  to  this  cathedral  hymn,  in  which  we  can  all  unite,  expressing  the 
profoundest  spiritual  necessities  of  men,  let  us  add  a  supreme  responsive 
anthem,  known  only  to  Christianity. 


Holy,  holy,  holy  Cross, 
All  else  won  I  count  but  loss 
Sapphire  suns  are  dust  and  dross 
In  ine  radiance  of  the  Face 
Which  reveals  God's  way  of  grace 
Open  to  a  rebel  race. 

Ransom  he  and  ransomed  we. 
Love  and  Justice  here  agree  ; 
Let  the  angels  bend  and  see 
Endless  is  this  mystery: 
He,  the  ludge,  our  pardon  wins; 
In  his  wounds  our  peace  begins. 


Looking  on  the  accursed  tree, 
When  we  God  as  Saviour  see. 
Him  as  Lord  we  gladly  choose. 
Him  as  King  cannot  refuse. 
Love  of  sin  with  guilt  we  lose. 
So  the  Cross  the  soul  renews. 

In  His  righteousness  we  hide 
Last  long  woe  of  guilt  and  pride; 
In  his  Spirit  we  abide. 
Naught  are  we,  our  all  is  he ; 
Christ's  pierced  hands  have  set  us  free; 
Grace  is  his  beyond  degree. 


Glory  his  above  all  height , 
Mercy,  Majesty  and  Might; 
God  in  man  is  love's  delight ; 
Man  in  God  of  God  hath  sight ; 
Day  in  God  hath  never  night ; 

Love  is  God's  throne  great  and  whitCi 


CRIME  AND  ITS  REMEDY. 
By  Rev.  Olympia  Brown. 

The  causes  usually  given  for  crime  are  many,  such  as  poverty,  evil  asso- 
ciations, intemperance,  etc.  But  these  are  rather  the  occasions  than  the 
causes  of  criminal  conduct.  The  true  philosopher  looks  behind  all  these 
and  finds,  in  inherited  tendencies,  one  of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  crime. 
It  is  not  the  intoxicating  cup  but  the  weak  will  which  causes  drunkenness; 
not  the  gold  within  easy  reach  but  the  avaricious  mind  which  prompts  to 
robbery ;  it  is  not  the  weakness  of  the  victim  but  the  angry  passions  of  the 
murderer  which  makes  the  blood  flow.  A  careful  study  of  the  subject  by 
means  of  statistics  has  shown  that  evil  deeds,  in  a  very  large  proportion 
of  cases,  can  be  traced  back  to  the  evil  passions  cherished  by  the  immediate 
ancestors  of  the  wrong-doer,  and  our  means  of  tracing  such  connections  are 
solimited  that  we  really  know  but  a  small  part  of  the  whole  truth.  In  the 
majority  of  cases  the  criminal  is  a  man  badly  born.  So  true  is  it  that  in  all 
the  relations  of  life  men  are  dependent  upon  other  men  and  each  one  is 
interested  to  have  everybody  else  do  right,  especially  his  own  ancestors. 
Dipsomania  is  now  almost  universally  recognized  as  an  inheritance  from  the 
drinking  habits  of  the  past,  and  all  the  evil  passions  of  men  bear  fruitage  in 
after  generations  in  various  forms  of  crime. 

What  can  we  do  to  check  this  great  tide  of  criminality  which  perpetu- 
ates itself  thus  from  generation  to  generation,  gathering  ever  new  strength 
and  force  with  time  ?     How  stop  this  supply  of  criminals  ? 

There  is  but  one  answer :  men  must  be  better  bom.  Our  remedial 
measures  are  feeble  and  ineffectual  unless  we  can  begin  at  the  fountain  head ; 
for  while  we  are  reforming  one  criminal  one  hundred  more  are  born.  We 
must  have  better  mothers..  We  are  learning  that  not  only  the  sins  of  the 
fathers,  but  the  mistakes  ^nd  unfortunate  conditions  of  the  mothers,  bear 
terrible  fruitage,  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  God  has  entrusted 
the  mother  with  the  awful  responsibility  of  giving  the  first  direction  to 
human  character. 

Old  and  New  Testament  Scriptures  alike  announce  the  Divine  fiat  that 
man  is  to  leave  all tkint^s,  his  father  and  his  mother  if  need  be,  and  cleave 
unto  his  wife.  His  personal  preferences,  his  ambitions,  his  business  of  the 
world,  his  early  affections,  all  must  be  subordinate  to  this  one  great  object  of 
the  marriage  relation,  the  formation  of  noble  human  characters ;  and  in  this 
creative  realm  woman  is  to  rule  supreme ;  she  must  be  the  arbiter  of  the 
home,  that  in  her  divine  work  of  moulding  character  she  may  surround  her- 
self with  such  conditions  and  wm  to  herself  such  heavenly  communions  that 

1076 


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1078  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

her  children  shall  be  indeed  heirs  of  God  bearing  upon  their  foreheads  the 
stamp  of  the  divine.  But  how  far  have  we  come  short  of  this  grand  ideal ! 
The  race  is  stamped  by  its  mothers,  the  fountain  will  not  rise  higher 
than  its  source,  men  will  be  no  better  than  the  mothers  that  bear  them,  and 
as  woman  is  elevated,  her  mental  vision  enlarged  and  her  true  dignity  estab- 
lished, will  her  sons  go  forth,  armed  with  a  native  power  to  uphold  the 
right,  trample  out  iniquity,  and  overcome  the  world. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  NORTH  AMERICAN 

INDIANS. 

By  Miss  Alice  C.  Fletcher. 

The  aboriginal  American's  feeling  concerning  God  seems  to  indicate  a 
power,  mysterious,  unknowable,  unnamable,  that  animates  all  nature.  From 
this  power,  in  some  unexplained  way,  proceeded  in  the  past  ages  certain 
generic  types,  prototypes  of  everything  in  the  world,  and  these  still  exist,  but 
they  are  invisible  to  man  in  his  natural  state,  being  spirit  types,  although  he 
can  behold  them  and  hear  them  speak  in  his  supernatural  visions.  Through 
these  generic  types,  as  through  so  many  conduits,  flows  the  life  coming  from 
the  great  mysterious  source  of  all  life  into  the  concrete  forms  which  make  up 
this  world,  as  the  sun,  moon,  and  the  wind,  the  water,  the  earth,  and  the  thun- 
der, the  birds,  the  animals,  and  the  fruits  of  the  earth. 

Among  these  prototypes  there  seems  to  have  been  none  of  man  himself, 
but  in  some  vaguely  imagined  way  he  has  been  generated  by  them,  and  his 
physical  as  well  as  his  spiritual  nature  is  nourished  and  augmented  through 
them.  His  physical  dependence  upon  these  sources  of  power  is  illustrated 
in  his  ceremonies.  Thus  he  hunted,  fished  and  planted,  having  first  appealed 
to  the  prototype  for  physical  strength  through  a  ceremony  which  always 
included  the  partaking  of  food. 

When  his  spirit  demanded  strengthening  he  went  apart  and  remained  in 
solitude  upon  the  mountain  or  in  the  recesses  of  the  forest;  he  fasted  and 
mortified  his  body,  sought  to  ignore  it,  denied  its  cravings,  that  some  spirit 
prototype  might  approach  him  and  reenforce  his  spirit  with  life  drawn  from 
the  great  unnameable  power.  Whatever  was  the  prototype  which  appeared 
to  him,  whether  of  bird  or  beast,  or  of  one  of  the  elements,  it  breathed  upon 
him  and  left  a  song  with  him  which  should  become  the  viewless  messenger 
speeding  from  the  heart  and  lips  of  the  man,  to  the  prototype  of  his  vision, 
to  bring  him  help  in  the  hour  of  his  need. 

When  the  man  had  received  his  vision,  before  it  could  avail  him,  he  had 
to  procure  something  from  the  creature  whose  type  he  had  seen,  a  tuft  of 
hair,  or  a  feather,  or  he  had  to  fashion  its  semblance  or  emblem.     This  he 


FLETCHER:   AMERICAN    INDIAN    RELIGION.         IO79 

carried  ever  after  near  him  as  a  token  of  remembrance,  but  he  did  not  wor- 
siiip  it. 

The  belief  that  everything  was  alive  and  active,  to  help  or  hinder  man 
prevented  development  of  individual  responsibility.  Success  or  failure  was 
not  caused  solely  by  a  man's  own  actions  or  shortcomings,  but  because  he 
was  helped  or  hindered  by  some  one  of  these  occult  powers. 

Personal  immortality  was  universally  recognized.  The  next  world 
resembled  this  with  the  element  of  suffering  eliminated.  There  was  no  place 
of  future  punishment;  all  alike  started  at  death  upon  the  journey  to  the  other 
world,  but  the  quarrelsome  and  unjust  never  reached  it;  they  endlessly  wan- 
dered. 

Religious  ceremonials  had  both  open  and  esoteric  forms  and  teachings. 
They  were  comprised  in  the  observances  of  secret  societies  and  the  elaborate 
dramatization  of  myths,  with  its  masks,  costumes,  rituals  of  song,  rhyth- 
mic movements  of  the  body  and  the  preparation  and  use  of  symbols.  The 
ethics  of  the  race  were  simple.  With  the  Indian  truth  was  literal  rather 
than  comprehensive.  Justice  was  also  literal  and  inexorable.  To  be  valor- 
ous, to  meet  hardships  and  suffering  uncomplainingly,  to  flinch  from  no 
pain  or  danger  when  action  was  demanded,  was  the  ideal  set  before  every 
Indian.  Hospitality  was  a  marked  virtue  in  the  race.  The  lodge  was 
never  closed,  or  the  last  morsel  of  food  ever  refused  to  the  needy.  The 
richest  man  was  not  he  who  possessed  the  most,  but  he  who  had  given  away 
the  most.  This  deeply  rooted  principle  of  giving  is  a  great  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  civilizing  the  Indians,  as  civilization  depends  so  largely  upon  the 
accumulation  of  property.  In  every  home  the  importance  of  peace  was 
taught,  and  it  was  the  special  theme  and  sole  object  of  a  peculiar  ceremony 
which  once  widely  obtained  over  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi — the  Calumet 
or  Sacred  Pipe  ceremony. 

In  the  beautiful  symbolism  and  ritual  of  these  Fellowship  Pipes  the 
initiated  were  told  in  the  presence  of  a  little  child  who  typified  teachableness 
that  happiness  came  to  him  who  lived  in  peace  and  walked  in-  the  straight 
path  which  was  symbolized  on  the  Pipes  as  glowing  with  sunlight.  In 
these  teachings,  which  transcended  all  others,  we  discern  the  dawn  of  the 
nobler  and  gentler  virtues,  of  mercy  and  its  kindred  graces. 


THE   CHURCHES    AND   CITY    PROBLEMS. 
By  Prof.  A.  W.  Smali,,  Ph.D.,  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

1.  The  standpoint  of  this  paper  is  not  that  of  theology,  but  of  positive 
sociology. 

2.  The  positive  evidence  thus  far  available  is  sufficient  to  justify 
sociologists,  whether  in  sympathy  with  any  theology  or  not,  in  adopting  the 
working  hypothesis  that  the  principles  of  ultimate  social  science  will  be 
reiterations  of  essential  Christianity. 

3.  Christianity  and  the  churches  are  as  distinct  as  gravitation  and 
water-wheels,  or  steam  and  cylinders.  The  present  discussion  deals  not 
with  the  force,  but  with  the  machinery, 

4.  Whatever  its  formal  theology,  any  church,  named  after  Jesus  Christ, 
has  hidden  between  the  lines  of  its  creeds  enough  of  the  secret  life  to 
transform  itself  and  the  circle  of  "its  influence  into  a  section  of  ideal 
humanity. 

What  then  distinguishes  the  religious  problems  of  cities  ?     We  answer  : 

5.  Life  in  modern  cities  presents  human  wants  in  their  most  importu- 
nate and  complex  forms.  In  cities,  motives  to  concrete  good  and  evil  are 
intensified  to  their  maximum. 

6.  In  city  life  the  highest  premiums  are  placed  on  selfishness  of  every 
sort,  from  the  grossest  to  the  most  refined. 

7.  In  cities,  the  relative  importance  of  economic  advantage  is  put  at 
the  highest  appraisal. 

8.  The  relations  which  occasion  the  greatest  number  of  social  contacts 
in  cities  are  those  which  involve  collision  of  economic  interests. 

9.  In  cities  the  importance  of  personality  tends  toward  the  minimum. 

10.  Essential  values  thus  tend  most  strongly  to  reversal  in  cities. 
Instead  of  appraising  goods  by  their  service  to  manhood,  men  in  cities  are 
under  the  severest  temptation  to  value  manhood  according  to  its  produc- 
tivity of  goods.  Men  are  measured  by  the  same  standard  as  draught  horses 
and  steam  engines. 

11.  The  social  isolation  of  the  majority  in  great  cities  increases  with 
the  growth  of  population. 

12.  Under  these  circumstances  personal  irresponsibility  develops. 

13.  Ihe  foregoing  conditions  contain  the  principles  of  difference 
between  the  relations  of  men  in  cities  and  in  smaller  communities.  To 
these  conditions  we  may  trace  most  of  the  evils  or  degrees  of  evil  peculiar  to 
cities. 

14.  Chief  among  the  symptoms  of  these  conditions,  by  no  means  wholly 

X080 


SMALL:  RELIGIOUS    PROBLEMS   OF    CITIES.         IO81 

due  to  the  circumstances  of  cities,  and  by  no   means   confined   to   cities,  but 
aggravated  and  accumulated  in  urban  populations,  are  : 

(i)  Poverty  and  crime.  (2)  Insecurity  of  labor.  (3)  Mimimizing  of 
wages.  (4)  Inhuman  surroundings  of  labor  in  certain  industries.  (5) 
Unsanitary  housing.  (6)  Under-nutrition ;  not  alone  from  lov/  wages 
l)ut  from  ignorance  or  neglect  of  domestic  economy.  (7)  The  drink-curse. 
(S)  The  saloon  curse.  (Twin  evils,  but  distinct  in  many  causes  and  conse- 
(juences ;  thus  constituting  two  separate  social  problems.)  (9)  The  luck 
superstition ;  betrayed  in  speculation,  betting,  gambling,  lotteries,  prepos- 
terous endowment  and  insurance  gift-enterprises,  and  the  thousand  and  one 
similar  something-for-nothing  schemes.  (10)  Showy  and  extravagant 
business  customs,  especially  of  agents  spending  employers' money;  conse- 
quent extravagance  and  ostentation  in  personal  habits,  and  temptation  to 
people  of  lower  incomes.  (11)  Substitution  of  boarding  house,  apartment 
house  or  hotel  for  the  home.  (12)  Bread  winning  by  mothers.  (13) 
Child  labor.  (14)  Scaling  of  wages  by  sex  instead  of  by  work.  (15)  Deg- 
radation of  women  ;  by  which  I  refer  to  the  whole  hive  of  curses,  physical, 
economic,  domestic,  political  and  moral  that  swarm  about  the  institution  of 
prostitution;  a  group  of  phenomena  a  hundred-fold  more  significant  than 
public  opinion  has  ever  suspected.  (16)  Propagation  of  "defectives." 
(17)  Political  betrayals  of  the  ignorant  and  weak.  (18)  Progressive 
widening  of  social  distances  between  classes,  along  with  reciprocal  mis- 
understanding and  distrust.  (19)  Organization  and  destructive  warfare  of 
mutually  dependent  industrial  classes.  (20)  Abnormal  materializing  of 
the  life  of  all  classes;  or  viewed  from  another  standpoint,  (21)  Aliena- 
tion of  the  intelligent  and  responsible,  as  well  as  the  less  prominent,  from^ 
practical  spiritualizing  agencies.  (22)  Governmental  control  by  ballots 
instead  of  by  brains. 

15.  The  life  of  the  great  majority  of  residents  in  cities,  is  practically 
bounded  by  some  or  all  of  these  facts.  Within  these  limitations  the  masses 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being.  To  the  masses,  therefore,  doctrines  of 
humanity  and  duty  and  religion  that  do  not  deal  directly  with  these  realities 
are  simply  mythologies  and  riddles. 

16.  The  conditions  thus  specified  are  already  schools  of  broader  broth- 
erhood than  has  been  possible  in  any  previous  century.  They  constitute  an 
unique  opportunity  for  the  churches.  Our  question  is  :  How  must  the 
churches  improve  the  opportunity? 

We  turn  then  to  the  present  relations  of  the  churches  to  the  conditions 
in  question. 

17.  The  churches,  as  such,  do  not  think  the  thoughts  nor  talk  the  lan- 
guage, nor  share  the  burdens  which,  for  the  masses  in  cities,  contain  the  real 
problems  of  life.  -  ,u  ^P^'^ 

18.  City  churches  are  only  partially  conscious  of  theri^ndencies  which 
threaten  to  reduce  them  to  the  status  of  class  institution's.^'! 


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I082  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    TWELFTH    DAY. 

rg.  The  churches  have  no  explicit  policy  towards  city  proljiems ; 
they  lack  iritelligent  interest  in  them,  they  are  even  suspicious  of  every 
endeavor  to  commit  the  churches  to  cooperation  in  solutions. 

20.  The  churches  owe  it  to  themselves  to  settle  the  primary  question  of 
religious  aim,  viz.:  Has  or  has  not  the  church,  besides  its  mission  concern- 
ing man  in  his  relations  to  God  and  eternity,  a  coordinate  mission  concern- 
ing man  in  his  relations  to  his  fellows,  and  the  present  time  ? 

21.  As  already  claimed,  the  ultimate  solution  of  these  problems  will  be 
Christian,  but  it  remains  to  be  seen  how  generally  the  Christian  churches 
will  be  agents  of  solution. 

22.  The  churches  have  two  alternatives,  viz.:  first,  they  may  confine 
themselves  to  the  functions  of  spiritual  edification,  of  indoctrinating  the 
children  of  their  members,  of  defending  their  denominational  orthodoxy,  and 
of  evangeHzing  at  home  and  abroad.  Second,  the  churches  may  accept  the 
full  responsibility  of  revealers  and  realizers  of  right  relations  of  men  to  each 
other  as  well  as  of  men  to  God. 

23.  The  choice  of  these  alternatives  does  not  turn  upon  denominational 
standards  of  theology. 

Assuming  that  the  churches  acknowledge  responsibility  in  connection 
with  the  social  problems  of  cities,  the  remaining  theses  contain  hints  toward 
solution. 

24.  The  conditions  and  symptomatic  evils  considered  can  be  modified 
only  by  systematic  application  of  appropriate  means  to  concrete  ends. 

25.  The  means  must  be  employed  in  actual  contact  with  the  evils  to 
be  remedied.  The  work  of  the  social  church  cannot  be  confined  to  the 
church  headquarters. 

26.  The  tasks  imposed  by  the  needs  of  city  populations  require  the 
multiplication  of  church  workers. 

27.  Wise  discipline  and  disposal  of  social  force  requires  precise 
knowledge  of  social  facts  and  mature  judgment  of  social  tendencies. 

28.  No  single  church,  not  even  the  largest,  can  effectively  proceed 
alone  against  each  of  the  conditions  or  symptoms  involving  degradation  of 
city  life. 

29.  On  the  other  hand  the  tasks  cannot  be  accomplished  by  distribu- 
tion among  the  churches. 

30.  Cooperation  and  methodical  division  of  labor  among  the  churches 
would  most  effectively  apply  present  resources,  and  would  take  the  largest 
number  of  possible  religious  workers  from  the  retired  list  into  active 
service. 

31.  Social  cooperation  between  churches  does  not  involve  artificial 
denominational  union. 

32.  On  the  other  hand,  social  cooperation  of  churches  is  the  only 
creditable  evidence  of  their  belief  that  effective  fraternity  is  a  religious 
obligation  more  Imperative  than  protection  of  denominational  prestige. 


MOZOOMDAR:  ASIA'S  SERVICE  TO  RELIGION.        IO83 

i;^.  The  basis  of  social  cooperation  slioiiUl  be  common  recognition  of 
the  obligation  of  brotherhood. 

Let  us  record  the  hope  and  the  prediction  that  this  Parliament  of  Religions 
will  promote  municipal  cooperation  of  all  men  who  love  their  fellows;  each 
respecting  the  other's  right  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictation  of 
his  own  conscience;  each  pledging  to  the  other  his  loyal  fellowship 
toward  helping  every  brother  man  to  achieve  life  in  more  and  more 
ai)undance  ! 


THE  WORLD'S  RELIGIOUS  DEBT  TO  ASIA. 
By  p.  C.  Mozoomdar,  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj.    , 

I.  Insight. — The  first  gift  conferred  by  Asia  on  the  religious  world  is 
insight  into  nature.  The  Oriental  discovers,  contemplates  and  communes 
with  the  Spirit  of  God  who,  in  his  view,  fills  all  creation. 

Nature  is  not  a  mere  stimulus  to  mild  poetry  ;  Nature  is  God's  abode. 
He  did  not  create  it  and  then  leave  itto  itself,  but  he  lives  in  every  particle 
of  its  great  structure.  Nature  is  not  for  man's  bodily  benefit,  but  for  his 
spiritual  emancipation  also.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  the  heavens  are  God's 
handiwork,  but  the  heaven  is  his  throne,  the  earth  is  his  footstool.  Our 
Nanak  said  :  "  Behold  the  sun  and  moon  are  his  altar  lights,  and  the  sky 
is  the  sacred  vessel  of  sacrifice  to  him."  In  the  vast  temple  of  nature,  Asia 
beholds  the  Supreme  Spirit  reigning,  and  worships  him  through  the  great 
objects  his  hand  has  made. 

Nay,  more.  The  Oriental  beholds  in  Nature  the  image  of  God.  "I 
offer  my  salutations  unto  the  bountiful  Lord,"  says  Yogavasista,  "  wno,  as 
the  inner  soul  of  all  things,  reveals  himself  in  heaven  and  earth,  in  the  fir- 
mament, in  my  own  heart,  and  in  all  around  me."  To  the  Asiatic  the  Imma- 
nent Spirit  embodies  himself  in  nature's  beauty  and  sweetness,  to  be  immersed 
in  which  is  to  be  immersed  in  God  himself.  We  receive  from  every  object 
we  see  a  suggestion  of  something  unseen,  something  higher,  inner,  some- 
thing divine  and  immortal.  "  Whatever  is  on  earth,"  the  Persian  poet, 
Sadi,  says,  "is  the  resemblance  and  shadow  of  something  that  is  in  the 
spheres;  again,  that  light  is  the  shadow  of  something  more  resplendent,  and 
so  up  to  the  light  of  lights."  When  no  audible  speech  was  heard,  what 
meant  the  royal  psalmist  by  saying,  "The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God, 
day  uttereth  speech  unto  day  and  night  showeth  knowledge  unto  night  ?" 
It  was  the  law  of  the  Lord,  his  statutes,  his  precepts,  that  filled  David's 
heart,  and  he  heard  the  celestial  music  of  his  contemplation  reechoed  in  all 
the  universe.  "When,"  says  the  Bhagavadgita,  "  Arjuna,  the  faithful  war- 
rior, looked  up  to  the  divine  form,  he  saw  there  the  glory  of  the  mountains, 
the  sweep  of  the  rivers,  the  bloom  of  the   flowers,  and  the  animated  beauty 


I084  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:  TWELFTH    DAY. 

of  mankind."  This  does  not  mean  that  nature  and  God  are  one,  but 
nature  is  the  primary  form  and  image  of  God's  Spirit.  The  book  of  crea- 
tion is  in  God's  handwriting,  it  is  his  language.  Nature  is  his  revelation. 
'The  roar  of  the  hurricane  is  a  feeble  echo  of  his  eternal  voice.  The  thun- 
ders of  the  sea,  breaking  in  fury  over  the  immovable  rocks,  are  the  faint 
utterances  of  his  might.  The  midnight  firmament,  with  its  mighty  arches 
of  light,  shows  his  vast  bosom  bending  over  the  repose  of  the  good  and 
bad  alike. 

The  forces  of  nature  strike  the  Asiatic  not  as  blind  or  fantastic,  but  as 
the  manifestations  of  a  personal  will.  The  life  of  nature  is  the  life  of  God. 
Our  own  personality,  which  originates  so  many  activities,  unfolds  a  Person 
who  originates  and  preserves  the  universal  power  of  all  things.  In  Asia, 
therefore,  nature  is  not  mere  .design  or  mere  law  or  uniformity,  but  the  arena 
of  God's  personal  activity.  But  personal  activity  means  Providence.  When 
the  Spirit  fills  all  things,  is  imaged  in  all  things,  is  revealed  by  all  things, 
and  as  a  person  presides  over  all  activities,  the  whole  world  is  full  of  his 
Providence.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  Vedic  sages  beheld  in  every  force 
and  phenomenon  of  nature  an  inworking  light  of  the  Divinity.  There  was 
God  in  the  sun,  God  in  the  Himalayas,  God  in  the  all-investing  sky,  God 
in  the  expanse  of  the  round  blue  sea;  but  all  these  gods  merged  into  one 
supreme  Brahma,  the  meaning  of  which  word  is  "God  is'great,  and  makes 
everything  great."  Thus  the  senses  and  the  soul  form  a  vast  organ,  on 
which  the  contemplation  of  nature  plays  her  august  harmony,  and  through 
which  insight  makes  her  supernatural,  yet  most  natural  revelations.  How 
then  can  we  tire  of  our  mountains  and  rivers,  or  the  sacred  solitude  of  our 
forests  ?  Mount  Sinai  is  neither  cold  nor  dumb,  but  there  is  no  Moses  to 
hear  the  commandments,  or  bare  his  feet  to  the  burning  bush.  The  roses  of 
Shiraz  are  still  in  bloom,  the  nightingale's  song  still  fills  the  midnight 
silence,  but  there  is  no  Hafiz  to  realize  that  the  Great  Beloved  dwells  in  the 
garden  and  welcomes  his  faithful  devotees.  The  fountain  Zemzem  flows  on 
by  the  side  of  Mecca,  but  the  Prophet  is  forever  gone,  and  the  pilgrim 
hordes  spread  infection  and  uncleanness.  Nature  is  spiritual  still,  but  man 
has  become  material,  and  Asia  calls  upon  the  world  to  once  more  enthrone 
God  in  his  creation.  Reconciled  with  nature,  at  one  with  the  creation, 
inspired  by  the  soul  of  beauty  in  all  things,  Asia  is  at  one  with  God. 

2.  Introspection. — The  second  lesson  which  Asia  teaches  is  introspec- 
tion. This  means  beholding  the  Spirit  of  God  within  your  own  heart,  it  is 
spirituality.  Nature  inspires  the  Old  Testament,  Job,  David,  Isaiah,  the 
Rig-Veda,  the  Avesta  ;  the  Spirit  makes  the  New  Testament,  the  Upani- 
shads,  the  religion  of  Sadi  and  Rowland  Rouen.  Is  there  any  light  of 
beauty  or  intelligence  or  harmony  in  outward  things  which  has  not  its 
original  seat  in  the  mind  of  the  observer?  From  observation  to  introspec- 
tion, the  step  is  easy  and  natural.  On  the  framework  of  your  own  soul  the 
warp  and  woof  of  all  the  worlds  are  woven,  the  universe  of  light  and  order 


I'ANKI,  IN    IHF.  NTjRTH   KXTRANCF,  Dl'  TIIF.  TF.MPI.K,   RF.I'RESENTINC. 
(iAN.\l\\ITI,  HALAl'.FDE.  INDIA. 


I086  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY.  " 

is  to  be  seen  within.  There  is  no  glory  without  which  the  soul  did  not  put 
there  from  within  itself.  This  marvelous  creation  is  described  sometimes 
as  an  objective  dream,  a  medium  of  communion  between  the  human  and 
the  divine,  the  self-manifestation  of  the  Spirit  who  appeals  through  our 
senses  to  the  kindred  spirit  within. 

Neither  in  scripture-  nor  in  nature  nor  in  church  nor  in  prophet,  is  the 
Spirit  of  God  realized  in  his  fullness,  but  in  man's  soul,  and  there  alone,  is 
the  purpose  of  God  fully  revealed.  He  who  has  found  him  there  has  found 
the  secret  of  the  sonship  of  man.  "  Believe  me  the  hour  cometh  when  ye 
shall  neither  in  thi?  mountain,  nor  yet  in  Jerusalem  worship  the  Father. 
But  the  hour  cometh  and  now  is  when  the  true  worshiper  shall  worship  the 
Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth  ;  for  the  Father  seeketh  such  worship.  God  is 
a  spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 
Until  therefore  we  behold  God  as  the  spirit  in  the  only  spirit  realm  we  have 
access  to,  namely,  our  own  soul,  how  is  true  worship  possible?  The  Taitirya 
Upanishad  says,  "When  the  devotee  is  established  with  the  unseen,  form- 
less, unspeakable  Spirit  of  God  in  himself,  only  then  is  he  perfectly  fear- 
less." This  sense  of  the  .supreme  fact  of  the  spirit's  indwelling  glows 
into  attitudes  of  blessedness  which  intensify  every  other  faculty  of  the  soul, 
All  mental  powers  turn  themselves  into  channels  through  which  the  abund- 
ance of  divine  manifestation  pours  within. 

3.  Progress  of  Spirituality. — The  sentiments,  the  imagination,  the  powers 
of  intelligence,  the  resolutions  of  the  will,  are  all  kindled  into  that  spirit  of 
prophetic  fire  which  glows  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Orient. 

And  thus  Asiatic  philosophy,  whether  Hindu,  or  Gnostic,  or  Sufi  is  the 
philosophy  of  the  spirit,  the  philosophy  of  the  supreme  substance,  not  of 
phenomena  only.  Ail  Asiatic  poetry  breathes  the  aroma  of  the  sacred 
mansions,  glows  with  the  light  of  the  dawning  heavens.  The  deepest 
music  is  spiritual  music,  the  noblest  architecture  is  raised  by  the  hand  of  faith. 
When  the  Spirit  of  God  indwells  the  spirit  of  man,  literature,  science,  the 
arts,  nay,  all  ideals  and  all  achievements  find  their  natural  source,  the  whole 
world  is  spiritualized  into  a  vision  of  the  eternal.  Has  the  spiritual  nature 
any  end  to  its  possibilities?  The  Oriental  mind  does  not  really  deny  the 
being  of  the  outward  world,  but  seeing  God  within  its  own  being,  the  outer 
becomes  only  a  phase  of  the  inner  spirit.  It  is  not  logic  nor  observation, 
nor  even  scripture  that  reveals  God  to  the  rapt  Oriental  mind,  it  is  through 
his  own  instincts  that  he  has  the  deepest  view  of  the  unity  and  perfection 
of  the  Godhead.  No  dialectic  subtlety  or  analytic  skill  is  unknown  in  the 
East,  but  there  the  philosopher  is  the  seer  also.  Asia  has  the  seeing  of 
God  within  her  spirit,  and  what  is  seen  cannot  be  disproved  by  what  is 
said.  The  progress  of  true  religion  is  not  in  the  conversion  of  the  so-called 
heathen,  but  in  the  conception,  the  inspiration  and  realization  of  the  ideal 
of  the  man  or  spirit. 

4.  Spirit  Universal. — The  Supreme  Spirit  manifests  himself  in  the  soul  as 


MOZOOMDAR:  ASIA'S  SERVICE  TO  RELIGION.       IO87 

Reason,  as  Love,  as  Righteousness,  2t.s  Joy.  The  product  of  reason  is  wisdom, 
and  true  wisdom  is  universal.  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word 
was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  What  is  true  in  Asia  is  true  in 
Europe,  what  is  true  before  Christ  is  true  after  Christ,  because  Christ  is  the 
spirit  of  truth.  Whoever  conceives  the  unmixed  truth  in  science  or  in 
faith,  in  art,  or  in  literature,  conceives  the  imperishable  and  the  eternal. 

In  the  high  realm  of  that  undying  wisdom  the  Hebrew,  the  Hindu,  the 
Mongolian,  the  Christian  are  ever  at  one,  for  that  Wisdom  is  no  part 
of  themselves  but  the  self-revelation  of  God.  The  Hindu  books  have  not 
plagiarized  the  Bible,  Christiartity  has  not  plundered  Buddhism,  but  univer- 
sal wisdom  is  like  unto  itself  everywhere.  Similarly  love,  when  it  is  unself- 
ish and  uncarnal,  has  its  counterpart  in  all  lands  and  all  times.  The  deepest 
poetry,  whether  in  Uante,  Shakespeare,  or  Kalidasa,  is  universal.  The  love 
of  God  repeats  itself  century  after  century  in  the  pious  of  every  race,  the 
love  of  man  makes  all  mankind  its  kindred.  True  holiness  is  the  universal 
ideal,  however  much  personal  prejudices  or  passions  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  light.  And  hence  Asia  seeking  the  universal  God  in  her  own  soul  has 
discovered  God  to  all  the  world.  This  process  of  seeking  and  finding  God 
within  is  an  intense  spiritual  culture  known  by  various  names  in  various 
countries ;  in  India  we  call  it  Yoga.  The  self-concentrated  devotee  finds 
an  immersion  in  the  depths  of  the  indwelling  Deity.  God's  reason  becomes 
man's  reason,  and  God's  love  becomes  man's  love.  God  and  man  become 
one.  Introspection  finds  the  universal  soul,  the  over-soul  of  your  Emerson 
beating  in  all  humanity,  and  the  human  and  Divine  are  thus  reconciled. 

5.  Impulse  and  Worship. — Asia  has  taught  the  world  to  worship.  Asia 
is  the  land  of  impulse.  Religion  there  has  meant  always  sentiment,  joy- 
ousness,  exaltation,  excitement  in  the  love  of  God  and  man.  All  this 
impulse  the  Asiatic  throws  into  his  worship.  With  us  Orientals  worship  is 
not  a  mere  duty,  it  is  an  instinct,  a  longing,  a  passion.  There  is  a  force 
that  draws  every  drop  of  dew  into  the  sea,  a  spark  into  the  conflagration,  a 
planet  to  the  sun.  They  feel  in  the  East  a  similar  force  of  impulse  drawing 
them  into  the  depths  of  God.  Thai  is  worship.  "As  the  hart  panteth  for 
the  brook  of  living  water,  so  my  soul  panteth  for  God."  Routines  and  rit- 
uals are  indeed  known  in  the  East,  they  are  to  keep  the  undevout  in  the 
practice  of  religion ;  but  for  the  spiritual  the  impulse  to  adore  God  is  irre- 
sistible. The  love  of  God  is  a  growing  passion,  a  wine  that  inebriates,  a 
madness  of  the  spirit.  The  holy  festival  of  the  East,  whether  it  is  song  or 
ceremony,  or  praise  or  prayer,  is  an  intense  excitement.  The  longing  for 
the  companionship  of  the  Spirit  is  half  human,  half  divine.  It  is  man  call- 
ing after  God,  and  God  seeking  after  man.  No  devotional  act  is  complete 
which  is  not  an  act  of  mutual  advance  on  the  part  of  God  and  man,  no 
prayer  is  true  which  iloes  not  bring  with  it  a  blessed  consciousness  of  accept- 
ance. But  worship  is  then  worthy  of  heaven  when  it  is  uttered  in  tearful 
and  fervid  love.     When  the  devotee   feels  conscious  that  he  is  accepted,  an 


I088  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    TWELFTH    DAY. 

ecstasy  of  trust  fills  him,  the  rapture  of  his  love  overpowers  him.  He  cries, 
he  laughs,  he  sings,  he  dances,  he  falls  into  a  trance.  Such  phenomena  are 
not  confined  to  one  religion  or  one  country.  The  Hebrew  Miriam  danced 
and  the  congregation  played  upon  clamorous  instruments  of  music.  Moham- 
med fell  into  fits  of  unconsciousness.  Hafiz  was  reputed  as  a  madman. 
The  Vaishnavas  of  India  dance  and  violently  sing  in  their  devotional  excite- 
ment. The  Vagavat  Purana  thus  describes  the  condition  of  the  devout 
worshiper  :  "  He  sings  the  name  of  the  Dearest  One,  his  heart  is  melted 
with  holy  love,  he  laughs  loudly,  or  he  cries,  or  ceaselessly  prays,  and  at 
last,  overcome  by  uncommon  impulses,  dances  like  a  man  beside  himself." 

This  kind  of  excitement  cannot  be  agreeable  or  suitable  to  all  men,  but 
it  shows  the  extreme  to  which  devotional  impulses  run  in  Asia.  The 
uttered  worship  of  the  East  none  can  limit.  Can  any  one  number  the  songs 
of  praise,  the  invocations,  the  entreaties  which  rise  night  and  day  like  a 
ceaseless  noise  of  many  waters  to  the  throne  of  Heaven  ?  The  universe 
itself  is  to  the  Oriental  like  a  vast  devotee  which  uttereth  ceaselessly  the 
words  of  adoration,  and  we,  each  one  of  us,  feebly  respond  to  those  utter- 
ances;  blessed  is  he  who  responds  from  his  deepest  heart.  But  at  last 
speech  becomes  inadequate,  and  devotion  lapses  into  silence.  Our  worship 
is  then  profoundest  when  we  find  no  language  adequate  to  express  our  love 
and  trust.     The  East  therefore  cultivates  the  habit  of  devotional  silence. 

But  silence  also  becomes  too  oppressive,  and  takes  shape  in  the  offerings 
and  acts  of  worship.  P"lowers,  incenses,  sacrificial  fires,  sacramental  food, 
symbolical  postures,  bathings,  fastings  and  vigils,  are  oftentimes  more  elo- 
quent than  words.  There  is  no  spirit  without  forms.  Ceremonies  without 
spirit  are  indeed  dangerous,  but  when  words  fail  before  God  symbols  become 
indispensable.  All  true  worship  is  twofold  in  its  direction ;  it  is  Godward 
and  it  is  manward.  The  honor  and  love  of  God  are  sure  to  lead  to  the 
honor  and  love  of  man.  In  Asia  we  almost  worship  our  spiritual  guides,  we 
almost  idolize  the  objects  of  our  love.  The  man  of  God  stands  next  to  God. 
We  do  not  understand  spiritual  democracy ;  we  look  out  for  towering  per- 
sonalities; nay,  even  in  loving  our  equals,  we  are  fired  by  a  divine  enthusi- 
asm. Opposite  moods  are  reconciled  in  the  character  of  the  spiritual  man. 
Tenderness  and  sternness,  rebuke  and  forgiveness  mingle  into  a  strange  dig- 
nity. Meekness,  penitence,  gentleness,  forgiveness,  affectionateness,  lofty 
indignation,  weeping  compassion,  are  the  strange  attitudes  of  the  love  of  man. 
The  devotee  is  not  only  kind  to  men  but  kind  and  compassionate  also  to  all 
living  things.  The  beatitudes  of  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  the  sweet 
humanity  of  Buddha,  thus  become  realities  of  the  true  instinct  of  worship. 

Adoration  fails,  the  flower  fades,  the  fire  quenches,  the  incense  becomes 
dust,  but  when  the  spirit  abides  in  the  rapture  of  joy  and  love  within  the 
depths  of  God,  it  forgets  the  world's  distractions,  and  when  similarly  the 
love  of  man  becomes  to  it  a  passion  it  becomes  one  with  mankind.  Oneness 
with  God  and  man,  therefore,  in  perfect  love,  is  the  ideal  of  Eastern  worship. 


MOZOOMDAR:    ASIA'S  SERVICE  TO  RELIGION.       IO89 

6.  Renunciation. — What  lesson  do  the  hermitages,  the  monasteries,  the 
cave  temples,  the  disciplines  and  austerites  of  the  religious  East  teach  the 
world?  Renunciation.  The  Asiatic  apostle  will  ever  remain  an  ascetic,  a 
celibate,  a  homeless  Akinchana,  a  Fakeer.  We  Orientals  are  all  the  descend- 
ants of  John  the  Baptist.  Any  one  who  has  taken  pains  at  spiritual  culture 
must  admit  that  the  great  enemy  to  a  devout  concentration  of  mind  is  the 
force  of  bodily  and  worldly  desire.  Communion  with  God  is  impossible  so 
long  as  the  flesh  and  its  lusts  are  not  subdued.  Hence,  renunciation  has  been 
always  recognized  as  a  law  of  spiritual  progress  in  Asia.  It  is  not  mere  tem- 
perance, but  positive  asceticism ;  not  mere  self-restraint,  but  self-mortification; 
not  mere  self-sacrifice,  but  self-extinction ;  not  mere  morality,  but  absolute 
holiness.  The  passion  for  holiness  conquers  the  passion  for  self-indulgence, 
and  leads  to  much  voluntary  suffering.  Poverty,  homelessness,  simplicity, 
have  characterized  the  East.  The  Brahmans  do  not  charge  a  fee  for  teaching 
sacred  knowledge,  the  missionaries  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  never  take  a  salary. 
The  foxes  had  holes,  the  birds  had  nests,  but  the  Son  of  Man  had  not  where 
to  lay  his  head.  To  the  gates  of  Kapilavastu,  where  he  was  to  have  been 
lord  and  king,  Buddha  went  as  a  wandering  mendicant  with  his  alms-bowl 
in  his  hand,  begging  from  house  to  house.  The  sight  was  too  painful  for 
the  feelings  of  the  aged  king,  his  father,  so  that  he  entreated  the  illustrious 
medicant  to  go  and  beg  elsewhere,  and  not  bring  shame  to  the  royal  house 
he  had  forsaken.  Buddha  calmly  replied,  "  You,  O  king,  are  faithful  to  your 
ancestors  who  were  kings,  but  I  am  equally  faithful  to  my  ancestors  who 
were  ail  mendicants."  Mohammed  lived  in  a  cave  and  found  enough  nour- 
ishment in  a  few  dates.  The  Fakeer  in  Moslem  countries,  and  the  Sadhu  in 
India,  are  regarded  with  universal  awe.  Those  orders  of  Christians  who, 
like  the  Roman  Catholics,  have  adopted  this  principle  of  renunciation,  have 
made  the  greatest  impression  upon  Asiatic  communities.  It  is  a  sign  of  the 
times  that  even  Protestant  orders  are  reverting  to  the  monastic  principles  of 
Asia.  This  has  its  danger,  but  it  is  still  more  dangerous  to  allow  carnality 
and  worldliness  to  mix  in  a  spiritual  life.  Jesus  presided  at  the  marriage 
feast;  Sakya  Muni  shocked  his  early  disciples  by  eating  hearty  meals; 
Mohammed  married  wives;  Nanak,  the  founder  of  the  Sikhs,  kept  a  shop; 
St.  Paul  stood  upon  his  political  rights  as  a  Roman  citizen,  all,  not  because 
of  worldly  mindedness,  but  in  the  faithful  discharge  of  their  holy  duties. 
Their  hearts  were  austere  and  unselfish  as  ever. 

Once  upon  a  time,  so  goes  the  Indian  legend,  the  saintly  ascetic 
Sukdeva  visited  the  palace  of  the  royal  devotee  Raja  Janak.  The  man  of 
.lusterity  was  struck  at  the  wealth  and  magnificence  of  his  host.  The  throne  • 
ijii  which  he  sat,  his  wives,  his  attendants,  his  robes,  his  chariots,  disgusted 
Sukdeva.  The  Raja  Janak  by  insight  knew  the  thoughts  of  his  simple- 
minded  guest.  To  disabuse  him  Janak  suddenly  set  on  fire  his  palace  by 
the  power  of  magic.  There  was  a  fearful  uproar,  everybody  hurrying  to 
save  what  was  most  precious  to  himself.     Even   Sukdeva   rushed  to  snatch 

69 


logo  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

away  from  the  fire  a  narrow  strip  of  rag,  worn  round  his  loins,  his  only 
belonging,  which  he  had  hung  up  to  dry.  Only  Raja  Janak  sat  calmly  smil- 
ing, free  from  care.  The  fire  was  as  soon  put  out  as  it  had  been  started,  and 
then  the  royal  devotee,  addressing  the  ascetic  saint,  said:  "Thou,  O 
Sukdeva,  lost  thy  peace  when  thy  rag  was  threatened,  but  I  could  calmly 
look  on  while  all  my  palace  with  its  wealth  was  burning  to  ashes.  Renun- 
ciation is  not  to  abstain  from  much  and  to  be  overfond  of  little,  but  to  retain 
our  peace  at  the  loss  of  everything  we  have,  be  it  little  or  great." 

Self-conquest  or  renunciation  is  but  one  part  of  the  culture  of  the  will 
into  spirituality.  The  other  part  is  obedience,  self-consecration,  merging 
oneself  into  the  supreme  self  of  God,  and  the  supreme  service  of  humanity. 
Renunciation  can  never  be  an  object  in  itself;  where  it  has  been  it  has  led 
to  monstrous  extravagances.  Self-discipline  is  only  a  means  to  the  higher 
end  of  reconciliation  and  onene.ss  with  the  will  of  God.  The  grain  of  wheat 
falls  and  dies  in  the  earth  that  it  may  produce  a  hundred  fold,  and  he  who 
spends  his  life  for  God  keeps  it  unto  immortality.  Death  has  been,  shall 
always  be  the  price  of  the  attainment  of  God  and  the  service  of  man,  death 
of  all  self  and  carnality.  Who  can  say,  who  did  say,  "  Not  my  will,  but  thy 
will  be  done  ?  " — he  who  struggled  with  the  last  cup  of  agony,  and  who 
looked  up  to  serve  God  and  man  while  the  murderer  was  at  the  gate.  Call 
it  renunciation,  call  it  stoicism,  call  it  death,  the  fact  is  there  that  he  only 
who  dies  to  himself  can  find  rest  in  God,  or  reconciliation  with  man.  This 
great  law  of  self-effacement,  poverty,  suffering,  death,  is  symbolized  in  the 
mystic  cross  so  dear  to  you  and  dear  to  me.  Christians,  will  you  ever 
repudiate  Calvary  ?  Oneness  of  will  and  character  is  the  sublimest  and 
most  difficult  unity  with  God.  And  that  lesson  of  unity  Asia  has  repeatedly 
taught  the  world. 

7.  Summary. — Thus  by  insight  into  the  immanence  of  God's  spirit  in 
nature,  thus  by  introspection  into  the  fullness  of  the  divine  presence  in  the 
heart,  thus  by  rapturous  and  loving  worship,  and  thus  by  renunciation  and 
self-surrender,  Asia  has  learned  and  taught  wisdom,  practiced  and  preached 
contemplation,  laid  down  the  rules  of  worship,  and  glorified  the  righteous- 
ness of  God.  But  how  can  I,  within  a  brief  half-hour,  describe  the  mystic 
spirituality  of  a  great  continent  from  which  all  religions,  all  prophets,  all 
founders,  ail  devotions,  and  all  laws  of  religious  life  have  come  ?  I  have 
utterred  only  one  word,  and  leave  the  rest  to  your  spiritual  discernment.  I 
know  Asia  has  to  learn  a  great  deal  from  the  West  ;  I  know  that  even  such 
(]ualities  of  the  Asiatic  as  I  have  described  require  to  be  assimilated  to  a 
New  Dispensation  of  God,  the  future  religion  of  mankind.  But  Europe  has 
gone  out  to  the  East,  and  the  new  religion  has  dawned  in  the  Brahmo- 
Somaj. 

It  the  West  you  observe,  watch  and  act.  In  the  East  we  contemplate, 
commune,  and  suffer  ourselves  to  be  carried  away  by  the  spirit  of  the  uni- 
verse.    In  the  West  you  wrest  from  nature  her  secrets,  you  conquer  her,  she 


MISS  ALICIi  C.  KLKTCIFKR. 
RK.V.  K.  P.  15AKF.R. 
REV.  r.  J.  SCOIT. 


RKV.  OLVMin.V  URCWN. 

RKV.  \\ASHIN(;T()\  CI.ADDEN. 

PROF.  ALBION  W.  SMALL. 


1092  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

makes  you  wealthy  and  prosperous,  you  look  upon  her  as  your  slave,  and 
sometimes  fail  to  realize  her  sacredness.  In  the  East  nature  is  our  eter- 
nal sanctuary,  the  soul  is  our  everlastmg  temple,  and  the  sacredness  of  God's 
creation  is  only  next  to  the  sacredness  of  God  himself.  In  the  West  you 
love  equality,  you  respect  man,  you  seek  justice.  In  the  East,  love  is  the 
fulfillment  of  the  law,  we  Jiave  hero  worship,  we  behold  God  in  humanity. 
In  the  West  you  establish  the  moral  law,  you  insist  upon  propriety  of  con- 
duct, you  are  governed  by  pubKc  opinion.  In  the  East  we  aspire,  perhaps 
vainly  aspire,  after  absolute  self-conquest,  and  the  holiness  which  makes 
God  its  model.  In  the  West  you  work  incessantly,  and  your  work  is  your 
worship.  In  the  East  we  meditate  and  worship  for  long  hours,  ami  wor- 
ship is  our  work.  Perhaps  one  day,  after  this  Parliament  has  achieved  its 
success,  the  Western  and  the  Eastern  man  will  combine  to  support  each 
other's  strength  and  supply  each  other's  deficiencies.  And  then  that  blessed 
synthesis  of  human  nature  shall  be  established  which  all  prophets  have  fore- 
told, and  all  the  devout  souls  have  sighed  for.  Some  years  ago  when  I  saw 
Professor  Tyndall  after  his  great  Belfast  address,  he  spoke  to  me  thus  : 
"  The  sympathies  of  such  men  as  you  are  the  crumbs  of  comfort  left  me  in 
my  unpopularity.  Because  I  will  not  accept  religion  at  the  hands  of  those 
who  have  it  not,  they  revile  me.  I  complain  not.  True  religion  once  came 
from  the  East,  and  from  the  East  it  shall  come  again."  This,  perhaps,  was 
too  great  a  compliment,  at  least  I  regarded  it  as  such.  But  looking  back 
into  the  past  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  world's  religious  debt  to  Asia  is  very 
great.  In  the  East  we  are  the  subject  race'  we  are  talked  of  with  contumely. 
The  Asiatic  is  looked  upon  as  the  incarnation  of  every  meanness  and 
untruth.  Perhaps  we  partly  deserve  it.  Perhaps  in  being  allowed  to  associate 
with  you  free  and  noble  children  of  the  West  we  shall  learn  what  we  have 
failed  to  learn  hitherto.  Yet  in  the  midst  of  the  sadness,  the  loneliness,  the 
prostration  of  the  present,  it  is  some  consolation  to  think  that  we  still  retain 
some  of  our  spirituality,  and  to  reflect  upon  the  prophecy  of  Ezekiel, 
'  Behold,  the  glory  of  the  Lord  cometh  from  the  way  of  the  East." 


CRITICISM  AND  DISCUSSION  OF  MISSIONARY 

METHODS. 

ADDRESS  OF  MR.  H.  DHARMAPALA,  OF  CEYLON,  BUDDHIST. 

The  question  is  how  to  evangelize  the  non-Christian  countries.  For 
nineteen  centuries  you  have  had  Christianity  in  Europe.  Only  during  the 
last  three  centuries  have  attempts  been  made  to  propagate  it  in  the  East, 
and  with  unsuccessful  results.  The  platform  you  have  built  up  must  be 
entirely  reconstructed  if  Christianity  is  to  make  progress  in  the  East.  You 
must  send  men  fulj  of  unselfishness.  They  must  have  a  spirit  of  self-sacri- 
fice, a  spirit  of  charity,  a  spirit  of  tolerance.  We  want  the  lowly  and  meek 
and  gentle  teachings  of  Christ,  not  because  we  do  not  have  them  now,  but 
we  want  more  of  them.  The  missionaries  sent  to  Ceylon,  China  or  Bur- 
mah,  as  a  rule,  have  not  the  tolerance  that  we  need.  The  missionary  is 
intolerant ;  he  is  selfish.  Why  do  not  the  natives  mix  with  him  ?  Because 
he  has  not  the  tolerance  and  unselfishness  he  should  have.  Who  are  his 
converts  ?  They  are  all  men  of  low  type.  Seeing  the  selfishness  and  intol 
erance  of  the  missionary  not  an  intelligent  man  will  accept  Christianity. 
Buddhism  had  its  missionaries  before  Christianity  was  preached.  It  con- 
quered all  Asia  and  made  the  Mongolians  mild.  But  the  influence  of  west- 
ern civilization  is  undoing  their  work. 

It  is  left  for  you,  this  younger  family  of  European  nations,  to  change 
this.  I  warn  you  that  if  you  want  to  establish  Christianity  in  the  East  it  can 
only  be  done  on  the  principles  of  Christ's  love  and  meekness.  Let  the  mis- 
sionary study  all  the  religions  ;  let  them  be  a  type  of  meekness  and  lowli- 
ness and  they  will  find  a  welcome  in  all  lands. 

ADDRESS    OF    REV.  GEO.    T.  CANDLIN,    OF   TIENTSIN,  WEST 
CHINA,  ENGLISH  METHODIST. 

This  Parliament  ought  to  result  in  the  bringing  about  between  Chris- 
tian Church  and  Christian  Church  of  different  denominations  the  same  rela- 
tions of  unity  as  now  exist  between  member  and  member  of  the  same 
church.  Further,  I  sincerely  believe  that  we  can  get  this  between  the  Chris- 
tian religion  and  non-Christian  faiths — we  can  establish  such  relations  of 
mutual  respect,  toleration  and  love  as  now  exist  between  Christian  Church 
and  Christian  Church.  These  two  things  must  go  together — the  conversion 
of  the  world  and  the  union  of  Christians.  No  individual  church  of  Christen- 
dom adequately  represents,  nor  the  whole  taken  indiscriminately,  until  they 
shall  be   united  in  one,  ever  can  adequately  represent  what  Christianity 

Coypright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1093 


1094  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

means.  We  have  our  gleams  of  light,  and  every  religious  system  existing 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  to-day  exists  to  bear  witness  to  some  part  of  the 
truth  which  the  rest  of  Christendom  has  ignored  or  made  light  of. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  this  Chicago  Parliament  will  act  in  a  thoroughly 
missionary  spirit.  The  Christian  workers  all  around  the  globe  are  looking 
— some  of  them,  I  am  bound  to  say,  with  very  serious  mistrust,  others  with 
trembling  hope — to  see  what  this  Parliament  has  to  say  on  the  missionary 
question.  I  am  sure  that  you  will  say  this,  that  all  we  have  heard  from  our 
'  brethren  of  other  faiths,  while  it  leads  us  to  sincerely,  unstintedly  and  joy- 
fully recognize  the  truth,  the  good,  which  entitles  them  to  take  their  place 
as  a  part  of  the  religious  world,  and  as  containing  a  part  of  the  universal 
revolution  of  God — still  it  will  commit  itself  unreservedly  to  the  principle 
that  communication  of  the  Christian  ideas  is  of  priceless  value  to  the  world. 
Redeeming  grace  stretches  perpendicularly  as  high  as  heaven  and 
reaches  horizontally  all  around  the  equator  and  out  to  both  poles.  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  first  Christian  missionary.  He  came  farther,  traveled  more, 
bore  more  hardship  in  the  cause  of  his  religion  than  all  his  believing  follow- 
ers put  together,  and  therefore  we  shall  never  pause  and  never  falter  in  the 
belief  that  our  religion  is  to  be  given  freely,  unreservedly,  v/ith  royal  bounty 
to  all  the  sons  of  men. 

ADDRESS  OF  MR.  NARASLMA    CHARYA,  OF   MADRAS, 

BRAHMAN. 

If  success  be  the  criterion  by  which  to  gauge  an  undertaking,  and  if 
missionary  success  means  the  conversion  of  the  Hindu,  then  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  missionary  work  in  India  is  a  failure.  But  let  none  cast  any 
aspersion  on  the  missionaries.  Their  motive  is  a  noble  one.  Among  an 
unsympathetic  people,  toiling  and  striving,  hoping  for  their  reward,  not 
from  man,  but  from  God,  there  they  are,  devoting  their  lives  to  the  cause 
of  their  religion. 

Why,  then,  does  not  Christianity  in  India  spread  faster  ?  For  this 
there  are  many  reasons.  Into  the  vexed  questions  as  to  the  benefits  the 
Hindus  have  derived  from  English  rule  I  shall  not  enter,  but  the  religion 
which  a  conquering  nation,  with  an  exasperating  consciousness  of  superi- 
ority, condescendingly  offers  to  the  conquered  must  ever  be  disgusting  to 
the  recipient,  however  good  it  may  be.  Then,  there  is  the  difference 
between  your  temperament  and  ours.  We  are  brought  up  so  differently 
from  you  that  the  things  that  affect  you  do  not  affect  us.  Those  parables 
in  which  you  see  so  many  beauties,  those  sayings  and  doings  of  the  Saviour, 
whicli  seem  to  be  an  all-sufficient  guide  for  you  through  life,  nay,  your  very 
belief  in  the  necessity  of  a  vicarious  Saviour,  which  is  the  corner-stone  of 
your  faith,  are  to  us  mere  words.  They  convey  no  impression.  They  carry 
no  conviction. 

The  character  of  the  Hindus  is  a  strange  and  unanalyzable  mixture.     I 


CRITICISM  OF  MISSIONARY  METHODS.  IO95 

do  not  know  why  it  is  so,  but  religion  after  religion  has  failed  in  India.  At 
present  the  various  new  religions,  such  as  the  Brahmo-Somaj,  and  the  Arya- 
Somaj,  and  the  various  other  societies,  do  not  have  very  many  followers. 
Thus  vou  will  see  that  the  religions  which  rise  up  among  themselves  are 
not  welcomed  with  enthusiasm.  No  wonder,  then,  that  a  religion  like 
Christianity,  a  religion  of  foreigners,  containing  ideas,  some  of  them  new, 
some  of  them  strange,  and  some  of  them  repugnant  to  our  preconceived 
notions,  meets  with  such  scanty  welcome. 

Again,  your  missiortaries,  in  their  iconoclastic  eagerness,  attack  some 
of  our  prejudices  which  are  not  necessarily  unchristian.  Thus  our  inter- 
mingling with  other  castes  is  made  a  necessary  article  of  faith  of  the  con- 
verted Hindu,  and,  let  me  tell  you  from  my  own  experience,  that  it  is  to  us 
a  physical  repugnance.  There  is  another  custom  of  the  Brahmans,  far  more 
deeply  ingrained  and  far  more  difficult  to  uproot.  I  mean  their  prejudice 
against  animal  food.  So  long  as  Christians,  by  tacit  silence,  make  people 
believe  that  the  eating  of  animal  food  is  a  necessary  preparatory  course  to 
be  gone  through  with  before  baptism,  so  long,  then,  will  you  find  you  have 
a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  the  evangelization  of  India. 

ADDRESS  OF  REV.  R.  A.  HUME,  OF  INDIA,  AMERICAN 
CONGREGATIONALIST. 

In  the  city  of  Madras  the  converts  of  the  Christian  faith  take  a  higher 
standard  than  the  Brahmans.  In  the  decade  from  187 1  to  188 1  the  census 
of  the  British  government  says  that  when  the  population  increased  6  per 
cent,  the  Christian  population  increased  32  percent.  In  the  decade  from 
18S1  to  1891,  when  the  population  of  the  country  increased  10  per  cent.,  the 
native  Christian  community  increased  23  per  cent.,  and  it  is  predicted  that 
in  a  generation  all  the  positions  of  influence  and  of  responsibility  will  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  Christian  community  of  India. 

But  as  to  the  missionaries,  we  do  make  our  mistakes.  We  are  not  as 
Christ-like  as  we  ought  to  be.  We  confess  it  to  you  and  to  our  God.  We 
want  to  be  better.  We  are  willing  to  have  our  Buddhist  and  our  Brahman 
friends  tell  us  how  we  can  be  better.  Anyone  who  will  help  us  to  be  more 
humble  and  more  wise  will  do  us  good  and  we  will  thank  him,  whoever 
he  be. 

First  on  the  relations  of  missionaries  and  non-Christians.  We  might 
some  of  us  know  their  thoughts  better.  We  ought  to  study,  their  books  more 
deeply,  more  intelligently,  more  constantly.  We  ought  to  associate  with 
them  in  order  to  know  their  inmost  thoughts  and  their  feelings  and  their 
aspirations  better  than  we  do.  Further,  when  we  see  Truth  anywhere,  we 
ought  cordially  and  gladly  to  recognize  it  as  from  the  Father  of  Light ;  and 
it  is  jealousy  of  God  if  we  think  that  half-truth  or  some  measure  of  truth  is 
to  be  a  hindrance  to  our  work.  That  it  will  be  a  hindrance  or  a  help 
depends  largely  upon  our  attitude  toward  it. 


1096  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

If  we  feel  that  this  is,  perhaps,  some  kind  of  hindrance  to  the  univer- 
sal spread  of  the  Kingdom,  it  will  be  through  our  instrumentality  somewhat 
of  a  hindrance.  We  should  not  be  afraid  of  the  half-way  houses  to  Chris- 
tianity, as  we  sometimes  are. 

Another  point  which  I  desire  our  Christian  brethren  in  this  country  to 
carefully  bear  in  mind,  is  that  there  are  phases  of  Christian  truth  and  doc- 
trine which  are  put  before  Orientals  as  essential  to  Christianity  which  I  do 
not  believe  and  which  some  of  us  do  not  believe  are  essential  to  Christianity. 
There  are  things  taught  in  the  name  of  Christ  which  are  only  western 
theology,  which  are  only  western  comprehensions  of  truth  as  we  see  it. 
There  have  been  things  put  about  the  nature  and  person  of  Christ,  about 
the  character  of  his  atoning  work,  about  the  doctrine  of  retribution,  about 
the  doctrine  of  scripture,  which  have,  instead  of  attracting,  repelled  the 
minds  of  non-Christian  people. 

What  now  is  to  be  done  by  men  who  believe  these  western  things  ?  It 
is  hard  for  a  man  to  say  that  he  is  to  give  another  message  than  that  which 
seems  to  him  the  truth,  but  I  would  have  my  brethren  and  sisters  remember 
that  even  our  Divine  Master  exercised  a  restraint  in  regard  to  what  he 
believed  to  be  true  when  he  saw  that  men  were  not  in  a  position  to  accept 
it ;  and  I,  for  my  part,  believe  that  it  is  sometimes  better  to  teach  less  than 
what  you  believe  to  be  the  whole  truth,  when  you  have  reason  to  know  that 
the  statements,  as  you  would  put  them,  instead  of  bringing  men  to  the  essen- 
tial Christ,  to  the  heart  of  Christianity,  drive  them  from  it. 

THE  ETHICS  OF  ISLAM. 

QUOTATIONS    FROM    THE    KORAN     PRESENTED     BY   THE    REV.    DR.   GEORGE 

E.    POST,    BEIrOt. 

Divorce:  Special  Dispensation  to  the  Prophet. 

[The  following  passage  was  revealed  on  Mohammed's  wives  asking 
for  more  sumptuous  clothes,  and  an  additional  allowance  for  their  expenses  ; 
and  he  had  no  sooner  received  it  than  he  gave  them  their  option,  either  to 
continue  with  him,  or  to  be  divorced.] 

Chapter  xxxiii.  "O  prophet  say  unto  thy  wives,  if  ye  seek  this  present 
life,  and  the  pomps  thereof,  come,  I  will  make  a  handsome  provision  for 
you,  and  I  will  dismiss  you  with  an  honorable  dismission  ;  but  if  ye  seek 
God  and  his  apostles,  and  the  life  to  come,  verily  God  hath  prepared  for 
such  of  you  as  work  righteousness  a  great  reward." 

Another  Dispensation  to  the  Prophet. 

[Zeid  was  a  slave  bought,  when  still  a  child,  by  Mohammed,  or  as 
some  say  by  Khadijeh  before  she  married  the  prophet.  Mohammed  offered 
to  Zeid  his  freedom.  Zeid  refused  it ;  whereupon  Mohammed  adopted 
him  as  his  son,  and  gave  him  a  beautiful  girl,  Zeinab,  to  wife. 

Some  years  after  his  marriage,  Mohammed,  going  to  Zeid's  house  on 
some   affair,  and   not  finding  him  at  home,  accidentally  cast  his  eyes  on 


CRITICISM    OF   MISSIONARY    METHODS.  IO97 

Zeinab  and  fell  in  love  with  her.  Zeinab  informed  her  husband,  who  after 
mature  reflection  offered  to  divorce  her  that  Mohammed  might  marry  her. 
To  avert  the  unheard-of  scandal  of  a  man  marrying  the  wife  of  his  adopted 
son,  the  following  verse  of  the  Koran  was  sent  from  heaven.] 

Chapter  xxxiii.  "But  when  Zeid  had  determined  the  matter  concern- 
ing her,  and  had  resolved  to  divorce  her,  we  joined  her  in  marriage  unto 
thee  ;  lest  a  crime  should  be  charged  on  the  true  believers  in  marrying  the 
wives  of  their  adopted  sons,  when  they  have  determined  the  matter  concern- 
ing chem  ;  and  the  command  of  God  is  to  be  performed.  No  crime  is  to  be 
charged  on  the  prophet,  as  to  what  God  hath  allowed  him." 

Polygamy  of  the  Prophet. 

Chapter  xxxiii.  "O  prophet,  we  have  allowed  thee  thy  wives  unto 
whom  thou  hast  given  their  dower,  and  also  the  slaves  which  thy  right 
hand  possesseth  of  the  booty  which  God  hath  granted  thee ;  and  the 
daughters  of  thy  uncle  and  the  daughters  of  thy  aunts  both  on  thy  father's 
side  and  thy  mother's  side,  wfio  have  fled  with  thee  from  Mecca,  and 
any  other  believing  woman,  if  she  give  herself  unto  the  prophet;  in  case  the 
prophet  desireth  to  take  her  to  wife.  This  is  a  peculiar  privilege  granted 
unto  thee  above  the  rest  of  the  true  believers.  We  know  what  we  have 
ordained  them  concerning  their  wives  and  their  slaves  which  their  right  hands 
possess  ;  lest  it  should  be  deemed  a  crime  in  thee  to  make  use  of  the  privilege 
granted  thee  ;  for  God  is  merciful  and  gracious.  It  shall  not  be  lawful  for  thee 
to  take  other  women  to  wife  hereafter,  nor  to  exchange  any  of  thy  wives  for 
them,  although  their  beauty  pleases  thee,  except  the  slaves  whom  thy  right 
hand  shall  possess." 

Polygamy  and  Concubinage. 

Chapter  iv.  "And  if  ye  fear  that  ye  shall  not  act  with  equity  towards 
orphans  of  the  female  sex,  take  in  marriage  of  such  other  women  as  please 
you,  two,  or  three,  or  four,  and  not  more."  ..."  Ye  may  with  your  sub- 
stance provide  wives  for  yourselves." 

Divorce. 

Chapter  ii.  "  Ye  may  divorce  your  wives  twice.  But  if  the  husband 
divorce  her  a  third  time,  she  shall  not  be  lawful  for  him  again  until  she  marry 
another  husband.  But  if  he  also  divorces  her,  it  shall  be  no  crime  in  them 
if  they  return  to  each  other." 

Chapter  iv.  "  If  ye  be  desirous  of  exchanging  a  wife  for  another  wife, 
and  ye  have  already  given  one  of  them  a  talent,  take  not  anything  away 
therefrom."  .  .  "Ye  are  also  forbidden  to  take  to  wife  free  women  who  are 
married,  except  those  women  whom  your  right  hands  shall  possess  as  slaves." 

Instruction  as  to  Religious  Wars. 

Chapter  Ixvi.     "O  prophet  attack  the  infidels  with  arms." 

Chapter  ii.  "  .\ncl  fght  for  the  religion  of  God  against  those  who  fight 
against  you.  And  kill  them  wherever  ye  find  them,  and  turn  them  out  of  that 
whereof  they  have  dispossessed  you ;  for  temptation  to  idolatry  ic  more  grievous 


1098  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

than  slavghter.  P'ight  therefore  against  them  until  there  is  no  temptation 
to  idolatry,  and  the  religion  be  God's.'  .  .  .  "  War  is  enjoined  you  against 
the  infidels,  but  this  is  hateful  unto  you;  yet  perchance  ye  hate  a  thing  which 
is  better  for  you,  and  perchance  ye  love  a  thing  which  is  worse  for  you." 

Chapter  xlviii.  "  Say  unto  the  Arabs  of  the  desert  who  were  left  behind, 
ye  shall  be  called  forth  against  a  mighty  and  a  warlike  rution  ;  ye  shall  fight 
against  them  or  they  shall  profess  Islam.  Fight  against  them  who  believe 
not  in  God  nor  the  Last  Day,  and  forbid  not  that  which  God  and  his  Apostle 
have  forbidden,  and  profess  not  the  true  religion  of  those  unto  whom  the 
Scriptures  have  been  delivered ;  until  they  pay  tribute  by  right  of  subjection, 
and  they  be  reduced  low." 

ADDRESS  OF   REV.  DR.  HAWORTH,  OF  JAPAN,   AMERICAN 
CONGREGATIONALIST. 

There  are  those  who  think  that  the  methods  of  missionaries  can  be 
improved.  There  are  plenty  of  missionaries  who  recognize  this  ;  but  his  is 
not  a  grateful  task  who  essays  to  find  fault  with  a  foreign  missionary. 
Nevertheless,  at  the  risk  of  failing  to  make  myself  understood  in  so  short  a 
time,  and,  therefore,  offending  some,  I  venture  to  add  my  word  in  the  direc- 
tion of  emphasising  the  need  of  improvement  in  missionary  methods. 

Being  from  Japan  you  will  naturally  expect  me  to  speak  of  the  partic- 
ular phases  of  the  missionary  problem  which  are  more  or  less  peculiar  to 
that  field.  Some  may  think  that  in  Japan,  at  least,  it  is  high  time  for  mission- 
aries to  mend  their  ways,  or  get  out  and  let  Brother  Kosaki  and  his  Christian 
countrymen  work  out  their  own  salvation. 

If,  in  the  great  problems  before  the  church  in  Japan,  the  problem  of  recon- 
ciling Christianity  with  the  "National  Spirit,"  the  problem  of  adjusting  the 
relations  between  the  missionaries  and  the  Japanese  Christians,  the  problems 
of  denominationalism  and  church  government,  the  problem  of  determining 
what  are  the  essential  doctrines  of  Christianity  and  of  written  creeds,  the 
problems  which  affect  the  very  life  and  continuity  of  Christ's  Church  in 
Japan  ;  if  in  these  vital  and  perplexing  questions  the  missionaries  can  be  of 
no  service,  as  Mr.  Kosaki  says  :  If  the  Japanese  must  work  out  these  diffi- 
cult problems  alone  and  are  able  to  do  it,  the  explanation  of  this  strange 
situation  must  be  either  that  the  missionary  has  done  his  work  so  well  that 
the  pupil  is  now  equal  in  all  respects  to  the  teacher,  who  might  as  well  with- 
draw, or  else  the  missionary  has  spent  thirty-five  years  in  grappling  with  the 
great  problem  of  Christianizing  Japan  only  to  prove  himself  in  the  end  a 
colossal  and  preposterous  failure. 

And  further,  if  the  Congregationalists  of  Japan  are  substantially  on  the 
side  of  the  very  theology  which  the  American  board  emphatically  discount- 
enances ;  if  the  Japanese  Presbyterians  almost  to  a  man  are  on  the  side  of 
Professors  Briggs  and  Smith,  while  the  General  Association  in  America  per- 
sistently declares  that  those  learned  men  are  dangerous  leaders! — if  these 


A  XIPAI.   r-UDDHIST  TEMPLE. 


I  100  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

two  great  churches  in  Japan,  which  include  the  large  majority  of  the  Chris- 
tian population  of  the  country,  are  so  wide  of  the  mark  of  American  ortho- 
doxy, the  inference  will  be  that  the  missionaries  are  either  untrue  to  the 
churches  that  sent  them  out  or  that  they  are  unable  to  influence  to  any  con- 
siderable extent  the  converts  they  have  made. 

And  if  the  missionaries'  influence  in  Japan  is  so  startlingly  small,  it  is 
only  a  question  of  a  little  time  when  the  church  of  America  will  withdraw 
its  support  and  leave  the  church  in  Japan  to  do  its  own  teaching  and 
preaching,  and  pay  its  own  bills.  The  Christians  of  America  will  not  give 
money  to  maintain  missionaries  in  a  land  where  they  can  be  only  subordi- 
nate helpers,  utterly  impotent  in  solving  the  vital  questions  of  the  church, 
while  so  many  other  fields  are  drawing  us  with  Macedonian  cries  which 
must  be  answered. 

Now  I  am  not  here  to  take  exceptions  to  Prof.  Kosaki's  excellent  paper. 
I  know  his  sympathetic  heart  and  kindly  feeling  toward  the  missionaries. 
I  am  only  pointing  out,  from  the  view  point  of  the  audience  which  heard 
him,  the  inferences  which  must  come  from  his  statements.  With  other 
important  modifications,  which  I  have  not  time  to  make,  but  which  I  am 
sure  Prof.  Kosaki  himself  would  accept,  the  paper  gives  a  true  picture  of 
the  situation  in  Japan. 

It  is  true,  the  missionary  has  not  the  influence  he  once  had  in  Japan 
and  still  has  in  most  other  fields.  And  this  cannot  be  explained  wholly  on 
the  ground  of  our  success  there.  Japan  is  not  evangelized  to-day.  With 
40,000  baptized  Christians  out  of  40,000,000  people,  with  the  rate  of  annual 
increase  in  the  church  diminishing  rather  than  increasing ;  with  all  these 
unsolved  problems  pressing  upon  the  infant  church,  let  not  Christian  Amer- 
ica listen  for  one  moment  to  one  who  would  say  that  our  work  for  Japan  is' 
done. 

And  to  those  who  may  feel  like  advising  us  to  leave  the  work  to  the  Jap- 
anese workers,  there  ought  to  be  sufficient  answer  in  Brother  Kosaki's  frank 
portrayal  of  the  unsteady  gait  of  the  national  advance,  and  in  the  pathetic 
confession  that  in  all  the  troublous  questions  before  the  church  no  light 
appears — no  prophet  has  yet  arisen  in  Japan  who  is  able  to  lead  the  church 
through  the  wilderness.  In  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  conflict  between  the 
old  and  the  new,  it  is  too  much  to  expect  that  spiritual  stability  which  must 
underlie  all  real  progress.  At  one  time  welcoming  all  things  foreign  with 
unthinking  zeal,  at  another  raising  the  war  cry — there  is  no  room  in  such  a 
condition  for  the  calm  vision  which  knows  how  to  build  for  eternity.  Every 
one  knows  that  the  perpetual  motion  of  the  pendulum  is  not  progress.  It 
only  marks  the  progress  of  other  things  that  do  move.  I  am  here  to  say 
that  in  my  judgment  Japan  does  need  the  missionary  as  much  and  more 
than  ever  before. 


ADDRESSES    OF    BISHOP    B.  W.  ARxNETT  AND  THE 
HON.  J.  M.  ASHLEY. 

ON  THE  EVENING  OF  SEPTEMBER  22. 

[The  evening  of  the  twelfth  day  of  the  Parliament  was  given  to  a  cel- 
ebration of  the  thirty-first  anniversary  of  President  Lincoln's  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation.  The  venerable  Bishop  Payne,  of  the  African  Methodist 
Episcopal  church,  presided  during  a  part  of  the  session.  After  the  paper 
by  Rev.  J.  R.  Slattery,  Bishop  Arnett  presented  to  Hon.  J.  M.  Ashley,  of 
Ohio,  in  behalf  of  the  Afro-American  League  of  Tennessee,  a  copy  of  Mr. 
Ashley's  speeches.  A  copy  of  this  souvenir  volume  was  also  presented  to 
Dr.  Barrows.  The  meeting  was  one  of  great  interest  and  enthusiasm,  in 
which  Catholic  and  Protestant  seemed  to  have  equal  delight.  Bishop  Arnett 
said :] 

In  the  name  of  my  countrymen  and  fellow-sufferers  of  the  past,  I  come 
with  greetings  and  rejoicing  this  night,  that  our  night  has  turned  to  day,  our 
former  prison  has  become  a  mansion,  and  we  are  now  the  legitimate  heirs  of 
the  heritage  of  American  freemen. 

It  will  be  my  privilege  to  review  the  work  of  the  race  for  the  past  thirty 
years,  and  to  follow  some  of  the  steps  thai  have  led  to  the  marvelous  tri- 
umphs of  thirty  years  of  labor  in  field,  study  and  school-house.  We  are  also 
to  honor  one  to  whom  honor  is  due,  and  let  him  and  his  friends  know  that 
we  are  not  unmindful  of  the  workmen  of  the  past. 

Thirty-one  years  ago  the  proclamation  went  forth,  and  millions  of  the 
slaves  were  made  freemen  in  one  day.  The  hut  of  the  bondman  was 
deserted,  and  the  freedman,  with  his  wife  and  with  his  children,  was  ban- 
ished from  the  old  homestead,  and  they  started  to  a  land  they  knew  not  of; 
but  with  faith  in  God,  and  a  trust  in  his  word,  and  with  a  lively  hope  in  the 
final  triumph  of  right,  truth  and  justice,  they  began  their  march  to  the  land 
of  liberty.  They  started  out  not  as  the  Israelites  from  Egypt,  with  the 
clothes  and  jewels  of  the  Egyptians,  but  they  had  only  the  garments  that 
they  wore  in  l)ondage,  and  their  only  jewel  was  the  jewel  of  freedom. 

The  scene  was  sad  and  joyful  ;  millions  of  people  without  a  foot  of  land 
to  stand  upon,  without  a  house  or  home  to  protect  them  from  the  storm  of 
winter  or  the  heat  of  the  summer.  They  were  landless,  houseless  and  name- 
less, because  hitherto  they  had  borne  the  names  of  their  masters ;  now  having 
no  masters,  they  had  no  names,  and  each  family  had  to  choose  a  new  name 
of  freedom,  and  they  named  their  children  after  the  generals,  the  majoi^s,  the 
colonels  and  captains  of  the  Union  army,  so  that  the  roster  of  the  army  of 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


I  102  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY. 

the  Union  is  the  Ivey  to  the  genealogical  record  of  the  new  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  freedom. 

Now,  what  has  the  negro  done  with  his  thirty  years  of  freedom  ?  The 
following  are  some  of  his  achievements  in  the  field  of  politics  and  govern- 
ment : 

In  thirty  years  the  negro  has  been  elected,  and  served  with  honor  to 
himself  and  to  his  race  on  the  city  council,  on  boards  of  aldermen,  in  state 
legislature,  in  state  senate,  in  national  congress  and  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  in  each  of  the  deliberate  bodies  has  he  presided  with  dignity. 

That  education  is  essential  to  the  success  of  an  individual,  family,  race 
or  country,  is  a  common  axiom.  The  following  figures  from  the  Hon.  W.  T. 
Harris,  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  tell  the  story  of  thirty 
years  of  freedom  and  education:  Total  enrollment,  in  1889,  in  institutions 
of  all  grades,  teachers,  24,038;  students,  1,327,822;  grand  total,  1,353,352. 

The  students  in  our  colleges  and  seminaries  have  acquitted  themselves 
nobly.  They  have  made  excellent  records  in  the  study  of  the  classics,  in 
the  study  of  the  higher  mathematics.  In  the  contests  for  class  honors  they 
have  won  victories  against  great  odds. 

Before  the  war  and  before  freedom,  it  was  a  strange  thing  to  hear  of  a 
negro  upon  the  platform.  Whether  in  religious  or  political  conventions,  at 
home  or  abroad,  the  platform  orators  of  the  negroes  have  been  heard  and 
felt  within  thirty  years. 

The  negro  has  appeared  upon  the  stage,  and  the  dramatic  power  of  the 
race  has  been  tested,  weighed  and  has  not  been  found  wanting. 

The  women  of  the  race,  in  the  past  thirty  years,  have  had  heavy  burdens 
to  bear,  difficult  tasks  to  perform,  intricate  subjects  to  consider  and  difficult 
questions  to  decide.  They  were  moved  from  the  hut  of  slavery  to  the  house 
of  freedom  without  furniture,  without  any  preparation.  They  had  to  leave 
many  things  behind  that  they  desired  to  bring  with  them  ;  they  brought  with 
them  many  things  that  they  ought  to  have  left  behind.  Thirty  years  have 
made  a  wonderful  change.  To-day  the  model  home  of  the  negro  is  a  place 
of  refinement,  culture,  a  home  of  song,  a  temple  of  industry,  a  sanctuary  of 
religion,  the  citadel  of  virtue  and  the  altar  of  patriotism,  where  obedience  to 
human  and  divine  law  is  taught  in  theory  and  by  practice. 

During  the  civil  war  in  America  from  1861  to  1865,  there  were  178,975 
negro  soldiers  who  enrolled  in  the  United  States  volunteer  army,  and  in  the 
449  engagements  in  which  they  participated  they  proved  themselves  worthy 
to  be  entrusted  with  the  nation's  flag  and  honor.  In  the  last  Indian  war 
one  of  the  colored  companies  distinguished  itself  for  bravery  and  saved 
the  army  from  defeat  and  destruction.  They  were  commended  by  the  com- 
manding general,  thanked  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  transferred  from  the 
field  in  the  West  to  Washington,  D.  C,  as  a  mark  of  honor  and  distinction 
for  their  bravery,  and  today  they  are  guarding  the  nation's  capital. 

1  he  mechanic  is  an  important   factor  in  every  community.     We  must 


ADDRESS   OF    BISHOP   ARNETT.  IIO3 

encourage  the  industrial  schools  by  sending  our  children  to  them,  by  contrib- 
uting of  our  means,  by  making  friends  for  them. 

We  must  be  able  to  build  our  own  houses,  make  our  own  furniture, 
weave  our  own  carpets.  We  must  teach  our  boys  to  make  brick ;  to  be 
blacksmiths;  to  be  tinners;  to  be  wagon  and  carriage  makers.  Our  boys 
throughout  the  country  have  awakened  to  the  situation  and  are  preparing 
themselves  for  the  future. 

The  growth  of  the  churches  since  the  war  has  been  marvelous.  The 
statistics  of  the  Methodist  Churches  show  the  following  totals :  Ministers  and 
members,  1,326,950;  houses  of  worship,  13,047;  church  and  school  prop- 
erty, $19,486,514. 

When  the  negro  race  assumed  the  responsibilities  of  freemen,  we  had  no 
physicians  of  our  own  ;  we  had  to  depend  on  others  to  care  for  our  sick  and  to 
relieve  our  ills.  But  since  that  day  our  young  men  have  entered  college, 
have  graduated  with  honor,  and  now  are  practicing  with  eminent  success. 

Our  fathers  in  their  bondage  crystallized  their  sorrows  and  their  woes 
into  songs  and  hymns,  and  when  freedom  came,  and  they  marched  out  of 
their  prison  into  the  sunlight  of  liberty,  the  songs  of  the  night  were  blended 
with  the  songs  of  the  day,  and  the  music  of  the  freedmen  became  the  hymns 
of  liberty. 

The  "  Fisk  Jubilee  Singers"  sang  in  the  East,  West,  North  and  South; 
finally  they  went  to  Europe  and  collected  means  and  built  a  temple  to 
Christian  education.  Other  companies  have  been  organized,  the  Wilber- 
force  Concert  Company;  the  Hampton  Singers,  who  sang  in  the  interest  of 
the  Hampton  College;  the  Tennesseeans,  who  sang  in  the  interest  of  Ten- 
nessee College. 

The  press  is  a  power.  It  was  formerly  used  against  the  interest  of  the 
negro,  but  now  the  negro  has  his  own  papers  and  can  speak  for  the  race, 
demand  his  rights  and  present  his  wrongs  to  the  world.  We  have  now 
about  150  newspapers,  pleading  the  cause  of  the  race  every  week,  all  since 
the  emancipation. 

After  having  reviewed  the  progress  of  the  race  for  thirty  years,  and 
witnessed  the  advancements  they  have  made,  it  is  with  more  than  ordinary 
pleasure  that  I  appear  in  the  presence  of  this  audience  to  show  the  world 
that  we  are  not  a  race  of  ingrates,  nor  forgetful  of  the  blessings  received, 
when  recording  the  wrongs  we  have  suffered  in  this  land  of  freedom. 

Now,  Hon.  James  M.  Ashley,  when  in  1865  I  sat  in  the  gallerv  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  and  witnessed  the  great  battle,  the  l«ist  Congress- 
ional battle,  I  did  not  think  that  1  should  be  called  to  perform  so  pleasant  a 
duty  as  this.  1  was  there  when  the  Speaker  announced  that  the  amend- 
ment had  passed.  I  joined  in  the  song  of  "  My  Country,  '  lis  of  Thee."  I 
heard  the  cannons  in  the  city  carrying  the  glad  tidings  in  the  air.  The  bells 
of  the  city  shouted  the  joy,  the  paper  we  published  was  happy  as  I  am 
to-niglit. 


I  104  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    TWELFTH    DAY. 

We  thought  that  to  collect  your  speeches,  which  in  their  day  were  our 
arms  and  battle-axes,  and  became  our  victory  and  liberty,  and  to  put  them 
into  a  volume,  would  be  better  than  a  shaft  of  marble  or  a  statue  of  brass, 
for  the  marble  would  crumble  beneath  the  weight  of  years  and  the  brass 
would  tarnish  in  the  breath  of  time,  but  this  volume  will  be  sent  to  the  public 
libraries  of  this  and  othen  lands,  and  be  read  by  the  coming  generations. 

Accept  this  token  from  the  present  generation,  and  on  behalf  of  the 
coming  generation  I  thank  you  for  what  you  have  done  for  them,  and  with 
you  I  rejoice  that  the  door  of  our  prison  is  closed  forever  and  the  gateway 
to  freedom  is  open, 

[In  accepting  the  gift  thus  presented  to  him,  Mr.  Ashley  replied  :] 

Monuments  are  usually  erected  by  friends  or  by  the  public  long  after 
men  are  dead.  In  compiling  and  publishing  this  volume  the  American 
negro'  has  builded  me  a  monument  more  enduring  than  any  which  my  family 
or  my  friends  can  erect  after  I  shall  have  quit  this  mortal  life.  It  is  to  me  a 
more  desirable  monument  than  any  other  which  my  colored  friends  could 
have  designed  or  presented  to  me,  for  I  recognize  that  it  was  conceived  by 
generous  and  grateful  hearts,  and  built  with  honest  hands.  I  accept  it  as 
the  black  man's  tribute  and  testimony.  It  is  a  monument  which  the  maligner 
cannot  misinterpret,  nor  vandals  deface,  nor  the  hired  assassin  destroy. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO  RACE. 
By  Rev.  J.  R.  Slattery,  of  St.  Joseph's  Seminary,  Baltimore,  Md. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  Catholic  Church  the  negro  is  a  man.  Her  teaching 
is  that  through  Christ  there  is  established  a  brotherly  bond  between  man 
and  man,  people  and  people. 

Our  Christian  advantages  flow  from  our  spiritual  birth  and  adoption 
into  the  family  of  God.  It  is  from  truth  that  comes  our  dignity,  not  from 
color  or  blood. 

After  the  rise  of  negro  slavery  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
the  Catholic  Church  applied  her  great  principles  of  the  natural  unity  of  the 
human  race  and  the  same  supernatural  destiny  to  that  infamous  traffic. 
Urban  VIII.,  Benedict  XIV.  and  Gregory  XVI.  condemned  it. 

Wherever  the  Catholic  Church  has  influence  there  is  no  negro  question. 
Brazil  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  emancipated  her  slaves,  while  the  United 
Stales  waded  through  oceans  of  blood  to  emancipate  them.  Whatever 
misery  afflicts  Spanish  America,  the  Catholic  instinct  of  human  equality  has 
delivered  it  from  race  antagonisms.  There  is  no  negro  problem  in  Catholic 
'South  America. 

The  Catholic  Church  forever  restricts  bondage  to  bodily  service,  the 
bondman  being   in  her  eyes  a  man,  a  moral  being  with  a  conscience  of  his 


BISHOP  HENJAMIX  W.  ARNF.IT,  D.D. 

"we  meet  you  on  the  height  of  this  parliament  of  religions,  the  first  cathekixg 
of  the   peofles   since  the  time  of  noah,   when  shem,  ham  and  jai'heth  have   met 

together.     I  GKEETTHE  CHILDREN  OF  SHEM,  1  GREET  THE  CHILDREN  OF  JAPHETH.ANDl  WAN  r 
VOL'  TO  UNDERSTAND  THAT  HAM   IS  HERE  I  " 


70 


II06  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   TWELFTH    DAY, 

own,  which  no  master  under  any  cloak  may  invade.  For  she  has  the  one 
law  for  master  and  slave,  one  code  of  morality  binds  both ;  each  is  account- 
able for  his  own  deeds  before  the  Just  Judge.  "God,"  says  St.  Augustine, 
"  gave  man  dominion  over  the  irrational  creatures,  but  not  over  the  rational." 
The  church,  moreover,  always  insisted  on  the  Christian  marriage  of  the 
slave,  thereby  holding  that  he  is  a  person  and  not  a  chattel. 

It  may  be  well,  however,  to  emphasize  the.  position  of  the  Catholic 
Church  still  more.  She  asserts  the  unity  of  the  race.  The  negro,  then,  is 
of  the  race  of  Adam,  created  by  the  same  God,  redeemed  by  the  same 
Saviour  and  destined  to  the  same  heaven  as  the  white  man. 

If,  then,  the  negro  may  be  called  a  man  among  men  and  an  heir  to  all 
the  glorious  privileges  of  humanity  and  also  of  Christianity,  what,  we  may 
ask,  are  the  means  to  be  employed  to  place  him  in  possession  of  this  divine 
heritage  ?  There  is,  I  believe,  one  true  means  for  his  advancement  and 
that  is  the  negro  himself,  guided  and  led  by  Christianity. 

His  future  demands  the  building  of  his  character,  and  this  is  best 
done  by  the  mingled  efforts  of  brotherly  white  men  and  worthy  black  men. 
His  temperament,  his  passions  and  other  inherent  qualities,  in  great  measure, 
also  his  industrial  and  social  environments,  are  beyond  his  control,  and  he 
needs  the  aid  of  the  best  men  of  his  own  race,  but  associated  with  and  not 
divorced  from  the  cooperation  of  the  best  of  the  white  race. 

In  the  formation  of  his  character,  which  is  his  weak  spot,  chief  stress 
should  be  laid  on  moral  training  and  education.  External  influences,  con- 
trolled by  noble  men  and  women  of  both  races,. will  count  for  more  with  him 
than  with  us.  We  can  hardly  appreciate  how  much  the  negro  has  to  con- 
tend with  while  making  his  moral  growth,  for  neither  the  antecedents  nor 
surroundings  of  our  black  countrymen  are  calculated  to  draw  out  the  noblest 
side  of  human  nature. 

They  must  be  given  the  ample  chanty  of  Christ  in  their  development, 
just  as  they  have  been  given  the  full  equality  of  citizenship. 

Let  us  bear  in  mind  that  among  whites  of  every  kind  there  is  an 
immense  amount  of  partly  Christian  and  partly  natural  tradition,  which  is 
weak  among  the  blacks  by  no  fault  of  their  own.  There  is  the  home,  the 
domestic  fireside,  the  respect  for  Sunday,  the  sense  of  respectability,  the 
weight  of  the  responsibilities  of  life,  the  consciousness  of  duty  the  love  of 
honesty,  which  is  regarded  as  true  policy,  the  honor  of  the  family  name,  the 
fear  of  disgrace,  together  with  the  aspirations  for  a  share  in  the  blessings 
and  privileges  which  our  own  country  and  civiiizalion  afford.  And  while  very 
many  of  our  white  countrymen  are  not  Catholics,  are  even  but  nominal 
Christians,  still  these  weighty  influences  wield  a  potent  charm  for  good  over 
their  lives. 

In  regard  to  the  negro  race,  however,  these  hardly  exist ;  at  best  they 
may  be  found  in  isolated  cases,  though  it  is  true  that  very  encouraging 
signs  of  them  are  seen  occasionally. 


THE  THIRTEENTH  DAY. 


RELIGION  AND  THE  LOVE  OF  MANKIND. 

By  John  W.  Hoyt. 

[Before  the  address  of  Mr.  Hoyt,  a  letter  was  read  from  the  Metropol- 
itan Bishop  of  Athens,  Greece.     It  is  here  given.] 

Athens,  Greece,  July  28, 1893. 
Most  Honorable  President,^- We  have  been  very  glad  in  our 
hearts  for  that  happy  idea  of  assembling  such  a  Religious  Congress,  in 
which  with  such  scientific  exactness  and  enfirety,  ail  the  existing  differ- 
ences of  all  the  religions  of  earth  will  be  examined  and  discussed,  and 
that  which  surpasses  will  be  brought  to  light,  and  that  those  who-  are  far 
from  the  truth,  if  they  do  not  come  immediately  into  a  realizing  sense  of 
the  text  of  scripture  which  holds  the  promise  that  we  will  be  one  faith, 
one  shepherd  under  our  Jesus  ('hrist,  they  will  at  least  approach  to  it,  and 
be  gradually  illuminated  by  the  light  of  the  true  faith.  A  great  sorrow 
holds  me  because  I  could  not  fulfill  this-  my  gre^t  desire  either  by  my  pres- 
ence or  by  representative.  Meanwhile,  being  absent  and  far  away  bodily, 
but  being  present  by  my  spirit,  I  never  cease  to  send  up  my  prayers  to  the 
Highest  and  to  require  a  beam  of  light  from  the  Divinity  which  shall  illumine 
your  great  Congress  and  serve  as  a  reward  of  your  labors  in  bringing  it 
together.     With  great  respect  I  am  yours  truly, 

Metropolite  of  Athens,  Ghermanus. 
[Mr.  Hoyt  then  spoke.]  Religion  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  man  with  his  numberless  wants  of  body,  intellect,  will  and  undying 
soul.  Because  of  this  human  constitution  there  will  ever  be  need  of  a  body 
of  truth  embracing  such  laws  and  sanctions  as  should  entitle  it  to  the  accept- 
ance and  respect  of  mankind. 

How  far  have  the  several  religions  of  the  world  actually  met  these  high 
demands  of  the  race,  and  how  far  has  the  vital  religious  truth,  found  in  all 
uf  them,  been  so  obscured  by  the  drapery  of  useless  theories  and  forms  as 
to  have  been  made  of  none  effect  ?  What  religious  system  does  not  quake 
at  this  question  ? 

And  there  is  yet  another  question  of  even  greater  practical  moment, 
namely  :  Whether  religious  faiths,  conflicting  creeds,  may  not  be  so  harmon- 
ized upon  the  great  essential  truths  recognized  by  all  as  to  make  their 
adherents  cordial  allies  and  earnest  co-workers  for  man's  redemption  from 

1 107 


II08    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  THIRTEENTH  DAY. 

the  bondage  of  sin,  and  for  his  advancement  to  the  dignity  and  glory  of  the 
ideal  man  ?  The  religion  the  world  needs,  and  will  at  last  have,  is  one  that 
shall  make  for  the  rescue  and  elevation  of  mankind  in  every  realm  and 
to  the  highest  possible  degree. 

There  had  been  substantial  and  valuable  expressions  of  it  by  great  and 
good  men  long  centuries  before  the  Christian  Era — as  by  Moses,  Confucius, 
Buddha,  Socrates  and  Mohammed  ;  but,  in  my  judgment,  it  had  its  first  full 
and  complete  expression  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who,  by  his  supreme  teach- 
ings, sounded  the  depths  and  swept  the  heavens  of  both  ethical  and  religious 
truth. 


GROUNDS    OF    SYMPATHY    AND    FRATERNITY 
AMONG  RELIGIOUS  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 

By  Aaron  M.  Powell,  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 

Every  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  has  some  conception  of  the 
Supreme  and  the  Infinite  ;  it  is  common  to  all  classes,  all  races,  all  nationali- 
ties; but  the  Christian  ideal,  according  to  my  own  conception,  is  the  highest 
and  most  complete  ideal  of  all.  It  embraces  most  fully  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  brotherhood  of  mankind.  The  potent  religious  life  is  nol  a 
creed  but  a  character.  It  is  for  this  message  that  the  waiting  multitude  lis- 
tens. We  have  many  evidences  of  this.  Among  the  recent  deaths  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  which  awaken  world-wide  echoes  of  lamentation  and 
regret,  there  has  been  no  one  so  missed  and  so  mourned,  as  a  religious 
teacher,  in  this  country,  as  Phillips  Brooks.  One  thing,  above  all  else;  that 
characterized  the  ministry  of  Phillips  Brooks,  was  his  interpretation  of  spir- 
itual power  in  the  life  of  one  individual  soul.  The  one  poet  who  lias  voiced 
this  thought  most  widely  in  our  own  and  in  other  countries,  whose  words  are 
to  be  found  in  the  afterpart  of  the  general  program  of  this  Parliament,  is  the 
Quaker  poet,  Whittier.  His  words  are  adapted  to  world-wide  use,  by  all 
who  enter  into  the  spirit  of  Christianity  in  its  utmost  simplicity.  In  seeking 
the  grounds  of  fraternity  and  cooperation  we  must  not  look  in  the  region  of 
forms,  and  ceremonies,  and  rituals,  wherein  we  may  all  very  properly  differ, 
and  agree  to  differ,  as  we  are  doing  here,  but  we  must  seek  them  especially 
in  the  direction  of  unity  and  of  action  for  the  rempval  of  the  world's  great 
evils. 

Among  the  exhibits  at  the  White  City  is  the  great  Krupp  gun.  It  is  a 
marvelous  piece  of  inventive  ingenuity.  It  is  absolutely  appalling  in  its  possi- 
bilities for  the  destruction  of  humanity.  Now,  if  the  religious  people  of  the 
world,  whatever  their  name  or  form,  will  unite  in  a  general  league  against 
war  and  resolve  to  arbitrate  all  difficulties,  I  believe  that  that  great  Krupp 
gun  will,  if  not  preserved  for  some  museum,  be  literally  melted  and  recast 
into  plow-shares  and  pruning  hooks. 


POWELL:  GROUNDS  OF  RELIGIOUS  SYMPATHY.        I  lOQ 

This  Parliament  has  laid  very  broad  foundations.  It  is  presenting  an 
object-lesson  of  immense  value.  In  June  I  had  the  privilege  of  assisting  here 
in  another  world's  congress  wherein  were  representatives  of  various  nation- 
alities and  countries.  All  these  were  tremendously  in  earnest  to  strike  a  blow 
ac  one  of  the  great  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  Christian  life  in  Europe — 
state-regulated  vice.  I  cannot  deal  in  detail  with  that  subject  now,  but  I  may 
say  that  it  is  the  most  infamous  system  of  slavery  of  womanhood  and  girlhood 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  exists  in  most  European  countries  and  has  its 
champions  in  America,  who  have  been  seeking  by  their  propagandism  to 
fasten  it  upon  our  large  cities. 

Now,  what  has  America  to  do  on  this  line?  America  has  a  fearful 
responsibility,  though  it  may  not  have  the  actual  system  of  state-regulation. 
We  call  ourselves  a  Christian  country,  and  yet  in  this  beloved  America  of 
ours,  in  more  than  one  state,  under  the- operation  of  the  law  called  "age  of 
consent,"  a  young  girl  of  ten  years  is  held  capable  of  consenting  to  her  own 
ruin.  Shame,  indeed ;  it  is  a  shame  ;  a  ten  fold  shame.  I  appeal,  in  pass- 
ing, for  league  and  unity  among  religious  people  for  the  overthrow  of  this 
system  in  European  countries,  and  the  rescue  and  redemption  of  our  own 
land  from  this  gigantic  evil  which  threatens  us  here. 

I  now  pass  to  another  overshadowing  evil,  the  ever  pressing  drink  evil. 
There  was  another  congress  held  here  in  June  ;  it  was  to  deal  with  the  vice 
of  intemperance.  It  had  the  privilege  of  looking  over  forty  consular  reports 
prepared  at  the  request  of  the  late  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Blaine.  In  every 
one  of  these  reports  intemperance  was  shown  to  be  a  producing  cause  of  a 
large  part  of  the  vice,  immorality  and  crime  in  those  countries.  There  is 
need  of  an  alliance  on  the  part  of  religious  people  for  the  removal  of  this 
great  evil  which  stands  in  the  pathway  of  practical  Christian  progress. 

Now,  another  thought  in  a  different  direction.  What  the  world  greatly 
needs  to-day  in  all  countries  is  greater  simplicity  in  connection  with  the 
religious  life  and  propagandism.  The  Society  of  Friends,  in  whose  behalf  I 
appear  before  you,  may  fairly  claim  to  have  been  teachers  by  example  in 
that  direction.  We  want  to  banish  the  spirit  of  worldliness  from  every  land, 
which  has  taken  possession  of  many  churches,  and  inaugurate  an  era  of 
greater  simplicity. 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  RELIGION  IN  RIGHT  CONDUCT. 
By  Rev.  Alfred  W.  Momerie,  D.D. 

There  is  a  unity  of  religion  underlying  the  diversity  of  religions,  and  the 
important  work  before  us  is  not  so  much  to  make  men  accept  one  or  the 
other  of  the  various  religions  of  the  world,  as  to  induce  them  to  accept  relig- 
ion in  a  broad  and  universal  sense.  This  lesson  which  we  have  learned 
here,  we  shall,  I  hope,  teach  elsewhere,  so  that,  from  the  Hall  of  Columbus 
as  a  center,  it  will  spread  and  spread  and  spread,  until  it  at  last  reaches  the 
furtherest  limits  of  the  habitable  globe. 

The  clergymen  are  responsible  mainly  for  the  bigotry  of  the  laity.  I 
am  glad  you  agree  with  me.  You  have  got  it  from  us.  We  have  been 
bigots  partly  from  ignorance,  partly  from  our  supercilious  priestly  pride.  We 
have  transferred  our  bigotry  to  the  laity.  We  have  kindled  their  bigotry 
into  a  flame.  But  there  have  been  one  or  two  glorious  exceptions.  I  should 
like  to  quote  you  two  or  three  verses  from  one  of  your  own  bishops  : 

The  parish  priest. 

Of  austerity. 

Climbed  up  in  a  high  church  steeple, 

To  be  nearer  God, 

So  that  he  might  hand 

His  word  down  to  the  people. 

And  in  sermon  script. 

He  daily  wrote 

What  he  thought  was  sent  from  heaven  ; 

And  he  dropped  it  down 

On  the  people's  heads 

Two  times  one  day  in  seven. 

In  his  age  God  said 
"Come  down  and  die  ;  " 

And  he  cried  out  from  the  steeple, 
"Where  art  thou,  Lord?" 

And  the  Lord  replied, 
"  Down  here  among  my  people." 

Now,  who  are  God's  people  ?  What  is  religion  ?  Perhaps  we  may  I)e 
able  to  arrive  at  a  definite  answer  to  this  question  if  we  try  to  discover 
whether  there  are  any  subjects  in  regard  to  which  the  great  religious  lead- 
ers of  the  world  differ.  Let  me  read  you  two  or  three  extracts.  The  first 
words  are  taken  from  the  old  Hebrew  Prophets  : 

To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  unto  me  ?  saith  the 
Lord.  I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks  or  of  he-goats.  Bring  no 
more  vain  oblations ;  incense  is  an  abomination  unto  me ;  your  new  moons 


MOMEklE:   THE    ESSENCE  OF    RELIGION.  II  II 

and  sabbaths  I  cannot  away  with.  Cease  to  do  evil ;  learn  to  do  well.  Seek 
jiKlgment ;  relieve  the  oppressed  ;  judge  the  fatherless  ;  plead  for  the  widow. 

Zoroaster  preached  the  doctrine  that  the  one  thing  needful  was  to  do 
right.  All  good  thoughts,  words  and  works  lead  to  Paradise.  All  evil 
thoughts,  words  and  works  to  hell.  Confucius  was  so  anxious  to  fix  men's 
attention  on  their  duty  that  he  would  enter  into  no  metaphysical  speculation 
regarding  the  problem  of  immortality.  When  questioned  about  it  he  replied  : 
"  I  do  not  as  yet  know  what  life  is.  How  can,  I  understand  death  ?  "  The 
whole  duty  of  man,  he  said,  might  be  summed  up  in  the  word  reciprocity. 
We  must  refrain  from  injuring  others,  as  we  would  that  they  should  refrain 
from  injuring  us.  Gautama  taught  that  every  man  has  to  work  out  his  sal- 
vation for  himself,  without  the  mediation  of  a  priest.  On  one  occasion, 
when  he  met  a  sacrificial  procession,  he  explained  to  his  followers  that  it 
was  idle  to  shed  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats,  that  all  they  needed  was 
change  of  heart.  So,  too,  he  insisted  on  the  uselessness  of  fasts  and  pen- 
antes  and  other  forms  of  ritual. 

■'Neither  going  naked,  nor  shaving  the  head,  nor  wearing  matted  hair, 
nor  dirt,  nor  rough  garments,  nor  reading  the  Vedas  will  cleanse  a  man.  . 
.  .  Anger,  drunkenness,  envy,  disparaging  others,  these  constitute  unclean- 
ness,  and  not  the  eating  of  flesh." 

He  summed  up  his  teaching  in  the  celebrated  verse  : 

To  cease  from  sin. 

To  get  virtue. 

To  cleanse  the  heart, 

That  is  the  religion  of  the  Buddhas. 

And  in  the  farewell  address  which  he  delivered  to  his  disciples  he 
called  his  religion  by  the  name  of  Purity.  "Learn,"  he  exhorted,  "and 
spread  abroad  the  law  thought  out  and  revealed  by  me,  that  this  Purity  of 
mine  may  last  long  and  be  perpetuated  for  the  good  and  happiness  of  mul- 
titudes." To  the  same  effect  spoke  Christ:  "Not  everyone  that  sayeth 
unto  me.  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he  that 
doeth  the  will  ot  my  Father."  Mohammed  again  taught  the  self-same  doc- 
trine of  justification  by  works  : 

It  is  not  the  flesh  and  blood  ye  sacrificed  ;  it  is  your  piety,  which  is 

acceptable  to  God Woe  to  them   that   make  a  show  of  piety   and 

refuse  to  help  the  needy.  It  is  not  righteousness  that  ye  turn  your  faces  in 
prayer  toward  the  east  or  toward  the  west,  but  righteousness  is  of  those 
who  perform  the  covenants  which  they  have  covenanted. 

This  was  the  teaching  of  the  great  religious  teachers  of  the  world.  But 
these  old  forms  of  religion  are  hardly  now  recognizable.  Vou  have  only  to 
read  Davies'  Book  on  Buddhism  and  the  great  poem  to  which  reference  has 
been  made,  and  vou  will  see  how  in  modern  times  there  is  a  wide  departure 
from  the  original  Buddhism  and  Mohammedanism — how  far  they  have 
diverged  from  the  original  plan  of  their  fathers.  And  the  same  is  true  of 
Christianity.     Christ  taught  no  dogmas,  Christ  laid  down  no  system  of  cere- 


I  I  12         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

monialism.  And  yet,  what  do  we  find  in  Christendom?  For  centuries  his 
disciples  engaged  in  the  fiercest  controversy  over  the  question,  "  Whether 
his  substance  " — (whatever  that  may  be — you  may  know,  I  don't) — "  was 
the  same  substance  of  the  Father  or  only  similar."  Thay  fought  like  tigers 
over  the  definition  of  the  very  Prince  of  Peace.  Later  on  Christendom  was 
literally  rent  asunder  over  the  question  of  "  Whether  the  Holy  Ghost  pro- 
ceeded from  the  Father  and  the  Son  "  (whatever  that  may  mean).  And  my 
own  church,  the  Church  of  England,  has  been,  and  still  is,  in  danger  of  dis- 
ruption from  the  question  of  clothes. 

Now  these  metaphysical  subtleties — these  questions  of  millinery — were 
started  by  theologians.  They  may  be  useful  or  not — that  is  a  matter  of 
opinion — but  they  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  religion  as  religion  was 
understood  by  the  greatest  teachers — the  true  religion  which  the  world  has 
had.  That  is  a  fact  which  all  the  great  religious  teachers  of  the  world  have 
agreed  upon,  that  conduct  was  the  only  thing  needful. 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  a  religion  of  conduct  is  nothing  but  mor- 
ality. Some  people  have  a  great  contempt  for  morality,  and  I  am  not  sur- 
prised at  it.  They  are  accustomed  to  call  men  moral  who  restrain  them- 
selves from  murder  and  manage  just  to  steer  clear  of  the  divorce  court. 
That  kind  of  morality  is  a  contemptible  thing.  That  is  not  real  morality. 
We  should  understand  by  morality  all  around  good  conduct,  conduct  that  is 
governed  only  by  love,  and  in  that  true  sense  there  is  no  such  thing  as  mere 
morality ;  in  that  true  sense  morality  involves  religion.  Don't  misunder- 
stand me  ;  I  am  far  from  denying  the  importance  of  an  explicit  recognition 
of  God.  It  is  of  very  great  importance.  It  affords  us  an  explanation,  a 
hopeful  explanation  of  the  mysteries  of  existence  which  nothing  else  can 
supply. 

But  explicit  recognition  of  God  is  not  the  beginning  of  religion.  That 
is  not  the  first  which  is  spiritual,  6ut  that  which  is  natural,  and  afterward 
that  which  is  spiritual.  "  If  a  man  love  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?  "  Nor  is  an  explicit  recogni- 
tion of  God  the  essence  of  religion.  Who  shall  define  the  essence  of  religion? 
If  a  man  say  that  he  loves  God  and  hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a  liar.  It  is  by 
love  of  man  alone  that  religion  can  be  manifested.  The  love  of  man  is  the 
essence  of  religion.  Religion  may  be  lacking  in  metaphysical  complete- 
ness; it  may  be  lacking  in  original  consistency;  it  may  be  lacking  in  esthet- 
ical  development ;  it  may  be  lacking  in  almost  everything,  yet  if  lacking  in 
brotherly  love  it  would  be  mockery  and  a  sham. 

The  essential  thing  is  in  right  conduct,  therefore  it  follows  that  there 
must  be  implicit  recognition  of  God.  I  tell  you  there  is  a  strange  surprise 
awaiting  some  of  us  in  the  great  hereafter.  "  We  shall  discover  that  many 
so-called  atheists  are,  after  all,  more  religious  than  ourselves.  He  who 
worships,  though  he  know  it  not,  peace  be  on  the  intention  of  his  thought, 
devout  beyond  the  meaning  of  his  will.  The  whole  thing  has  been  summed 
up  once  and  forever  in  Leigh  Hunt's  beautiful  story  of  "  Abou  Ben  Adhem." 


AARON  M.  POWELL. 


"  I  BELIEVE  WE  STAND  TO- DAY  AT  THE  DIVIDING  OF  THE  WAYS,  AND  I  HOPE  THAT  ONE  OtrTCOME 
OK  THIS  CKEAT  I'AKLIAMENT  WILL  liE  SOM  E  SOKT  OK  ACTION  BETWEEN  THE  I'EOPLES  OK  THE 
DIKKEKENT  KEI.K.IONS  LOOK  I  NO  TO  TIIIC  KEMOVALOK  THE  GREAT  EVILS  WHICH  STAND  IN  THE 
PATHWAY  OK  TllK   I'UOGKESS  OJ-  All.   I  KIE   KKI.IGIONS." 


WHAT  CAN  RELIGION  FURTHER  DO  TO  ADVANCE 
THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO? 

By  Fannie  Barrier  Williams. 

Believing,  as  we  all  do,  that  the  saving  power  of  religion  pure  and  sim- 
ple transcends  all  other  forces  that  make  for  righteousness  in  human  life,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  believe  that  when  such  a  religion  becomes  a  part  of  the 
breath  and  life,  not  only  of  the  colored  peopl*;,  but  of  all  the  people  in  the 
country,  there  will  be  no  place  or  time  for  the  reign  of  prejudice  and 
injustice.  More  of  religion  and  less  church  may  be  accepted  as  a  general 
answer  to  this  question.  In  the  first  place,  the  churches  have  sent  amongst 
us  too  many  ministers  who  have  had  no  sort  of  preparation  and  fitness  for 
the  work  assigned  them.  With  a  due  regard  for  the  highly  capable  colored 
ministers  of  the  country,  I  feel  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  the  advancement 
of  our  condition  is  more  hindered  by  a  large  part  of  the  ministry  entrusted 
with  the  leadership  than  by  any  other  single  cause.  No  class  of  American 
citizens  has  had  so  little  religion  and  so  much  vitiating  nonsense  preached 
to  them  as  the  colored  people  of  this  country.  Only  men  of  moral  and 
mental  force,  of  a  patriotic  regard  for  the  relationship  of  the  two  races,  can 
be  of  real  service  as  ministers  in  the  South.  A  man  should  have  the  quali- 
fications of  a  teacher,  the  self-sacrificing  spirit  of  a  true  missionary,  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  reformer  to  do  much  good  as  a  preacher  among  the  negroes. 
There  is  needed  less  theology  and  more  of  human  brotherhood,  less  decla- 
mation and  more  common  sense  and  love  for  the  truth. 

The  home  and  social  life  of  these  people  are  in  urgent  need  of  the  puri- 
fying power  of  religion.  In  nothing  was  slavery  so  savage  and  so  relent- 
ness  as  in  its  attempted  destruction  of  the  family  instinct  of  the  negro  race 
in  America.  Individuals  not  families,  shelters  not  homes,  herding  not  mar- 
riage, were  the  cardinal  sins  in  that  system  of  horrors.  Religion  should  not 
utter  itself  only  once  or  twice  a  week  through  a  minister  from  a  pulpit,  but 
should  open  every  cabin  door  and  get  immediate  contact  with  those  who 
have  not  yet  learned  to  translate  into  terms  of  conduct  the  promptings  of 
religion.  There  is  needed  in  these  new  and  budding  homes  of  the  race  a 
constructive  morality.  The  colored  people  are  eager  to  learn  and  know  the 
lessons  that  make  men  and  women  morally  strong  and  responsible.  In 
pleading  for  some  organized  effort  to  improve  the  home  life  of  these  people, 
we  are  asking  for  nothing  but  what  is  recognized  everywhere  as  the  neces- 
sary protection  to  the  homes  of  all  civilized  people. 

There  is  still  another  and  important  need  of  religion  in  behalf  of  our 
advancement.     In  nothing  do  the  American  people  so  contradict  the  spirit 

X114 


WILLIAMS:   THE    AMERICAN   NEGRO.  II  I5 

of  their  institutions,  the  high  sentiments  of  their  civilization,  and  the  maxims 
uf  their  religion,  as  they  do  in  practically  denying  to  our  colored  men  and 
women  the  full  rights  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  The 
colored  people  have  appealed  to  every  source  of  power  and  authority  for 
relief,  but  in  vain.  For  the  last  twenty-five  years  we  have  gone  to  legisla- 
tures, to  political  parties,  and  even  to  churches,  for  some  cure  for  prejudice  ; 
but  we  have  at  last  learned  that  help  from  these  sources  is  merely  palliative. 
It  is  a  monstrous  thing  that  nearly  one-half  of  the  so-called  Evangelical 
churches  of  this  country,  those  situated  in  the  South,  repudiate  fellowship  to 
every  Christian  man  and  woman  who  happens  to  be  of  African  descent. 
The  golden  rule  of  fellowship  taught  in  the  Christian  Bible  becomes  in 
practice  the  iron  rule  of  race  hatred.  Can  religion  help  the  American 
people  to  be  consistent  and  to  live  up  to  all  they  profess  and  believe  in 
their  government  and  religion  ?  What  we  need  is  such  a  reinforcement  of 
the  gentle  power  of  religion  that  all  souls  of  whatever  color  shall  be  incjuded 
within  the  blessed  circle  of  its  influence.  It  should  be  the  province  of  relig- 
ion to  unite,  and  not  to  separate,  men  and  women  according  to  the  super- 
ficial differences  of  race  lines.  The  American  negro  in  his  environment  needs 
the  moral  helpfulness  of  contact  with  men  and  women  whose  lives  are 
larger,  sweeter  and  stronger  than  his.  The  colored  man  has  the  right 
according  to  his  worth  to  earn  an  honest  living  in  every  calling  and  branch 
of  industry  that  makes  ours  the  busiest  of  nations,  but  there  is  needed  a  more 
religious  sense  of  justice  that  will  permit  him  to  exercise  this  right  as  freely 
as  any  other  worthy  citizen  can  do. 

I  believe  that  I  correctly  speak  the  feeling  of  the  colored  people  in 
declaring  our  unyielding  faith  in  the  corrective  influence  of  true  religion. 
We  believe  that  there  is  too  much  potency  in  the  sentiment  of  human  broth- 
erhood, and  in  the  still  higher  sentiment  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  to  allow 
a  whole  race  of  hopeful  men  and  women  to  remain  long  outside  of  the  pale 
of  that  ever  growing  sympathetic  interest  of  man  in  man. 


INTERNATIONAL    ARBITRATION. 
By  Thomas   J,  Semmes. 

In  the  beginning  of  Roman  domination,  international  law  had 
really  no  existence ;  the  Roman  world  was  in  fact  a  federation  of  peoples 
under  the  same  ruler  as  sovereign  arbitrator  ;  for  the  allies  and  confederates 
of  Rome  were  subjects  who  preserved  the  appearance  of  liberty.  This 
union  of  states  did  not  resemble  the  society  of  free  and  equal  states,  lik^e 
that  of  modern  times  ;  it  was  a  society  of  states  equally  subject  to  Roman 
power,  though  the  forms  of  subjection  were  different.  At  a  later  period 
appearances  were  abandoned  ;  the  territories  of  allies,  confederates  and 
kings  were  divided  into  Roman  provinces,  subject  to  the  imperial  power. 

At  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Goths,  the  Fianks,  the  Saxons  and 
the  Vandals  had  divided  the  western  provinces  of  the  Roroin  Empire  into 
different  kingdoms,  and  to  the  subjection  of  the  Caesars  succeeded  the  lib- 
erty of  the  peoples  become  independent  sovereigns  on  their  own  territory. 

The  church  alone,  in  the  inidst  of  this  world  of  dissolution,  was  com- 
pletely and  powerfully  organized.  The  various  states,  conscious  of  their 
weakness,  voluntarily  sought  pontifical  intervention,  until  the  pontifical 
tribunal  became  the  resort  of  peoples  and  princes  for  the  settlement  of  their 
controversies  on  principles  of  equity  and  justice.  Again,  during  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries,  the  papal  authority  was  the  only  moral  force 
exerted  in  Europe  to  check  the  disorders  and  violence  of  the  age;  to  itwas 
due  "  the  peace  and  the  truce  of  God."  From  that  time  until  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Pope  was  the  acknowledged  arbitrator,  not  only  of  controver- 
sies between  nations,  but  of  controversies  between  peoples  and  their  rulers. 

The  international  regime  of  Christendom  presupposed  unity  of  faith 
among  all  the  peoples  composing  it,  adherence  to  the  Catholic  faith,  and,  as 
a  consequence,  general  obedience  to  the  decrees  of  the  Pope.  But  the  Pro- 
testant Reformation  denied  the  authority  of  the  church.  This  rendered 
papal  arbitration  no  longer  possible,  and  no  other  tribunal  for  the  determin- 
ation of  controversies  between  nations  has  been  substituted  in  its  place. 
Many  schemes  have  since  been  proposed,  many  attempts  have  been  sincerely 
made,  to  establish  complete  international  arbitration.  But  the  movement 
has  not  yet  advanced  beyond  earnest  agitation,  although  there  have  been 
many  instances  of  arbitration  between  a  few  nations,  which  indicate  what 
a  glorious  thing  a  perfect  system  of  international  arbitration  would  be. 

Modern  society  demands  of  states  that  they  accept  for  themselves  the 
law  which  they  impose  on  their  own  citizens,  that  no  person  shall  be  a  judge 
in  his  own  case.     In  this  society  there  are  many  patriots  of  humanity  who 

1116 


SEMMES:    INTERNATIONAL    ARBITRATION.  III7 

believe  that  love  of  country  may  be  reconciled  with  the  love  of  humanity, 
and  that  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  for  the  happiness  of  nations  and 
the  tranquillity  of  governments,  the  policy  of  life  will  take  a  definitive  step 
tovvards  the  suppression  of  the  policy  of  death.  Fenelon  said  :  "As  the  peo- 
ple of  each  state  ought  to  be  subject  to  the  laws  of  their  country,  although 
those  laws  may  sometimes  conflict  with  their  particular  interest,  so  each  sep- 
arate nation  ought  to  respect  the  laws  of  the  civilized  world,  which  are  those 
of  nature  and  of  nations,  to  the  prejudice  even  of  its  own  interest  and 
aggrandizement.  It  is  not  lawful  for  one  to  save  himself  by  the  ruin  of  his 
family,  nor  to  aggrandize  his  family  to  the  injury  of  his  country,  nor 
to  seek  the  glory  of  his  country  by  violating  the  rights  of  humanity."  With 
treaties  of  arbitration  commence  the  juridical  status  of  nations,  and  states- 
men think  that  international  wars  will  disappear  before  the  arbitration  tri- 
bunals of  a  more  advanced  civilization. 

President  Grant  in  his  message  to  Congress  in  1873  mystically  said, 
"  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  the  Author  of  the  universe  is  preparing  the 
world  to  become  a  single  nation,  speaking  the  same  language,  which  will 
hereafter  render  armies  and  navies  superfluous."  In  1874  Congress,  by  a 
joint  resolution,  declared  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  recommend 
that  an  arbitration  tribunal  be  substituted  in  place  of  war,  and  the  President 
was  authorized  to  open  negotiations  for  the  establishment  of  a  system  of 
international  rules  for  the  settlement  of  controversies  without  resort  to  war. 
In  December,  1882,  President  Garfield  announced  in  his  message  to  Con- 
gress that  he  was  leady  to  participate  in  any  measure  tending  "to  guarantee 
peace  on  earth." 

The  United  States  in  many  instances  has  added  example  to  precept. 
Since  the  year  1818  the  United  States  has  settled  by  arbitration  all  of  its 
controversies  with  foreign  nations.  The  differences  with  England  as  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  treaty  of  Ghent  were  submitted  to  arbitration  in 
1818,  and  again  m  1822,  and  the  third  time  in  1827.  Arbitration  disposed 
of  the  controversies  with  Portugal  in  1851,  with  Great  Britain  in  regard  to 
slaves  landed  at  Napan  from  the  ship  "Creole"  in  1853,  with  Chili  in  1858, 
with  Paraguay  in  1859,  with  Peru  in  1863  and  1868,  with  Great  Britain  as 
to  Puget  Sound  in  1863,  with  Mexico  in  1868,  with  Great  Britain  as  to 
losses  caused  by  Confederate  cruisers  during  the  civil  war  in  187 1,  with 
Columbia  in  1874,  with  France  in  1880,  with  Denmark  in  1888,  with 
\'enezuela  in  1890,  and  only  a  few  weeks  ago  the  Behring  Sea  controversy 
with  England  was  settled  by  arbitration  in  Paris. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  during  the  century  from  1793  to  1893 
there  have  been  fifty-eight  international  arbitrations,  and  the  advance  of 
public  opinion  toward  that  mode  of  settling  national  controversies  may  be 
measured  by  the  gradual  increase  of  arbitration  during  the  course  of  the 
century.  From  1793  to  1848,  a  period  of  fifty-five  years,  there  were  nine 
arbitrations;    there  were  fifteen   from  1848  to  1870,  a  period  of  twenty-two 


IIl8         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

years;  there  were  fourteen  from  1870  to  1880,  and  twenty  from  1880  to 
1893.  The  United  States  and  other  American  States  were  interested  in 
thirteen  of  these  arbitrations;  the  United  States,  other  American  States  and 
European  nations,  were  interested  in  twenty-three ;  Asiatic  and  African 
States  were  interested  in  three ;  and  European  nations  only  were  interested 
in  eighteen. 

Peace  leagues,  and  international  conferences,  and  associations  for  the 
advancement  of  social  science,  have  for  over  thirty  years  endeavored  to 
elaborate  an  international^code,  with  organized  arbitration  ;  that  is  to  say, 
a  permanent  juridical  tribunal,  as  distinguished  from  a  political  congress. 
These  associations  see  that  economical  solidarity  dominates  our  age,  that 
the  mutual  dependence  of  nations  is  manifested.  Italy  and  France  unite  to 
pierce  Mont  Cenis ;  Germany,  Switzerland  and  Italy  are  united  by  the 
tunnel  of  St.  Gothard  ;  England  and  America  by  the  transatlantic  cable. 
The  French  open  to  the  world  the  Suez  canal.  By  an  analogous  phenome- 
non, laborers  group  themselves  into  unions,  and  hold  their  international  con- 
gresses, and  substitute  the  patriotism  of  class  for  the  patriotism  of  peoples, 
and  form,  as  it  were,  a  state  in  the  midst  of  nations. 

This  economical  solidarity  suggests  success  in  formulating  some  plan 
for  organizing  a  permanent  juridical  international  tribunal  of  arbitration. 
No  one  wishes  to  consolidate  all  nations  into  one,  and  establish  an  uni- 
versal empire,  the  ideal  state  of  the  humanitarians;  for  nations  are  moral 
persons,  and  are  part  of  humanity  as  such;  they  assume  reciprocal  obliga- 
tions, which  constitute  international  right.  A  nation  is  an  organism  created 
by  language,  by  tradition,  by  history,  and  the  will  of  those  who  compose  it  ; 
hence  all  countries  are  equal,  and  have  an  ecjual  right  to  inviolability, 
'["here  may  be  some  countries  of  large  and  some  of  small  territories,  but 
these  are  not  large  or  small  countries,  because,  as  nations,  they  are  equal, 
and  each  one  is  the  work  of  man,  which  man  should  respect. 

The  obstacles  to  an  international  code  are  not  insurmountable,  but  the 
assent  of  nations  to  the  establishment  of  a  permanent  tribunal  of  arbitra- 
tion depends  upon  the  practicability  of  so  organizing  it  as  to  secure  impar- 
tiality. Many  suggestions  have  been  made  by  the  wise  and  the  learned,  by 
philosophers,  statesmen  and  philanthropists,  but  no  one  of  them  seems  to  be 
free  from  objections. 

Why  should  not  the  exceptional  position  of  the  Pope  be  utilized  by  the 
nations  of  the  world  ?  He  is  the  highest  rej)resentative  of  moral  force  on 
earth  ;  over  two  hundred  millions  of  Christians,  scattered  throughout  all 
nations,  stand  at  his  back,  with  a  moral  power  which  no  other  human  being 
can  command  ;  no  longer  a  temporal  sovereign,  the  ambition  of  hegemony 
cannot  affect  his  judgment,  religion  and  state  are  practically  disas.sociated 
throughout  Christendom,  so  that  in  matters  of  religion  all  are  free  to  follow 
the  dictates  of  conscience  without  fear  of  the  civil  power,  and  therefore 
political  motives  cannot  disturb  his  equilibrium ;  provision  could  be  made  for 


RABBI  JOSEPH  SILVERMAN,  l).l).,.\EU    \ORK. 

"all  jews  AOKEE  on  essentials  and  UECLAKK  THEIU  BELIEF  IN  I  HE  UNITY  AND 
Sl'lRITLALITV  OF  GOD,  IN  THE  EFFICACY  OF  UELKJION  FOR  Sl'lKITLAL  KECENERATION  AND  FOR 
ETHICAL  IMPROVEMENT,  IN  THE  UNIVERSAL  LAW  OF  COMl'ENSATION,  ACCORDING  TO  WHICH 
IllERE  ARE  REWARD  AND  I'UNISHMENT,  KIIHER  HERE  OK  HEREAFTER.  IN  THE  FINAL  IRIL'Ml'H 
OF  IKUTK  AND  FRATERNITY  OF  ALL  MEN." 


I  1 20        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

the  exceptional  controversies  to  which  his  native  country  might  be  a  party. 
The  Pope,  if  selected  by  all,  would  exert  the  authority  thus  vested  in  him  by 
virtue  of  the  assent  of  nations,  and  the  nature  of  the  authority  would  be 
civil,  the  exercise  of  which  would  commit  no  one  to  Papal  supremacy,  or  to 
the  ecclesiastical  doctrines  based  upon  it. 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  THE  JEWS. 

By  Rabbi  Joseph  Silverman,  D.D.,  of  Temple  Emanu-El,  New  York 

City. 

If  one  were  to  attempt  to  analyze  the  character  of  the  Jew  on  the  basis 
of  what  has  been  said  about  him  in  history,  in  fiction,  or  other  forms  of  liter- 
ature, both  prose  and  poetry,  he  would  find  himself  confused  and  baffled 
before  the  greatest  paradoxes.  In  this  way  so  great  an  injustice  has  been 
done  to  the  Jew  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  mankind  ever  to  rectify  it  or 
atone  therefor.  To  cite  but  one  example  out  of  an  infinite  number,  Shake- 
speare's portrayal  of  the  Jew  in  his  character  of  Shylock  is  untrue  in  every 
heinous  detail. 

A  dense  ignorance  exists  about  the  Jews  regarding  their  social  and 
domestic  life,  their  history  and  literature,  their  achievements  and  disappoint- 
ments, their  religion,  ideals  and  hopes.  And  this  ignorance  is  not  confined 
merely  to  ordinary  men,  but  prevails  also  among  scholars. 

Further,  much  of  the  prejudice  against  the  Jews  arises  from  the  error  of 
regarding  them  as  belonging  to  a  distinct  race  and  nation,  and  partakes  of 
that  form  of  prejudice  which  is  usually,  though  unjastly,  entertained  against 
aliens.  But  Jews  do  not  form  a  distinct  nationality  or  race.  Hebrew  is  the 
name  of  an  ancient  race  from  which  the  Jew  is  descended,  but  there  have 
been  so  many  admixtures  to  the  original  race  that  scarcely  a  trace  of  it 
exists  in  the  modern  Jews.  Nor  is  there  any  general  desire  to  return  to 
Palestine  and  resurrect  the  ancient  nationality.  We  form  merely  an  inde- 
pendent religious  community,  and  feel  keenly  the  injustice  that  is  done  us 
when  the  religion  of  the  Jew  is  singled  out  for  aspersion,  whenever  such  a 
citizen  is  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor.  Jew  is  not  to  be  used  parallel  with  Ger- 
man, Englishman,  American,  but  with  Christian,  Catholic,  Protestant, 
Buddhist,  Mohammedan  or  Atheist. 

Though  Jews  claim  to  be  merely  an  independent  religious  community, 
even  in  this  aspect  they  must  continually  face  either  ignorance  as  to  their 
religion,  or  misrepresentation.  It  is  well  established  that  the  essence  of 
Judaism  was  not  understood  by  the  ancient  heathen  world.  Those  worship- 
ing many  gods  could  never  rise  to  a  comprehension  of  the  unity  which  the 
idea  of  God  in  Judaism  represented.     The  invisible   God  of  the   Hebrews 


SILVERMAN:    ERRORS    ABOUT   THE   JEWS.         I  121 

was  too  visionary  for  the  heathens  who  bowed  down  before  an  idol.  And 
lliis  sublime  idea  of  a  unity,  indivisible  and  invisible,  has  not  found  its 
worthy  appreciation  even  in  modern  times.  Judaism  is  represented  as  the 
rankest  heresy,  as  a  tribal  religion.  It  is  strange,  yet  true,  that  many  believe 
tlic  Judaism  of  to-day  to  have  retained  the  old  form  of  the  ancient  Levitical 
cult  and  priestly  practices.  The  evolution  which  Judaism  has  undergone  in 
the  past  two  thousand  years,  seems  to  be  an  unknown  quantity  in  the 
minds  of  many. 

So  little  is  Judaism  understood  by  even  educated  men  outside  of  our 
ranks  that  it  is  commonly  believed  that  all  Jews  hold  the  same  form  of  faith 
and  practice.  Here  we  have  a  common  error  of  reasoning.  Because  some 
Jews  still  believe  in  the  coming  of  a  personal  Messiah,  or  in  bodily  resurrec- 
tion, or  in  the  establishment  of  the  Palestinian  kingdom,  the  inference  is  at 
once  drawn  by  many,  that  all  Jews  hold  the  same  belief.  .Very  little  is 
known  by  the  public  of  the  several  schisms  in  modern  Judaism  denominated 
as  orthodox,  conservative,  reform  and  radical.  It  is  not  my  province  to 
speak  exhaustively  of  these  sects  and  it  must  suffice  to  merely  remark  here 
that  orthodox  Judaism  believes  in  carrying  out  the  letter  of  the  ancient 
Mosaic  code  as  expounded  by  the  Talumudic  Rabbins  ;  that  reform  Judaism 
seeks  to  retain  the  spirit  only  of  the  ancient  law,  discarding  the  absolute 
authority  of  both  Bible  and  Talmud,  making  reason  and  modern  demands 
paramount ;  that  conservatism  is  merely  a  moderate  reform,  while  radicalism 
declares  itself  independent  of  established  forms,  clinging  mainly  to  the 
ethical  basis  of  Judaism.  Reform  Judaism  has  been  the  specially  favored 
subject  of  misunderstanding.  Far  from  breaking  up  Judaism,  reform  has 
strengthened  it  in  many  ways  and  retained  in  the  fold  those  who  would 
have  gone  over,  not  to  Christianity,  but  to  Atheism. 

To  prevent  the  inference  that  Judaism  is  no  positive  quantity  and  that 
there  are  irreconcilable  differences  dividing  the  various  sects,  I  will  say 
that  all  Jews  agree  on  essentials  and  declare  their  belief  in  the  unity  and 
spirituality  of  God,  in  the  efficacy  of  religion  for  spiritual  regeneration  and 
for  ethical  improvement,  in  the  universal  law  of  compensation,  according  to 
which  there  are  reward  and  punishment,  either  here  or  hereafter,  in  the  final 
triumph  of  truth  and  fraternity  of  all  men.  It  may  be  briefly  stated  that  the 
Decalogue  forms  the  constitution  of  Judaism. 

We  are  often  charged  with  exclusiveness  and  clannishness,  with  having 
only  narrow  tribal  aspirations  and  with  being  averse  to  breaking  down  social 
barriers.  Few  outside  of  that  inner  close  circle  that  is  to  be  met  in  the  Jewish 
home  or  social  group  know  aught  of  the  Jew's  domestic  happiness  and  social 
virtues.  If  there  is  any  clannishness  in  the  Jew  it  is  due  not  to  any  con- 
tempt for  the  outside  world,  but  to  an  utter  abandon  to  the  charm  of  home 
»nd  the  fascination  of  confreres  in  thought  and  sentiment.  However,  if 
there  is  a  remnant  of  exclusiveness  in  the  Jew  of  to-day,  is  he  to  blame  for 
"  f     Did   he  create  the  socir.l   barriers  ?     The  fact  that  Jews  are,  as  a  rule, 

71 


II  22  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

averse  to  intermarriage  with  non-jews  has  been  quoted  in  evidence  of  Jewish 
exclusiveness.  Two  errors  seem  to  underlie  this  false  reasoning? :  the  one, 
that  Judaism  interdicts  marriage  with  non-Jews,  and  the  other  that  the  Jewish 
Church  disciplines  those  who  are  guilty  of  such  an  act.  The  Mosaic  law,  at 
best,  only  forbade  intermarriage  with  the  seven  Canaanitish  nations,  and 
though  the  only  justifiable  inference  would  be  that  this  interdiction  applies 
only  to  heathen,  still  by  rabbinical  forms  of  interpretation  it  has  been  made 
to  apply  also  to  all  non-Jews.  The  historical  fact  is  that  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic council  held  at  Orleans  in  533  A.  C.  E.,  first  prohibited  its  followers  from 
intermarrying  with  Jews.  This  decree  was  later  enforced  by  meting  out  the 
penalty  of  death  to  both  parties  to  such  a  union.  Jewish  rabbis  then,  as  a 
matter  of  self-protection,  interdicted  the  practice  of  intermarriage,  and 
though  to-day  men  are  free  to  act  according  to  their  tastes,  there  exists  on 
the  part  of  the  Jew  no  more  repugnance  to  intermarriage  than  on  the  part  of 
the  Christian.  Such  ties  are,  as  a  rule,  not  encouraged  by  the  families  of 
either  side,  and  for  very  good  cause. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  MISSION  OF  THE  ENGLISH 
SPEAKING  NATIONS. 

By  Rev.  Henry  H.  Jessup,  D.D.,  of  BeirOt,  Syria. 

The  four  elements  which  make  up  the  power  for  good  in  the  English- 
speaking  race  and  fit  it  to  be  the  Divine  instrument  for  blessing  the  world 
are:  l.  Its  historic  planting  and  training.  2.  Its  geographic  position. 
3.  Its  physical  and  political  traits.  4.  Its  moral  and  religious  character  ; 
which  combined  constitute  its  Divine  call  and  opportunity,  and  result  in 
its  religious  mission,  its  duty  and  responsibility. 

I.  The  Historic  Planting  and  Training. — In  the  beginning  of  the 
seventh  century  the  Saxon  race  in  Britain  embraced  the  religion  of  Christ. 
From  that  time  through  nine  centuries  the  hand  of  God  was  training,  lead- 
ing, disciplining  and  developing  that  sturdy  northern  race,  until  the  hidden 
torch  of  truth  was  wrested  from  its  hiding-place  by  Luther,  and  held  aloft  for 
the  enlightenment  of  mankind,  just  at  the  time  when  Columbus  discovered 
the  continent  of  America,  and  opened  the  new  and  final  arena  for  the 
activity  and  highest  development  of  man. 

Was  it  an  accident  that  North  America  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  that  vigorous  Northern  people  of  brain  and  brawn,  of  faith  and 
courage,  of  order  and  liberty  ?  Was  it  not  the  Divine  preparation  of  afield 
for  the  planting  and  training  of  the  freest,  highest  Christian  civilization,  the 
union  of  personal  freedom  and  reverence  for  law  ?  This  composite  race  of 
Cipyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


JESSUP:  THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  NATIONS.         I  I  23 

Norman  Anglo-Saxon  and  Teutonic  blood,  planted  on  the  hills  and  valleys, 
by  the  rivers  and  plains,  and  among  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  coal  and 
iron,  of  silver  and  gold,  of  this  marvelous  continent,  were  sent  here  as  a  part 
of  a  far-reaching  plan  whose  consummation  will  extend  down  through  the 
ages. 

II.  The  Geographical  Position. — A  map  of  the  world  with  North  Amer- 
ica in  the  center  shows  at  a  glance  the  strategic  position  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States.  Their  vast  littoral,  the  innumerable  harbors  facing  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans,  the  maritime  instincts  of  the  two  nations,  their 
invigorating  climate,  matchless  resources,  world-wide  commerce,  facilities' 
for  exploration  and  travel,  and  peculiar  adaptation  to  permanent  coloniza- 
tion in  remote  countries,  give  these  peoples  the  control  of  the  world's  future 
and  the  key  to  its  moral  and  ethnical  problems. 

III.  The  Physical,  Social  and  Political  Traits  of  the  English-Speaking 
Peoples  are  a  potent  factor  in  their  influence  among  the  nations.  Restless 
and  migrating,  they  are  still  home-loving  and  stable  They  are  diffusive, 
yet  constructive  ;  free  and  liberty-loving,  yet  reverent  to  law ;  intolerant  of 
tyranny,  yet  considerate  of  the  lowly  and  the  poor.  Their  strong  individu- 
ality, their  spirit  of  enterprise,  their  quiet  self-control,  their  courage,  tenacity 
and  perseverance,  their  gravity  and  calmness,  are  elements  of  prodigious 
strength.  In  dealing  with  Orientals,  their  generosity,  their  innate  sense  of 
liberty  and  fair  play  have  given  them  a  firm  and  enduring  hold  upon  the 
confidence  of  the  people.  They  bear  those  traits  and  principles  with  them 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  If  we  add  to  this  the  phenomenal  growth  of  sci- 
entific discovery  and  invention,  we  are  prepared  to  expect  from  such  a  race 
the  final  and  complete  subjugation  of  the  powers  and  forces  of  Nature  for 
the  benefit  and  uplifting  of  mankind. 

IV'.  The  Moral  and  Religious  Character  and  Training  of  these  Nations. — 
A  Divine  voice  summoned  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  out  of  paganism  into  a 
positive  faith  and  the  cheering  hopes  of  the  Gospel ;  but  centuries  of  disci- 
pline and  gradual  growth  were  needed  to  fit  them  as  a  nation  to  be  the 
messengers  of  light  and  life  to  the  world. 

The  native  love  of  truth  of  these  peoples  has  been  confirmed  and 
intensified  by  the  English  Pible.  Integrity,  veracity  and  impartial  justice 
are  to  great  extent  national  traits.  These  great  nations  are  permeated  with 
the  principles  of  the  Bible  ;  their  poetry,  history,  science  and  philosophy  are 
moral,  pure  and  religious;  they  are  founded  on  a  belief  in  the  Divine  exist- 
ence and  Providence,  and  in  final  retribution  ;  in  the  sanctions  of  law  and 
the  supremacy  of  conscience  ;  in  man's  responsibility  to  God,  and  the  ruler's 
responsibility  to  the  people;  in  the  purity  of  the  family,  the  honor  of 
woman,  and  the  sanctity  of  home  ;  in  the  obligation  to  treat  all  men,  white, 
black  and  tawny,  as  brothers  made  in  the  image  of  God.  Such  principles 
as  these  are  destined  to  mold  and  control  all  mankind.  The  Havelocks 
and    Farraguts  and  Gordons,  the  men  of  sturdy  faith  and  sterling  sense,  of 


I  I  24        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

pure  morals  and  serene  trust  in  God,  are  the  men  who  are  respected,  trusted 
and  loved,  even  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  globe. 

With  such  a  unique  combination  of  historic,  geographical,  political, 
and  religious  elements,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  constitutes  the  Divine  Call 
and  Opportunity,  the  religious  mission  and  responsibility  of  these  great 
nations. 

The  true  ideal  of  the  religious  mission  of  a  nation  embraces  its  entire 
intellectual,  moral  and  social  relations  and  duties  to  its  own  people  and  to 
all  other  peoples.     It  is  thus  a  home  and  a  foreign  mission. 

(a)  To  its  own  citizens  this  mission  is  one  of  religious  liberty,  the  pro- 
motion of  Sabbath  rest,  temperance,  social  purity,  and  reverence  for  the 
laws  of  God.  The  fear  of  God  cannot  be  enforced  by  legal  enactment,  but 
nations  who  owe  their  liberties  and  laws,  their  happiness  in  the  present  and 
their  hopes  for  the  future  to  the  Word  of  God,  should  see  to  it  that  every 
citizen,  native  or  adopted,  shall  be  able  to  read,  and  be  taught  to  reverence, 
this  Divine  Magna  Charta  of  human  rights  and  human  happiness. 

It  is  treason  to  liberty,  disloyalty  to  religion,  and  a  betrayal  of  the 
sacred  trust  we  hold  from  God  for  our  children  and  our  country,  to  surren- 
der the  control  of  our  educational  system,  our  moral  code,  and  our  holy  Sab- 
bath rest  from  toil,  to  our  brethren  from  other  lands,  who  have  come  at  our 
disinterested  invitation  to  share  in  these  blessings,  but  who,  as  yet  hardly 
free  from  the  shell  and  the  shackles  of  Old  World  absolutism,  or  the 
despair-begotten  dreams  of  unbridled  license,  are  not  yet  assimilated  to  our 
essential  and  vital  principles  of  liberty  and  law,  of  perfect  freedom  of  con- 
science, tempered  by  the  absolute  subjection  of  the  individual  to  the  public 
good.  Let  each  rear  his  own  temple  for  the  worship  of  his  God  according 
to  his  own  conscience,  but  let  the  school-house  be  reared  by  all  in  common, 
o[fen  and  free  to  all,  and  patronized  by  all. 

(3)  To  the  civilized  nations  this  mission  is  one  which  can  only  be 
effective  through  a  consistent,  moral  example.  They  are  set  for  an  exam- 
ple, to  exhibit  moral  reform  in  act,  to  shun  all  occasion  of  war  and  denounce 
its  horrors,  to  show  the  blessings  of  arbitration  by  adopting  it  as  their  own 
settled  international  practice,  and  to  treat  all  social  questions  from  the 
standpoint  of  conscience  and  equity.  The  Alabama  and  Behring  Sea  arbi- 
trations have  been  an  object  lesson  to  the  world  more  potent  in  exhibiting 
the  true  spirit  of  Christianity  than  millions  of  printed  pages  or  the  persua- 
sive voices  of  a  hundred  messengers  of  the  Cross.  It  is  only  ninety-nine 
years  since  the  eminent  Edmund  Burke  used  language  respecting  the 
French  people  which  would  now  be  denounced  as  unworthy  of  a  civilized 
man.  It  is  the  religious  mission  of  the  English-speaking  nations  to  form  a 
juster  estimate  of  other  nations,  to  treat  all  men  as  entitled  to  respect,  to 
allow  conscience  its  full  sway  in  all  our  dealings  with  them. 

(r)  To  the  semi-civilized  and  heathen  nations  our  religious  mission  is 
one  of  helpfulness,  uplifting  and  enlightenment.     The  sympathies  of  our 


JESSUP:  THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  NATIONS.      .1  I  25 

Christian    faith  are    all    with    the    poor,    the    suffering,    the   ignorant,    the 
oppressed. 

The  highly  favored  northern  races  are  called  by  every  prompting  of  the 
law  of  love  to  go  to  the  help  of  the  less  favored  continents  of  the  South. 
Christ  bids  the  strong  to  help  the  weak,  the  blessed  to  succor  the  unblessed, 
the  free  to  deliver  the  enslaved,  the  saved  to  evangelize  the  unsaved. 

But  we  find  ourselves  confronted  and  thwarted  at  the  very  gateway  of 
the  Asiatic  and  African,  as  well  as  the  Polynesian  races,  by  that  monster  of 
hideous  mien,  the  sacra  auri  fames,  the  accursed  European  greed  for  gold  ; 
gold  earned  at  any  price,  gold  in  exchange  for  opium,  gold  for  poisonous, 
maddening  liquors,  degrading  and  crazing  with  their  flood  of  foulness  and 
death  men,  women  and  children,  made  in  the  image  of  God.  We  who  are 
strong,  are  bidden  by  our  Master  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak,  and 
instead  of  this,  men  bearing  the  name  of  Christians,  are  shamelessly  taking 
advantage  of  their  weakness  for  the  lowest  and  most  groveling  motives  to 
betray  and  destroy  them.  While  we  thank  God  for  the  great  insurrection  of 
the  human  mind  in  the  sixteenth  century  against  spiritual  absolutism ;  for 
our  legacy  of  liberty,  its  principles,  its  maxims  and  its  glorious  results  ;  for 
our  pure  and  peaceful  homes  ;  for  our  sacred  day  of  resi,  instituted  by  God 
himself,  honored  and  kept  pure  by  our  forefathers,  reverenced  and  enforced 
by  Washington  and  Lincoln  in  the,  critical  emergency  of  war ;  for  the  dig- 
nity and  honor  with  which  our  women  are  crowned ;  for  the  growing  abhor- 
rence of  war ;  for  the  spirit  of  moral  and  social  reform,  and  for  the  Divine 
call  and  opportunity  to  go  forth  and  bless  the  nations ;  let  us  all  resolve 
that  our  nation  and  people  shall  no  longer  be  compromised  by  complicity  in 
these  accursed  forms  of  sordid  traffic. 

Our  mission  is  one  of  peace.  We  are  to  guarantee  to  our  sons  and 
daughters  of  toil  one  full  day's  rest  in  seven  ;  an  equitable  adjustment  of 
all  social  and  labor  questions  that  arise  ;  the  protection  of  our  children  from 
the  gilded  tempting  cup  which  at  last  "biteth  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth 
like  an  adder."  We  are  not  to  be  ashamed  of  that  Divine  Book  which  has 
made  the  difference  between  North  and  South  America,  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  Spanish  peninsula. 

This  then  is  our  mission  :  that  we  who  are  made  in  the  image  of  God, 
should  remember  that  all  men  are  made  in  God's  image.  To  this  divine 
knowledge  we  owe  all  we  are,  all  we  hope  for.  We  are  rising  gradually 
towards  that  image,  and  we  owe  to  our  fellow  men  to  aid  them  in  returning 
to  it  in  the  glorv  of  God  and  the  beauty  of  holiness.  It  is  a  celestial  privi 
lege  and  with  it  comes  a  high  responsibility,  from  which  there  is  no  escape. 

In  the  palace  of  Behjeh,  or  Delight,  just  outside  the  fortress  of  Acre, 
on  the  Syrian  coast,  there  died  a  few  months  since  a  famous  Persian  sage, 
the  Babi  saint,  named  Beha  Allah— the  "Glory of  God  '' — the  head  of  that 
vast  reform  party  of  Persian  Moslems,  who  accept  the  New  Testament  as 
the  Word  of  God  and  Christ  as  the  deliverer  of  men,  who  regard  all  nations 


I  1 26        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

as  one,  and  all  men  as  brothers.  Three  years  ago  he  was  visited  by  a  Cam- 
bridge scholar,  and  gavfe  utterances  to  sentiments  so  noble,  so  Christ-like, 
that  we  repeat  them  as  our  closing  words  : 

"That  all  nations  should  become  one  in  faith  and  all  men  as  brothers  ; 
that  the  bonds  of  affection  and  unity  between  the  sons  of  men  should  be 
strengthened  ;  that  diversity  of  religion  should  cease  and  differences  of  race 
be  annulled  ;  what  harm  is  there  in  this  ?  Yet  so  it  shall  be.  -These  fruit- 
less strifes,  these  ruinous  wars  shall  pass  away,  and  the'  Most  Great  Peace' 
shall  come.  Do  not  you  in  Europe  need  this  also  ?  Let  not  a  man  glory 
in  this,  that  he  loves  his  country  ;  let  him  rather  glory  in  this,  that  he  loves 
his  kind." 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  MISSION  OF  THE  APOSTOLIC 
CHURCH  OF  ARMENIA. 

By  Ohannes  Chatschumyan. 

The  Armenian  .Church  is.  the  oldest  Christian  church  in  the  world. 

Because  of  its  past  it  has  a  peculiar  place  among  other  churches.  While 
the  church  is  only  one  element  in  the  lives  of  other  nations,  in  Armenia  it 
embraces  the  whole  life  of  the  nation.  The  Armenians  love  their  country, 
because  they  love  Christianity. 

The  construction  of  the  Armenian  Church  is  simple  and  apostolic.  It 
is  independent  and  national.  The  ordinary  clergy  are  elected  by  each  par- 
ish. Each  church  being  free  in  its  home  work,  they  are  all  bound  with  one 
another,  and  so  form  a  unity.  The  people  share  largely  in  the  work  of  the 
church.     The  clergy  exists  for  the  people,  and  not  the  people  fc-  the  clergy. 

The  Armenian  clergy  have  always  been  pioneers  in  the  educational 
advancement  of  the  nation.  They  have  been  the  bringers-in  of  European 
civilization  to  their  people!  They  have  been  first  in  danger  and  first  in  civ- 
ilization. 

The  spirit  of  the  Armenian  Church  is  tolerant.  Every  day,  in  our 
churches,  prayers  are  offered  for  all  those  who  call  on  the  name  of  the 
Most  High  in  sincerity. 

The  Armenian  Church  does  not  like  religious  disputes.  She  has 
defended  the  ideals  of  Christianity  more  with  the  red  blood  of  her  children 
than  with  big  volumes  of  controversies.  She  has  always  insisted  on  the 
brotherhood  of  all  Christians. 

The  Armenian  Church  has  a  great  literature,  which  has  had  a  vast 
influence  over  the  psople.  But  the  purifying  influence  of  our  church  appears 
chiefly  in  the  family.  For  an  Armenian  the  family  is  sacred.  Ethnologists 
ask  with  reason  :  "  How  can  we  explain  the  continued  existence  of  the 
Armenian  nation,  through  the  fire  and  sword  of  four  thousand  years  ?  "  The 
solution  of  this  riddle  is  in  the  pure  family  life. 


>      5 


1128 


PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 


Geoxrtipliically,  Armenia  is  the  bridge  between  Asia  and  Europe.  All 
the  natiotiM  of  Asia  have  traveled  over  this  bridge.  One  cannot  show  a 
single  your  in  lljc  lonq  past,  through  which  she  has  enjoyed  peace.  Every 
one  of  her  stones  has  been  baptized  many  times  with  the  sacred  blood  of 
martyrs.  Ilcr  rivers  have  flowed  with  the  blood  and  tears  of  the  Armenian 
nation.  .Surn)unded  by  non-Christian  and  anti-Christian  peoples,  she  has 
kept  her  Christianity  and  her  independent  national  church.  Through  the 
darkness  of  the  ages  she  has  been  a  bright  torch  in  the  Orient  of  Christianity 
and  civilization. 

All  her  neighbors  have  passed  away — the  Assyrians,  the  Babylonians, 
the  Parthinns,  and  the  Persian  fire-worshipers.  Armenia  herself  has  lost 
everything ;  crown  and  scepter  are  gone ;  peace  and  happiness  have 
departed  j  to  her  remains  only  the  cross,  the  sign  of  martyrdom.  Yet  the 
Armenian  Church  still  lives.  Why  ?  To  fulfill  the  work  she  was  called  to 
do;  to  spread  civilization  among  the  peoples  of  this  part  of  Asia,  and  she 
has  still  vitality  enough  to  fulfill  this  mission.  For  this  struggling  and 
aspiring  church  we  crave  your  sympathy.  To  help  the  Armenian  Church 
is  to  help  humanity. 


THE  GREEK  CHURCH. 
By  Rkv,  p.  Phiambolis,  of  the  Greek  Church,  of  Chicago. 

I  come  into  your  presence  as  a  representative  of  the  truths  of  the  Ortho- 
dox Church  and  to  greet  you  with  our  love.  A  man  of  Judea  preached, 
saying  :  "  I  am  the  Truth,  I  am  the  Light  of  the  World,  I  will  send  to  the 
world  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit  of  the  Truth,  and  he  will  say  every 
truth."     Has  that  man  spoken  the  truth  ? 

I  read  the  scriptures  and  I  see  that  our  Jesus  Christ  sent  his  Holy 
Ghost,  the  Spirit  of  the  Truth,  to  all  the  disciples  without  exception.  The 
Apostles  were  the  first  Christian  Church  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Truth.  But 
the  Apostles  sometimes  disputed  among  themselves  upon  religious  questions. 
They  decided  it,  however,  by  leaving  it  to  the  Apostles  and  elders  of  the 
church,  lias  the  Orthodox  Church  kept  this  example  of  the  Apostles  ; 
namely,  the  discussion  and  the  union  after  the  decision  ?  Let  us  look  at 
the  history  of  the  church.  The  Jews  of  Judea,  according  to  the  prophets, 
were  waiting  for  a  Messiah.  When  in  the  fullness  of  time  a  child  was  born 
in  Bethlehem,  and  when  he  was  old  enough  to  preach  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  and  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  he  met  great  opposition  until  he 
was  crucified.  After  his  resurrection  his  disciples  continued  the  work  of 
their  teacher,  and  the  subject  of  their  teaching  was  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  crucified.  St.  Paul,  a  learned  Jew,  at  first  a  persecutor  of  Chris- 
tianity, finally  became  the  chosen  vessel  of  Jesus  Christ.     Jesus  Christ  was 


PHIAMBOLIS:   THE   GREEK    CHURCH.  I  1 29 

to  the  Jews  a  scandal  and  to  the  Greeks  a  foolishness  The  apostles  began 
:it  first  their  preaching  among  their  compatriots,  the  Jews,  but  their  followers 
were  few.  Then  they,  and  especially  St.  Paul,  applied  to  the  nations,  and 
especially  to  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor ;  afterwards  to  the  Thessalonians 
and  Philippians,  of  Macedonia,  to  Athenians,  Corinthians  and,  at  last,  to 
Romans,  or  to  the  Jews  and  Greeks  of  Rome. 

Some  Greek  Christian  churches  had  been  established,  and  for  that 
reason  the  evangelists  wrote  tneir  gospel  in  the  Greek  language,  as  other 
disciples  did  their  epistles.  I  said  above  that  Christianity  met  a  great  oppo- 
sition. It  was  to  fight  against  all  the  religions  of  that  epoch.  The  emperors 
of  Rome  armed  themselves  against  it,  and  the  weapon  cut  off  tender  and 
feeble  creatures.  But  Christianity  became  the  religion  of  the  Roman  states. 
Meanwhile  the  opposition  continued  under  other  shapes  of  false  Christian 
philosophy,  that  is,  the  heresies,  and  it  began  to  enter  the  enclosure  of  the 
church  under  the  shape  of  truth  and  agitated  the  peace  of  the  church. 
Clouds  of  heresies  troubled  the  ceremony  of  the  church,  which  cut  them  off 
bv  the  weapon  of  the  true  doctrine,  by  the  weapon  of  the  Holy  Ghost  accord- 
ing to  the  examples  of  the  apostles,  and  they  guarded  the  Christian  doctrine 
far  from  any  error.  All  these  synods  agreed  about  the  Christian  and  evan- 
gelical truths  and  composed  the  Christian  creed  as  it  is  to-day  except  the 
filioque,  which  entered  into  the  church  without  the  ecumenical  decision,  at 
the  ninth  century.  And  the  opinion  of  the  whole  church  was  one,  and  they 
had  true  love  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  truth  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  that  time 
have  been  seen  most  eminent  theologians.  Christian  philosophers  and 
writers  of  the  Christian  doctrine,  and  the  most  of  them  took  part  in  these 
synods. 

Unfortunately  human  interest  and  human  pride  united,  entered  at  the 
ninth  century  the  sacred  inclosure  of  the  church,  and  a  great  schism  and 
division  followed  between  the  East  and  the  West.  This  division  resulted  in 
retarding  Christianity  and  in  the  progress  of  Mohammedanism,  whose  motto  is 
"  Kill  the  Infidels,"  because  every  one  who  is  not  a  Mohammedan,  according 
to  the  Koran  of  the  Prophet,  is  an  infidel,  is  a  dog. 

It  is  not  my  desire  to  speak  about  Turkish  tyranny,  but  I  will  say  a  few 
words  concerning  the  Christian  kings  of  Europe.  The  people  of  the  Orient 
suffered  and  still  suffer ;  Christian  virgins  are  dishonored  by  the  followers  of 
the  Moslem  Prophet,  and  the  life  of  a  Christian  is  not  considered  as  precious 
as  that  of  a  dog.  But  the  kings  of  Europe,  the  Christian  kings,  thinking 
only  of  themselves  and  their  interests,  see  from  afar  this  barbarous  state  of 
affairs,  but  without  sympathy,  and  for  that  reason  I  stated  that  politics  had 
entered  the  church. 

Regarding  the  Orthodox  Church,  we  are  true  to  the  examples  of  the 
apostles  ;  we  follow  the  same  road  in  religious  questions  and  after  discussion 
do  not  accept  new  dogma  without  the  agreement  of  the  whole  ecumenical 
church  ;  neither  do  we  adopt  any  dogma  other  than  that  of  the  one  united 


1130  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  THIRTEENTH  DAY. 

and  undivided  cliurch  whose  doctrine  has  been  followed  until  to-day.  The 
Orthodox  Apostolic  Catholic  Church  contains  many  different  nations,  and 
everyone  of  them  uses  its  own  language  in  the  mass  and  litany  and  governs 
its  church  independently;  but  all  these  nations  have  the  same  faith.  The 
patriarchs,  metropolitans,  archbishops  and  bishops  are  all  equal.  There  is 
no  difference  in  their  ranlt ;  freedom,  fraternity  and  ceremony  range  between 
them.  This  is,  in  short,  the  church  which  I  represent,  the  church  which 
does  not  request  the  authority  over  other  churches  or  mix  itself  in  politics 
—  the  church  of  the  Apostles  who  had  the  spirit  of  truth.  And  can  we 
say  that  the  truth,  far  from  any  error,  is  not  found  in  such  a  church  ? 

In  finishing  this  short  account  of  my  church  I  raise  my  eyes  on  high  and 
pray : 

O,  thou  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit  of  the  Truth,  thou  who  illuminated  the 
Holy  Apostles,  thou  who  illuminated  thy  saints  apostolic,  thy  united  and  undi- 
vided church  and  synods;  O  thou  Holy  Ghost  who  illuminates  every  man 
coming  into  the  world;  thou  who  didst  illuminate  Columbus  the  hero  to  give  the 
whole  continent  to  humanity ;  thou  who  didst  illuminate  this  glorious  people 
of  America  to  fight  against  slavery  and  for  freedom ;  thou  who  didst  illumin- 
ate the  eminent  presidents  of  this  Religious  Congress,  from  which  an  immense 
light  will  be  spread  over  all  the  world  ;  O  thou  Holy  Ghost,  hear  my  humble 
prayer  and  grant  us  that  all  men  of  the  earth  may  become  one  flock  under 
one  Shepherd — and  that  our  Jesus  Christ,  the  one  Head  of  the  Church. 


INTERNATIONAL  JUSTICE  AND  AMITY. 
By  Rev.  S.  L.  Baldwin,  D  D.,  of  New  York. 

It  is  only  by  justice  that  real  amity  between  nations  can  be  secured. 
The  true  basis  for  international  conduct,  as  for  that  of  the  individual,  is  the 
golden  rule.  "Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  Or  the  rule  laid  down  by  Confucius,  which 
may  be  called  a  negative  form  of  the  golden  rule,  "What  you  do  not  like 
when  done  to  yourself,  do  not  do  to  others."  Between  the  old  brute  law  of 
"  might  makes  right "  and  the  Christian  teaching  of  justice,  based  on  a  love 
for  our  fellow-men,  there  is  no  middle  ground. 

In  order  that  there  may  be  pleasant  relations  between  nations,  treaties 
are  formed.  Of  course,  the  object  of  such  treaties  should  be  to  secure  and 
preserve  peace  and  good-fellowship,  and  to  do  this  by  acting  in  accordance 
with  the  demands  of  justice  and  righteousness  in  all  dealings  with  each 
other.  Justice  Field,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  his  dis- 
senting opinion  on  the  Geary  law,  well  said: 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


BALDWIN:   INTERNATIONAL   JUSTICE.  1131 

"Aliens  domiciled  within  the  country  by  its  consent  are  entitled  to  all 
the  guarantees  tor  the  protection  of  their  person  and  property  which  are 
secured  to  native-born  citizens.  The  moment  any  human  being  comes  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  with  the  consent  of  the  government — 
and  such  consent  will  always  be  implied  when  not  expressly  withheld,  and 
in  the  case  of  the  Chinese  laborers  before  us  was  in  terms  given  by  treaty — 
he  becomes  subject  to  all  their  laws  and  amenable  to  their  punishment  and 
entitled  to  their  protection.  Arbitrary  and  despotic  authority  can  no  more 
be  exercised  over  them  with  reference  to  their  persons  and  property  than 
over  the  persons  and  property  of  native-born  citizens.  They  differ  only 
from  citizens  in  the  respect  that  they  cannot  vote  or  hold  any  public  office. 
As  men  having  our  common  humanity  they  are  protected  by  all  the  guaran- 
tees of  the  constitution.  To  hold  that  they  are  subject  to  any  different  law, 
or  are  less  protected  in  any  particular  is,  in  my  judgment,  against  the  teach- 
ings of  our  history,  the  practice  of  our  government  and  the  language  of  our 
constitution. 

Certainly,  the  object  of  all  treaties  between  nations  must  include  and 
keep  foremost  the  idea  of  securing  exact  justice  to  the  citizens  and  subjects 
of  the  nations  represented.  If  this  be  true,  it  is  no  less  true  that  treaties  once 
made  should  be  faithfully  kept  by  both  parties  to  the  agreement.  This  has 
always  been  the  accepted  principle  of  civilized  nations.  Nothing  is  con- 
sidered more  sacred  than  a  treaty,  and  by  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  the  treaties  made  by  the  government  were  placed  with. the  constitution 
and  the  laws  enacted  under  it  as  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 

If  the  provisions  of  a  treaty  may  be  set  aside  at  the  caprice  of  one  party 
without  any  consultation  with  the  other,  by  mere  legislative  enactment,  they 
become  of  little  value.  A  Christian  nation  should  repudiate  any  deflection 
from  the  original  principles  of  fidelity  to  treaty  obligations. 

In  further  pursuance  of  justice,  it  is  evident  that  in  case  of  disagreement 
between  nations  they  should  come  to  good  understanding  without  resorting 
to  the  barbarous  practice  of  war.  Christian  principle  suggests  in  such  cases 
that  other  nations  be  called  in  to  arbitrate. 

In  the  light  of  justice  the  duty  of  strong  nations  towards  weak  ones  is 
clear.  It  is  to  treat  them  as  weak  children  in  a  loving  family  are  treated,  the 
stronger  ones  emulating  each  other  in  a  strife  for  preeminence  in  kindness 
of  treatment  toward  those  who  need  it  most.  Thus  among  nations  just 
rights  will  be  secured  to  all  and  injustice  be  prevented.  The  weak  will  be 
as  well  off  as  the  strongest,  because  the  strongest  will  combine  to  secure 
every  just  right  to  the  weakest. 

One  most  important  matter  to  be  considered  at  this  time  is  the  applica- 
tion of  these  principles  to  the  question  of  immigration.  No  just  objection 
can  be  made  to  laws  intended  to  secure  the  welfare  of  a  country,  to  protect 
it  against  anarchists,  law  breakers  and  harmful  immigrants  of  every  kind. 
But  any  discrimination  against  any  race  or  people,  as  such,  is  of  the  nature 


I  I  32         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

of  an  essential  injustice  and  cannot  be  defended  on  any  principle  of  Divine 
or  human  law.  If,  as  an  illustrious  instance  of  how  not  to  do  it,  we  examine 
the  conduct  of  the  United  States  government  in  regard  to  the  Chinese  in  the 
light  of  the  principles  laid  down,  we  can  only  be  filled  with  humiliation. 
Many  instances  might  be  given  showing  the  hardships  which  were  experi- 
enced under  former  laws,  but  in  1892  another  Inw,  still  more  unjust  and 
oppressive,  violating  more  fundamentally  our  solemn  treaties  with  China, 
was  enacted,  which  is  known  as  the  Geary  law.  On  this  Justice  Field  well 
said: 

The  punishment  is  beyond  all  reason  in  its  severity.  It  is  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  alleged  offense.  It  is  cruel  and  unusual.  As  to  its  cru- 
elty, nothing  can  exceed  a  forcible  deportation  from  a  country  of  one's  resi- 
dence and  the  breaking  up  of  all  relations  of  friendship,  family  and  busi- 
ness there  contracted.  I  will  pursue  this  subject  no  further.  The  decision 
of  the  court  and  the  sanction  it  would  give  to  legislation  depriving  resident 
aliens  of  the  guarantees  of  the  constitution  fill  me  with  apprehension. 
These  guarantees  are  of  priceless  value  to  every  resident  in  the  country, 
whether  citizen  or  alien.  I  cannot  but  regard  the  decision  as  a  blow  against 
constitutional  liberty  when  it  declares  that  Congress  has  the  right  to  disre- 
gard the  guarantees  of  the  constitution  intended  for  all  men  domiciled  in 
the  country,  with  the  consent  of  the  government,  in  their  rights  of  person, 
and  property. 

These  words  are  none  too  strong.  Our  treaty  had  promised  to  these 
men  the  same  treatment  accorded  to  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  the  most 
favored  nation,  but  this  solemn  promise  seems  to  have  been  utterly  ignored 
when  this  unblushing  violation  of  our  treaty  was  enacted  into  so-called  law. 
What  apology  is  there  for  such  action  ?  None  whatever.  The  reasons 
urged  against  the  Chinese  have  been  frequently  shown  to  be  without  weight. 

The  true  course  for  us  to  take  in  this  matter  is  to  recover  from  the 
fright  into  which  we  have  allowed  political  demagogues  to  throw  us,  and 
in  a  manly  and  Christian  way  to  proceed  at  once  to  conform  our  govern- 
mental action  to  the  earliest  and  best  traditions  of  the  republic.  Only  in 
this  way  may  we  expect  the  blessing  of  God  and  ultimate  honor  and  success 
as  a  nation,  for  it  still  remains  true  that  "  Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation, 
but  sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people,"  and  the  law  of  God  still  remains. 


>^*    >  A- 

.#•#■■ 


■S- :  "1- 


REV.  P.  PHIAMBOI.IS.   RKSIDF.N  T  PRIF.ST  OV  THF.  r;RF.I-.K  Ciri'RCH, 

IN  CHICAGO. 

"  1  DO  NOT  COME  TO  TEACH  YOU  A  NEW  COSl'KI.  IIECAISE  OfU  COSIKI.  iS  ALWAVS  NEW.  VOU 
KNOW  VERY  WELL  THAT  lis  I  KLTHS  ARU  LNCHANCiEAliLK  AND  ETERNAL,  THE  KIDDER  OK  THE 
ACTION  OF  fiVKKY  CHKISTIAN,  THE  r;L:|[)K  OK  SALVAITON.  HIT  I  COME  INTO  YOUK  IKESENCE  AS 
A  KEI-RESENTATIVE  OK  THE  TKLTHS  OK  THE  OKTHODOX  CHLKCH  AND  TO  OKEET  \OV  WITH  OLK 
LOVE." 


MEN  ARE  ALREADY  BROTHERS. 

By  Prince  Serge  Wolkonsky,  of  Russia. 

Chicago,  Sept.  15,  189.-?. 
Prince  Serge  Wolkonsky. —  Dear  Sir:      There  will  be  a  meeting 
next  Monday,  Sept.  18,  at  4  p.  M.,  in  Room  23  of  the  Art  Palace,  to  decide, 
if  possible,  upon  a  formula  which  may  serve  as  a  bond  for  universal  brother- 
hood. .        ■ 

One  representative  of  each  faith  and  order  will  be  invited.  The  invita- 
tion is  hereby  extended  to  yourself.     Yours,  respectfully,    .  .  ' 

Theodore  F.  Seward. 

When  I  received  the  above  invitation  I  did  not  know  whether  this  would 
be  a  private  gathering  for  a  friendly  exchange  of  ideas  or  a  public  session 
with  regular  speeches  and  addresses,  but  the  appeal  touched  me  too  pro- 
foundly not  to  try  to  prepare  myself  for  both.  In  the  following  lines,  I  take 
the  liberty  of  setting  forth  the  ideas  which  have  been  suggested  to  me  by  Mr. 
Seward's  invitation.  '  ■  " 

Much  has  been  spoken  of  universal  brotherhood  daring  these  last  weeks, 
and  still  a  kind  of  doubt  prevents  us  from  trusting  in  any  palpable  result. 
For  a  long  time  I  have  been  searching  for  the  reason  of  that  doubt,  which 
never  ceased  trailing  clouds  upon  the  pure  sky  that  shined  over  those  broth- 
erly gatherings ;  and  I  think  I  finally  have  found  the  reason.  ' ' 

We  speak  of  brotherhood  as  of  a  thing  to  be  founded.  People  seem 
to  say :  "We  are  not  brothers,  but  let  us  try  to  become  so.  Yes,  let  us  try 
to  become  brothers,  though  difficult  it  may  be;  let  us  strive,  for  we  are  civil- 
ized people,  and  there  is  no  real  civilization  without  brotherhood.  Brother- 
hood is  the  crowning  of  all  civilization." 

Alas,  brotherhood  is  not  the  crowning — it  is  the  basis,  and  if  a  civiliza- 
tion is  not  built  on  that  basis,  no  posterior  efforts  can  remedy  the  evil.  It  is 
not  tc  become  brothers.  We  must  try  not  to  forget  that  we  are  brothers.  It 
is  not  because  we  are  civilized  that  we  speak  of  instituting  a  universal  broth- 
erhood on  earth.  It  is  because  we  are  not — or,  far  more,  because  we  are 
wrongly  civilized  that  we  strain  our  brains  to  institute  a  condition  that  never 
ceased  to  exist.  Not  by  instituting  societies  or  associations  shall  we  inspire 
feelings  of  brotherhood,  but  in  breaking  the  exclusiveness  of  those  which  exist. 

We  must  not  forget  that  associations  are  not  the  aim,  but  only  the 
instrument.  If  we  regard  those  "religious  clubs"  as  an  aim  in  them- 
selves, our  membership  becomes  a  seclusion  from  the  rest  of  humanity;  an 
end  instead  of  a  beginning;  it  generates  death  instead  of  generating  life. 
It  is  not  what  we  do  when  we  go  to  the  meeting,  nor  the  fact  of  our  going 

"34 


WOLKONSKY:  MEN  ARE  ALREADY  BROTHERS.      I  135 

that  is  important,  but  what  we  do  when  we  leave  the  meeting.  When  we 
believe  that,  we  will  see  that  associations  and  clubs  are  not  the  principal 
thing.  We  will  not  breathe  without  full  lungs  until  the  day  we  understand 
that  human  brotherhood  is  not  a  question  of  badge,  and  that,  if  we  really 
wish  to  bring  brotherhood  in  life,  we  have  to  turn  our  eyes  other  ways. 
Where  ?     This  is  the  great  question. 

Our  modern  civilization — or,  rather,  let  us  not  use  this  word,  for  it  sup- 
poses a  perfection,  and  hence  cannot  be  applied  to  anything  that  exists  on 
earth— no,  we  will  say  our  ways  of  teaching  and  learning,  there  is  the  evil 
we  must  fight  against  if  we  want  to  deliver  the  idea  of  human  brotherhood 
from  the  dust  and  smoke  and  mud  which  cover  it,  so  that  we  are  able  to 
forget  that  it  exists  and  speak  of  it  as  a  new  thing  to  be  instituted.  Our 
ways  of  teaching  are  the  evil,  so  I  said  and  so  I  repeat.  For  our  ways  of 
teaching  are  shameful.  From  childhood  on  we  are  taught  that  human 
beings  are  divided  as  civilized,  enlightened,  uncivilized,  barbarians,  etc. — I 
do  not  know  the  exact  definitions  used  in  American  school-books,  nor  do  I 
know  the  exact  group  to  which  I  have  to  belong,  as  being  a  Russian — but 
the  fact  is  that  from  our  childhood  on  we  are  trained  to  divide  those  whom 
we  call  our  brothers  into  different  categories,  according  to  their  more  or  less 
proximity  to  those  summits  of  civilization,  the  benefits  of  which' we  enjoy, 
and  the  more  learning  we  want  to  show  the  more  we  accentuate  and  under- 
line these  divisions  of  humanity. 

And  when  a  few  of  us  get  rid  of  that  habit  of  classifying  our  similars ; 
when  we  at  last  become  aware  that  all  nations  are  composed  of  men  like 
ourselves,  then  we  consider  this  conviction  as  our  highest  personal  merit 
and  the  greatest  proof  of  our  enlightenment  and  culture.  Is  it  really  to  our 
culture  we  owe  these  feelings  of  brotherhood  ?  Is  it  not  far  more  to  the 
fact  of  having  succeeded  in  shaking  off  from  our  souls  the  deposits  of  a 
wrong  education  ? 

Now,  I  ask  you  all :  Is  that  the  spirit  which  ought  to  animate  all  educa- 
tion ?  Just  allow  me  to  tell  you  what  happened  to  a  Russian  peasant,  of 
course  uncivilized.  He  one  day  undertook  a  journey.  With  a  bag  on  his 
shoulders  he  started  off  and  walked  through  Germany,  France,  a  part  of  Italy 
and  Austria  without  knowing  a  word  of  any  other  language  but  his  own. 
When  he  came  back  his  land  owner,  the  civilized  man,  asked  him,  "  How  it 
was  possible  he  could  make  himself  understood  in  foreign  countries  among 
foreign  people?"  And  the  peasant  replied  in  the  most  genuine  way: 
"Well,  why  shouldn't  they  understand  me,  are  they  not  human  beings  like 
myself?" 

I  leave  you  to  decide  which  of  the  two  was  the  more  civilized  one,  and 
whether  I  am  wrong  in  affirming  that  our  modern  education  does  just  the 
contrary  of  what  it  should  do. 

We  think  that  the  question  of  universal  brotherhood  is  an  educational 
question — that  it  ought  to  be  put  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  primary  school  and 


1136        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

not  at  the  very  top  of  the  university.  And,  by  the  way,  do  yoa  know  what  might 
become  a  school  for  teaching  human  brotherhood  ?  The  Midway  Plaisance 
at  the  World's  Fair.  You  hardly  believe  that,  and  still  it  is  so,  and  if  I  tell 
you  why  you  will  agree  with  me. 

The  Midway  Plaisance  is  generally  considered  as  a  resort  of  pleasure. 
For  me  it  is  the  most  sad  thing  I  know,  because  it  is  human  life  exposed  as 
a  show,  human  beings  deprived  of  their  feelings  and  reduced  to  the  state  of 
a  catalogued  exhibit,  a  moving  panorama  of  human  empty  forms.  And  we 
civilized  people  who  go  and  buy  our  entrance  to  the  Cairo  street  or  the  Ara- 
bian circus,  we  even  do  not  inquire  whether  these  human  brothers  of  ours 
have  a  human  soul  under  their  interesting  and  picturesque  costumes.  We 
look  at  those  Arabian  riders,  at  their  equestrian  exercises,  the  showy  colors 
of  their  dresses,  their  movings,  their  wavings,  their  cheering,  and  we  stare  at 
them  like  animals.  But  their  language  is  a  beautiful  one.  It  is  a  jewel  set 
in  filagree.  Their  poetry  is  the  finest  dream  humanity  has  dreamed.  No, 
don't  say  they  are  barbarians ;  don't  be  afraid  of  them ;  step  closer.  You 
will  see  they  are  men  just  as  we. 

Remember,  you  cannot  become  a  brother  of  a  man  if  you  do  not  feel 
that  you  are  his  brother. 

So,  if*  you  really  wish  that  humanity  should  be  united  in  feelings  of 
universal  brotherhood,  do  not  go  to  the  meeting,  do  not  become  a  member  of 
the  association,  but  going  home,  gather  your  children  and  tell  them  :  "Chil- 
dren, let  us  learn,  for  we  must  know  what  other  people  are,  because  other 
people  are  our  brothers,  and  we  must  know  our  brothers,  because  if  we  do 
not  know  them  we  may  not  recognize  them,  and  it  is  a  crime  not  to  recog- 
nize one's  brother." 

These  are  my  ideas  on  human  brotherhood.  I  am  glad  to  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  proclaiming  them  publicly;  for,  after  having  written  this 
paper,  I  did  not  go  to  that  meeting,  but  I  want  those  who  asked  me  and 
expected  me  to  go,  I  want  them  to  know  why  I  did  not  go  and  why  I  never 
will. 


AMERICA'S  DUTY  TO  CHINA. 

Bv  Dr.  W.  a.  p.  Martin,  President  of  the  I.mi'Erial  Tungwen 

College,  Peking. 

It  is  not  claiming  too  much  for  Christianity  to  assert  that  beyond  ail 
other  systems  it  has  made  its  influence  felt  in  the  morality  of  individuals 
and  of  nations.  It  is  like  the  sun  which  not  only  floods  the  earth  with  light, 
but  imparts  the  force  that  enables  her  to  pursue  her  pathway.  Says  Sir  J. 
Mackintosh:  "The  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  Christian  religion  is  that 
spirit  of  universal  charity  which  is  the  living  principle  of  all  our  social 
duties."  And  Lord  Bacon  says  :  "  There  never  was  any  philosophy,  relig- 
ion or  other  discipline  which  did  so  plainly  and  highly  exalt  that  good,  which 
is  communicative  and  depress  that  good  which  is  private  and  particular  as 
the  Christian  Faith." 

It  has  been  well  said  "that  it  is  one  of  the  glories  of  Christianity  that 
it  has  caused  the  sentiment  of  repentance  to  find  a  place  in  the  heart  of 
nations."     This  is  the  sentiment  that  I  desire  to  evoke. 

Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  to  China  we  are  indebted  for  the  best  of 
our  domestic  beverages  ;  for  the  elegant  ware  that  adorns  our  table  ;  and  for 
those  splendid  dress  materials  that  set  off  the  beauty  of  our  women. 

To  China,  moreover,  we  are  indebted  for  at  least  one  of  our  sciences  — 
one  which  is  doing  more  than  any  other  to  transform  and  subjugate  the  ele- 
ments. Alchemy,  the  mother  of  our  modern  chemistry,  had  its  original  root 
in  the  Chinese  philosophy  of  Tao — one  of  the  religions  represented  here 
to-day. 

To  China,  beyond  a  doubt,  we  are  indebted  for  the  motive  that  stimu- 
lated the  Genoese  navigator  to  undertake  h  ,s  adventurous  voyage  ;  and  to 
her  he  was  indebted  for  the  needle  that  guided  him  on  his  way.  Without 
China  for  motive,  and  without  the  magic  finger  for  guide,  it  is  certain  that 
Columbus  would  not  have  made  his  voyage ;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that 
we  should  not  have  been  holding  a  World's  Fair  at  this  time  and  place. 
With  such  claims  on  our  grateful  recognition,  is  it  not  a  matter  of  surprise 
that  China  is  not  found  occupying  a  conspicuous  place  in  this  Columbian 
Exposition  ?  Could  anything  have  been  more  fitting  than  to  have  had  the 
dragon  flag  floating  over  a  pavilion  draped  with  shining  silks — with  a 
pyramid  of  tea-chests  on  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  a  house  of  porcelain 
surmounted  by  a  gigantic  compass  and  a  statue  of  China  beckoning  Colum- 
i)us  to  cross  the  seas  ? 

As  a  matter  of  form,  our  government  did  send  an  invitation  to  China 

Coypright,  i8gj,  by  J.  H.  B. 

72  1137 


II 38        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

as  to  other  countries,  to  participate  in  a  national  capacity.  To  Chinese  eyes 
it  read  like  this  :  "  We  have  excluded  your  laborers  and  skilled  workmen 
because  our  people  dread  their  competition.  We  have  even  enacted  a  law 
that  not  one  of  them  who  turns  his  back  on  our  shores  shall  be  permitted  to 
re-enter  our  ports.  Still  we  would  like  to  have  you  help  us  with  our  big 
show,  and  for  this  occasfon  we  are  willing  to  relax  the  rigor  of  our  rules  so 
far  as  to  admit  a  few  of  your  workingmen  to  aid  in  arranging  your  exhibit — 
under  bond,  be  it  understood,  that  they  shall  clear  out  as  soon  as  the  display 
is  over."  What  wonder  that  a  proud  and  sensitive  government  declined  the 
tempting  offer,  leaving  its  industries  to  be  represented  (if  at  all)  by  the  pri- 
vate enterprise  of  its  people  resident  in  the  United  States  ? 

Here  is  China's  official  reply  as  communicated  by  Minister  Denby  in  a 
dispatch  to  the  Secretary  of  State  : 

Reporting  an  interview  with  the  Chinese  premier,  Li  Hung  Chong,  he 
says : 

"I  then  took  up  the  subject  of  the  Chicago  Exposition,  and  advised 
him  to  send  a  fleet  to  Hampton  Roads  to  show  the  world  the  great  progress 
China  has  lately  made  in  the  creation  of  a  modem  navy.  I  found,  however, 
that  it  was  useless  to  argue  the  subject  with  him.  He  said  he  would  not 
send  a  fleet;  and  that  China  would  have  no  exhibition  at  Chicago.  I 
expressed  my  regret  at  this  irrational  conclusion,  and  used  some  arguments 
to  make  him  recede  from  it — but  without  avail.'" 

"Who  is  my  neighbor?"  is  a  question  which  every  human  soul  is  bound 
to  ask,  in  a  world  in  which  mutual  aid  is  the  first  of  moral  laws.  The 
answer  given  by  Him,  who  better  than  any  other  expounded  and  exemplified 
the  laws  of  God,  is  applicable  to  nations  as  well  as  to  individuals.  It  is  an 
answer  that  sweeps  away  the  barriers  of  race  and  religion,  and  shows  us  the 
Samaritan  forgetful  of  hereditary  feuds  ministering  to  the  wants  of  the 
needy  Jew. 

Thus  China  is  our  neighbor,  notwithstanding  the  sea  that  rolls  between 
us, — a  sea  which,  contrary  to  the  idea  of  the  Roman  poet,  unites  rather  than 
divides.  Yes — China  which  faces  us  on  the  opposite  shore  of  the  Pacific — 
China,  which  occupies  a  domain  as  vast  and  as  opulent  in  resources  as  our 
own — China,  teeming  with  a  population  five  times  as  great  as  ours  and  more 
accessible  to  us  than  to  any  of  the  great  nations  of  Christendom — China,  I 
say,  is  preeminently  our  neighbor.  What,  then,  is  the  first  of  the  duties 
which  we  owe  to  her  ?  It  is  unquestionably  to  make  her  people  par- 
takers with  ourselves  in  the  blessings  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Here  in  this  Parliament  of  Religions  it  is  unnecessary  to  stop  to  prove 
that  religion  is  our  chief  good,  and  that  every  man  who  feels  himself  to  be 
in  possession  of  a  clew  to  guide  him  through  the  labyrinth  of  earthly  evils  is 
^  bound  to  offer  it  to  his  brother  man. 

Who  that  believes  that  (in  Buddhistic  phrase)  "he  has  found  the  way 
out  of  the  bitter  sea,"  can  refuse   to  indicate  the  path  to  his  brother  man  ? 


MARTIN:    AMERICA'S    DUTY    TO    CHINA.  II 39 

The  latter  may  decline  to  follow  it,  but  that  is  his  lookout;  he  may  even 
feel  offended  by  an  implied  assumption  of  superiority  ;  but  ought  a  regard 
for  susceptibilities  of  that  sort  to  dissuade  us  from  the  duty  of  imparting  our 
knowledge?  "Why  should  we  not  send  religions  to  your  country?" 
once  said  to  me  a  distinguished  Chinese  professor  in  the  Imperial  University 
of  Peking.  Careful  not  to  say  that  it  was  "  because  water  does  not  flow  up 
liill,"  I  replied — "By  all  means;  send  them  and  make  the  experiment." 
"  But  would  your  people  receive  them  with  favor  ? "  he  asked  again. 
"Certainly,"  said  I,  "instead  of  being  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness, 
they  would  be  welcomed  to  our  city  halls,  and  their  message  would  be  heard 
and  weighed."  Do  you  suppose  that  my  esteemed  colleague  at  once  set 
about  forming  a  missionary  society  ?  He  was  proud  of  his  position  as  pro- 
fessor of  mathematics,  and  proud  to  be  the  expositor  of  what  he  called 
"  western  learning ; "  but  his  faith  was  too  feeble  to  prompt  to  effort  for  the 
propagation  of  his  religion.  He  was  a  Confucianist  and  believed  in  an 
over-ruling  power,  which  he  called  "Shangti"or  "Tien;"  and  had  some 
shadow  of  notion  of  a  life  to  come,  as  evidenced  by  his  worship  of 
ancestors ;  Tjut  his  religion,  such  as  it  was,  was  wofully  wanting  in  vitality, 
and  marked  by  that  Sadduceean  indifference  which  may  be  taken  as  the 
leading  characteristic  of  his  school  despite  the  excellence  of  its  ethicah 
system. 

Another  religion  indigenous  to  China  is  Taoism;  but,  as  the  Chinese 
say  of  their  famous  Book  of  Changes,  that  "it  cannot  be  carried  beyond  the 
seas" — we  may  say  the  same  of  Taoism — it  has  nothing  that  will  bear 
transportation.  Its  founder  Laotsze  did  indeed  express  some  sublime  truths 
in  beautiful  language  ;  but  he  enjoined  retirement  from  the  world  rather 
than  persistent  effort  to  improve  mankind.  His  followers  have  become 
sadly  degenerate ;  and  not  to  speak  of  alchemy,  which  they  continue  to 
pursue,  their  religion  has  dwindled  into  a  compound  of  necromancy  and 
exorcism.     It  is,  however,  very  far  from  being  dead. 

Buddhism  has  a  nobler  record.  It  imported  into  China  the  elements  of 
a  spiritual  conception  of  the  universe.  It  has  implanted  in  the  minds  of  the 
common  people  a  firm  belief  in  rewards  and  punishments.  It  fias  cherished 
a  spirit  of  charity  ;  and  in  a  word,  exercised  an  influence  so  similar  to  that 
of  Christianity  that  it  may  be  considered  as  having  done  much  to  prepare 
the  soil  for  the  dissemination  of  a  higher  faith.  But  its  force  is  spent  and 
its  work  done.  Its  priesthood  have  lapsed  into  such  a  state  of  ignorance 
and  corruption  that  in  Chinese  Buddhism  there  appears  to  be  no  possibility 
of  revival.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  exist  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation  sim- 
ilar to  that  ot  those  frogs  that  are  said  to  have  been  excavated  from  the 
stones  of  a  Buddhist  monument  in  India;  which,  inhaling  a  breath  of  air, 
took  a  leap  or  two  and  then  expired.  Of  the  Buddhism  of  Japan,  which 
appears  to  be  more  wide-awake,  it  is  not  my  province  to  speak  ;  but  as  to 
that  of  China  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  no  power  can  galvanize  it  into  even 


II40         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    THIRTEENTH    DAY, 

a  semblance  of  vitality.  Or\e  more  service  it  has  rendered  in  addition  to 
those  enumerated — it  has  proven  the  possibility  of  a  religion  of  foreign 
origin  acquiring  an  ascendency  over  the  Chinese  mind. 

The  religion  of  the  state  is  a  heterogeneous  cult,  made  up  of  ceremonies 
borrowed  from  each  of  thege  three  systems.  And  of  the  religion  of  the  peo- 
ple, it  may  be  affirmed  that  it  consists  of  parts  of  all  three  commingled  in 
each  individual  mind,  much  as  gases  are  mingled  in  the  atmosphere,  but 
without  any  definite  proportion. 

Each  of  these  j;ystems  has,  in  its  measure,  served  them  as  a  useful  dis- 
cipline, though  in  jarring  and  irreconcilable  discord  with  each  other.  But 
the  time  has  come  for  the  Chinese  to  be  introduced  to  a  more  complete 
religion — one  which  combines  the  merits  of  all  three,  while  it  heightens  them 
in  degree. 

To  the  august  character  of  Shangti,  the  Supreme  Ruler,  known  but  neg- 
lected, feared  but  not  loved,  Christianity  will  add  the  attraction  of  a  tender 
Father,  bringing  him  into  each  heart  and  house  in  lieu  of  the  fetiches  now 
enshrined  there.  Instead  of  Huddha,  the  Light  of  Asia,  it  will  give  them 
Christ,  the  "  Light  of  the  World  ;  "  for  the  faint  hopes  of  immortality  derived 
from  Taoist  discipline  or  Buddhist  transmigration,  it  will  confer  a  faith  that 
triumphs  over  death  and  the  grave  ;  and  to  crown  all,  bestow  on  them  the 
energy  of  the  Holy  Ghost  quickening  the  conscience  and  sanctifying  the 
affections,  as  nothing  else  has  ever  done. 

The  native  systems  bound  up  with  the  absurdities  of  geomancyand  the 
abominations  of  animal  worship  are  an  anachronism  in  the  age  of  steam- 
boats and  telegraphs.  When  electricity  has  come  forth  from  its  hiding- 
place  to  link  the  remotest  quarters  of  their  land  in  instantaneous  sympathy, 
ministering  light,  force  and  healing,  does  it  not  suggest  to  them  the  coming 
of  a  spiritual  energy  to  do  the  same  for  the  human  soul  ? 

This  spiritual  power  I  hold  it  is  preeminently  the  tluty  of  Americans 
to  seek  to  impart  to  the  people  of  China.  When  Christianity  comes  to 
them  from  Russia,  England,  or  France,  all  of  which  have  pushed  their  ter- 
ritories up  to  the  frontiers  of  China,  the  Chinese  are  prone  to  suspect  that 
evangelization  under  such  auspices  is  only  a  cloak  for  future  aggres- 
sion. It  is  not  Christianity  in  itself  that  they  object  to  so  much  as  its  con- 
nection with  foreign  power  and  foreign  politics. 

Now  these  impediments  are  minimized  in  the  case  of  the  United  States 
^a  country,  which,  until  the  outbreak  of  this  unhappy  persecution  of  their 
countrymen,  was  regarded  by  the  Chinese  as  their  best  friend,  because  an 
impossible  enemy.  Our  treaty  of  1858  gives  expression  to  this  feeling  by  a 
clause  inserted  at  the  instance  of  the  Chinese  negotiators  to  the  effect  that 
whenever  China  finds  herself  in  a  difificulty  with  another  foreign  power  she 
shall  have  the  right  to  call  on  America  to  make  use  of  her  good  offices  to 
effect  a  settlement.  America  holds  that  proud  position  no  longer.  To 
such  a  pass  have  things  come  that  a  viceroy  who  has  always  been  friendly. 


I'KKSIUKN  1    W.  A.  1'.  MARllN,  D.D.,  I'liRLNiJ,  CHINA. 

"  Willi  IS  MY  NKK.HHOK  ?  IS  A  (lUliSTION  WHICH  EVERY  HUMAN  SOLX  IS  BOUND  TO  ASK  IN  A 
WOULD  IN  WHICH  MUTUAL  AID  IS  THE  FIRST  OF  MORAL  LAWS,  AND  THE  ANSWER  GIVEN  BY 
tllKIST  SWEEI'S  AWAY  THE  BAKKIEKS  OF  RACE  AND  RELIGION,  AND  SHOWS  US  THE  SAMARITAN 
KOKCJETFUL  CF  IIEREOITARV  FKUDS,  MINISTERING  TO  THE  WANTS  OF  THE  NEEDY  JEW." 


1 1 42        PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

and  at  times  has  been  regarded  as  a  patron  of  missionaries,  not  long  ago 
said  to  an  American  missionary  :  "  Do  not  come  back  to  China,  stay  in 
your  own  country  and  teach  your  people  the  practice  of  justice  and  charity." 

This  brings  us  to  the  duties  especially  incumbent  on  our  government, 
and  the  first  that  suggests  itself  is  that  of  protecting  American  interests. 
That,  you  may  say,  is  not  a  duty  to  China,  but  one  that  it  owes  to  its  own 
people.  True,  but  Americans  have  no  interest  that  does  not  imply  a  cor- 
responding good  to  the  Chinese  Empire. 

Take,  for  example,  our  commerce.  Do  we  impoverish  China  by  taking 
her  teas  and  silks  ?  Do  we  not  on  the  contrary  add  to  her  wealth  by  giv- 
ing in  exchange  the  materials  for  food  and  clothing  at  a  less  cost  than 
would  be  required  for  their  production  in  China  ?  The  value  of  our  com- 
mercial interests  in  that  empire  may  be  inferred,  better  than  from  any  minute 
statistics  from  the  fact  that  within  the  last  thirty  years  they  have  been  a 
leading  factor  in  the  construction  of  four  lines  of  railway  spanning  this  con- 
tinent and  of  three  lines  of  steamships  bridging  the  Pacific.  What  dimen- 
sions will  they  not  attain  when  our  states  west  of  the  Mississippi  come  to  be 
filled  up  with  an  opulent  population ;  and  when  the  resources  of  China  are 
developed  by  the  application  of  Occidental  methods? 

Had  Columbus  realized  the  grandnessof  his  discovery — and  had  he, 
like  Balboa,  bathed  in  the  water  of  the  Pacific,  what  a  picture  would  have 
risen  before  -  the  eye  of  his  fervid  imagination, — a  new  land  as  rich  as 
Cathay — and  new  and  old  clasping  hands  across  a  broad  expanse  of  ocean 
whitened  by  the  sails  of  a  prosperous  commerce.  Already  has  such  a  dream 
begun  to  be  fulfilled ;  and  to  the  prospective  expansion  of  our  commerce 
fancy  can  hardly  assign  a  limit.  In  that  bright  reversion  every  son  of  our 
soil  and  every  adopted  citizen  has  a  direct  or  indirect  interest. 

But  what  has  the  government  to  do  with  all  that,  beyond  giving  free 
scope  to  private  enterprise?  Much,  in  many  ways  ;  but. not  to  descend  into 
particulars,  its  responsibility  consists  mainly  in  two  things,  both  negative  ; 
viz.,  not  by  an  injudicious  tariff  to  exclude  the  products  of  China  from  our 
markets,  and  not  to  divert  the  trade  of  China  into  European  channels  by 
planting  a  bitter  root  of  hostility  in  the  Chinese  mind. 

Our  other  great  interest  is  the  commerce  of  ideas — the  propagation  of 
Christian  faith.  That,  you  will  say,  is  an  order  of  things  with  which  our 
government,  from  the  nature  of  its  constitution,  is  incapable  of  interfering. 

True,  it  may  not  resolve  itself  into  a  missionary  society,  any  more  than 
it  can  turn  itself  into  a  commercial  company.  Yet  it  may  have  as  much  to 
do  with  religion  as  with  trade,  and  almost  in  the  same  way. 

It  cannot  refuse  to  be  interested  in  the  propagation  of  the  Christian 
faith,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  the  bulk  of  our  people  (some  twenty 
million  church  members)  are  interested  in  it.  But  there  are  other  reasons 
for  favoring  and  encouraging  the  missionary  enterprise. 

Does  it  make  no  difference  to  us,  whether  we  have  for  our  vis-i-vis  on  the 


MARTIN:   AMERICA'S    DUTY   TO   CHINA.  II43 

other  shore  of  the  ocean  a  Christian  or  a  pagan  power?  How  different 
would  be  our  relations  with  Europe  were  the  religions  of  Asia  substituted 
for  her  Christian  institutions  !  It  was  the  possession  of  a  common  religious 
faith  that  molded  the  independent  states  into  one  family,  subject  to  a  com- 
mon code,  which  Phillemore  calls  the  "jus  commune  of  Christendom." 
"  Great  and  inestimable,"  says  the  same  writer,  "  has  been  the  effect  of  the 
doctrines  of  revelation  on  the  jurisprudence  of  nations."  It  was  precisely 
the  want  of  these  doctrines  for  the  basis  of  a  common  code,  which,  as 
explained  by  Mr.  Cushing,  led  the  negotiators  of  our  earlier  treaties  with 
China  to  refuse  to  allow  our  people  to  be  subject  to  her  territorial  jurisdic- 
tion. And  though,  as  Phillemore  remarks, "  Events  which  are  now  happen- 
ing are  evidently  preparing  the  way  for  a  general  diffusion  of  international 
justice  among  nations  of  different  religious  creeds,"  is  it  not  obvious  that 
the  brotherhood  of  man  can  only  be  expected  to  follow  on  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  ? 

If  to  any  of  the  European  powers  it  be  an  object  to  prevent  China  from 
becoming  rich  and  powerful,  let  them  discourage  her  from  the  adoption  of 
our  Christian  faith ;  but  such  can  never  be  the  policy  of  the  United  States, 
as  we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  her  power  and  much  to  gain  from  her  wealth. 
She  herself  is  beginning  to  be  dimly  conscious  of  what  she  owes  to  the  labors 
of  missionaries ;  in  preparing  the  way  for  that  "  renovation  of  the  people," 
which  Confucius  declares  it  to  be  the  duty  of  an  emperor  to  promote.  To 
the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  she  is  indebted  for  the  mathematics  and 
astronomy  of  the  sixteenth  century;  and  to  Protestant  missionaries,  since  the 
latter  half  of  the  present  century,  she  owns  a  series  of  text-books  including 
the  whole  circle  of  modern  sciences — carrying  her  scanty  stock  of  mathe- 
matical knowledge  to  the  highest  branches ;  substituting  the  astronomy  of 
Newton  for  that  of  Ptolemy,  and  adding  chemistry,  physics,  political  economy 
and  international  law. 

To  the  importance  of  these  sciences  the  Chinese  are  gradually  waking 
up;  nor  can  they  long  continue  to  ignore  the  renovating  power  of  those 
religious  principles  which  form  the  soul  of  our  western  civilization.  The 
greatest  obstacle  in  the  way  of  their  acceptance  would  be  removed  could  the 
Chinese  be  convinced  that  they  are  not  intended  in  any  way  to  subserve  the 
ends  of  foreign  political  ambition. 

That  our  country  has  no  such  ends  to  serve,  they  are  well  aware ;  and 
that  our  missionaries  are  not  political  agents,  they  are  fully  assured. 

This  is  an  immense  natural  advantage  of  the  United  States  in  their 
favor;  but  alas  !  it  is  more  than  counterbalanced  by  prejudices  created  by 
the  short-sighted  policy  of  our  government  in  pursuing  the  Chinese  with  as 
cruel  legislation  as  that  which  is  directed  against  the  Jews  in  Russia.  Let 
the  Christian  people  of  the  United  States  rise  up  in  their  might  and  demand 
that  our  government  shall  retrace  its  steps  by  repealing  that  odious  law  which 
may  not  be  forbidden  by  the  letter  of  our  constitution  ;  but  which  three  emi- 


1144         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

nent  members  of  our  supreme  court  have  pronounced  to  be  in  glaring  oppo- 
sition to  the  spirit  of  our  Afasna  Charta. 

I  am  not  presenting  a  plea  for  unrestricted  immigration.  It  is  not  expected 
by  China  that  our  gates  should  be  thrtfwn  open  to  the  Briarean  arms  of  her 
laboring  people,  any  more  than  that  she  should  be  compelled  to  admit  the 
labor-saving  machines  of  this  country. 

In  September,  l888,  the  Chinese  government  had  under  advisement  a 
treafy  negotiated  by  its  minister  in  Washington,  in  which  to  escape  the 
indignity  of  an  arbitrary  exclusion  act,  it  agrees  to  take  the  initiative  in 
prohibiting  the  emigration  of  laborers.  That  treaty  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  ratified,  if  time  had  been  given  for  the  consideration  of  amend- 
ments which  China  desired  to  propose.  But  the  exigencies  of  a  presiden- 
tial campaign  led  our  government  to  apply  the  "  closure  "  with  an  abruptness 
almost  unheard  of  in  diplomatic  history,  demanding  through  our  minister  in 
Peking  the  ratification  within  forty-eight  hours  on  pain  of  being  considered 
as  having  rejected  the  treaty.  The  Chinese  government,  not  choosing  to 
sacrifice  its  dignity  by' complying  with  this  unceremonious  ultimatum,  our 
Congress,  as  a  bid  for  the  vote  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  hastily  passed  the  Scott 
•  law, — a  law  which  our  Supreme  Court  has  decided  to  be  in  contravention  of 
our  treaty  engagements. 

Another  Olympiad  came  round — a  term  which  we  might  very  well  apply 
to  the  periodical  game  of  electing  a  president — and  on  the  high  tide  of 
another  presidential  contest  a  new  exclusion  law,  surpassing  its  predecessors 
in  the  severity  of  its  enactments,  was  successfully  floated. 

Could  such  a  course  have  any  other  effect  than  that  of  exciting  in  the 
mind  of  China  profound  contempt  for  our  republican  institutions,  and  an 
abiding  hostility  towards  our  people  ?  One  of  our  leading  journals  has 
characterized  that  law  as  "  a  piece  of  buncombe  and  barbarous  legislation," 
of  which  the  administration  would  appear  to  be  "  heartily  ashamed,"  to  judge 
from  the  excuse  they  find  for  evading  its  execution. 

If  it  were  put  in  force  and  any  considerable  number  of  Chinese  sub- 
jected to  the  penalty  of  deportation,  all  the  gunboats  in  our  navy  would  not 
suffice  to  prevent  our  missionaries  and  merchants  being  chased  out  of  every 
province  in  the  empire.  That  may  not  be  ordered  by  the  Chinese  govern- 
ment, which  makes  it  a  point  of  iionor  to  observe  its  treaties,  and  which 
always  acts  with  a  dignified  deliberation  quite  in  contrast  with  the  hasty 
proceedings  of  our  Congress  ;  l)ut  there  are  limits  to  its  patience,  and  the 
tide  of  popular  fury  will  be  difficult  to  stem. 

Let  a  wise  diplomacy  supersede  these  obnoxious  enactments  by  a  new 
convention  which  shall  be  fair  to  both  parties  ;  then  will  our  people  be 
welcomed  as  friends,  and  America  may  yet  recover  her  lost  influence  in 
that  great  Empire  of  the  East. 


TOLERATION.* 

By  Prof.  Minas  Tcheraz. 

I  accept  with  the  deepest  gratitude  the  honor  to-day  conferred  upon  me. 
I  owe  it  to  the  inexhaustible  kindness  of  our  estimable  president,  Mr.  Bonney, 
and  Rev.  Dr.  John  Henry  Barrows,  who  have  in  this  way  wished  to  show 
their  sympathy  for  the  old  Armenian  Church.  Bom  in  the  shadow  of  this 
church,  I  love  it  for  its  tolerant  and  democratic  spirit.  It  is  this  spirit  which 
has  guided  my  steps  toward  this  new  Pantheon.  In  Europe  and  America  I 
have  met  many  skeptics,  who  think  that  the  Parliament  of  Religions  will  be 
as  the  Falls  of  Niagara,  a  gigantic  and  barren  effort.  This  black  prophecy 
has  not  succeeded  in  breaking  my  faith,  because  the  truly  religious  heart  can- 
not but  be  optimistic.  For  me  this  august  assembly,  the  highest  theological 
school  after  that  of  nature,  will  have  a  result  which  will  suffice  to  immortalize 
the  memory  of  John  Henr)'  Barrows  and  his  companions  in  arms.  It  will  have  • 
laid  the  basis  for  a  universal  tolerance.  Fifteen  years  ago  I  was  present  in 
the  Armenian  Church  of  Manchester,  England,  at  an  interview  between  the 
Greek  Archimandrite  and  the  Supreme  Patriarch  of  the  Armenian  Church. 
To  the  words  of  union  uttered  by  the  brilliant  Armenian  the  monk  replied  as 
follows:  "If  there  be  no  harmony  between  our  two  churches,  the  fault  is 
not  with  our  peoples.  They  are  like  flocks  of  sheep  which  long  for  nothing 
more  than  to  pasture  together.  It  is  with  us  the  shepherds  who  separate 
them  that  the  trouble  lies."  Since  the  beginning  of  this  Parliament  we  see 
on  the  same  platform  the  pastors  of  all  the  nations,  the  representatives  of  the 
most  diverse  religions,  who  treat  each  other  with  respect,  and  what  is  more 
with  sympathy  and  affection. 

This  scene  of  reconciliation,  that  unfolds  itself  before  the  eyes  of  a  large 
international  gathering,  united  in  Chicago  on  the  occasion  of  the  World's 
Fair,  and  the  telegraph  and  the  press  transferring  the  scene  before  the  eyes 
of  an  entire  humanity,  is  certainly  wonderful  progress.  What  can  result 
from  this  great  Parliament  but  the  general  conviction  that  religions  are  not 
barriers  of  iron,  which  separate  forever  the  members  of  the  human  families, 
but  are  barriers  of  ice  which  melt  at  the  first  glance  of  the  sun  of  love. 
These  are  the  words  which  the  Armenian  Patriarch  at  Constantinople 
answered  to  the  words  of  union  from  the  Patriarch  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Armenians:  "The  union  must  be  by  acts  and  not  bywords.  Send  into 
my  churches  your  preachers  and  I  will  send  into  your  churches  my  preach- 
ers; let  them  preach  freely,  but  do  not  share  their  doctrines,  and  let  the  peo- 
♦This  address  belongs  chronologically  to  the  ninth  day. 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

IMS 


I  1 46         PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

pie  follow  freely  the  teachings  that  they  think  best."  The  Armenian  Catholic 
Patriarch  found  this  scheme  too  bold  to  be  accepted,  but  the  prelate  of  the 
old  Armenian  Church  has  now  at  the  last  given  example  of  a  tolerance  which 
deserves  to  be  thought  of. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  the  memorable  speakers  to  which  we  have  lis- 
tened in  this  presence,  as  we'll  as  those  which  we  shall  hear  to-day  and  until 
the  end  of  this  Parliament,  will  serve  to  reinforce,  even  by  the  antagonism 
of  the  religious  systems,  the  desire  for  absolute  tolerance.  Humanity  in  our 
East,  as  well  as  in  your  West,  prays  for  peace  and  love.  It  does  not  want  a 
religion  which  teaches  of  a  Creator  who  hates  his  creatures.  It  does  not 
want  a  God  who  prefers  an  involuntary  worship  to  one  which  freely  flows 
from  the  depths  of  the  human  soul.  It  will  bless  some  day  the  Council  of 
Chicago,  even  should  this  council  proclaim  for  its  creed  nothing  but  this  one 
word  "tolerance." 


THE  KORAN  AND  OTHER  SCRIPTURES. 
Letter  to  the  Parliament  from  J.  Sanua  Abou  Naddara,  Paris. 

You  desire  me  to  give  you  freely  my  opinion  about  the  Koran. 

I  shall  not  speak  of  its  holiness,  lest  I  profane  it,  and  besides  I  am  not 
an  Imam.  I  shall  only  show  you  that  the  Koran  is  tolerant,  humane  and 
moral.  I  shall  merely  quote  to  you  some  of  its  verses,  and  leave  you  to  judge 
of  its  divine  precepts. 

•'  Surely  those  who  believe,  and  the  Jews  and  the  Christians  and  the 
Sabians,  whoever  believeth  in  God  and  the  Last  Day,  and  doeth  that  which 
is  right,  they  shall  have  their  reward  with  their  Lord.  There  shall  come  no 
fear  on  them,  neither  shall  they  be  grieved."     Ch.  ii :  59. 

I  am  then  not  wrong  in  saying  that  the  Koran  is  tolerant.  Now  as  to 
its  being  moral  : 

"  Good  and  evil  shall  not  be  held  equal.  Turn  away  evil  for  that  which 
is  better,  and  behold,  the  man  between  whom  and  thyself  there  was  enmity 
shall  become,  as  it  were,  thy  warmest  friend."     Ch.  Ixi :  33. 

"A  fair  speech  and  to  forgive  is  better  than  alms  followed  by  mischief." 
Ch.  ii :  265. 

Observe  how  humane  Mohammed  was  :  "  They  shall  ask  thee  what 
they  shall  bestow  in  alms.  Answer,  The  good  which  ye  bestow,  let  it  be 
given  to  parents  and  kindred  and  orphans  and  the  poor  and  the  strangers. 
Whatever  good  ye  do,  God  knoweth  it."     Ch.  ii :  211. 

Concerqing  Hospitality. — "If  any  of  the  idolaters  shall  demand  protec- 
tion of  thee,  grant  him  protection,  that  he  may  hear  the  word  of  God,  and 
afterwards  let  him  reach  the  place  of  security."     Ch.  ix  :  6. 

Mercy  toward  Slaves. — "Unto  such  of  your  slaves  as  desire  a  written 


i)U.  H.  I'.KKKKwrr/. 

1(1  IN.  JDIIX  \V.  HUNT. 

MRS.  lANNII-:  v..  WILLIAMS. 


KKV.  S.  t,.  i; ALliU  IN,   I).l>. 

(ION.   IHOMAS  J.  SL\L\lfc;S. 

Ki:\'.  .\NT<JlNl£TTt:  li.   lU.ACKWELL. 


II 48    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  THIRTEENTH  DAY. 

instrument  allowing  them  to  redeem  themselves  on  paying  a  certain  sum, 
write  one,  if  you  know  good  in  them,  and  give  them  of  the  riches  of  God 
which  he  hath  given  thee."     Ch.  xxiv  :  33. 

Encouragement  of  Learning. — Mohammed  said  :  "  Learned  men  are 
the  heirs  of  prophets."  "Learning  is  a  divine  precept  that  every  Mussul- 
man must  fulfill."  "Acquire- knowledge,  even  if  it  were  in  China."  "  Expect 
no  good  from  a  man  who  is  neither  learned  nor  student."  Moslem  writers 
have  said  much  on  this  subject. 

The  Koran's  Praise  of  Women. — "  Happy  and  fortunate  is  the  man  who 
has  only  one  wife,  pious  and  virtuous."  "  I  love  three  things  in  your  world, 
woman,  perfume  and  prayer."  "  The  greatest  bliss  of  man  after  that  of  his 
being  a  faithful  believer  in  God,  is  his  having  a  pious  wife  who  delights  him 
when  he  looks  at  her,  obeys  him  when  he  commands  her,  and  preserves  his 
honor  and  his  property  when  he  is  far  from  her."  "  Respect  those  who  have 
borne  you."  "  If  you  feel  that  you  cannot  act  equitably  toward  many  wives, 
marry  one  only." 

Divorce. — The  Apostle  says  that  even  if  a  man  has  given  his  wife  a  tal- 
ent, if  he  divorces  her,  he  has  no  right  to  take  back  anything  from  her. 


WOiMAN  AND  THE  PULPIT. 
By  Rev.  Antoinette  Brown  Blackwell.    - 

Feelings  which  come  unbidden  from  the  influence  of  our  surroundings 
tend  to  produce  in  us  the  willing  acceptance  of  anything  to  which  we  are 
accustomed.  The  present  becomes  the  instructive  measure  of  the  future. 
This  tendency  is  much  more  influential  than  may  be  supposed  in  the  settle- 
ment of  many  of  the  great  problems  of  life,  and  it  forms  the  only  justifica- 
tion for  the  opposition  still  felt  by  very  excellent  persons  to  the  presence 
and  the  wise,  helpful  teaching  of  capable  women  in  the  Christian  pulpit. 
Serious  arguments  against  feminine  preaching  were  answered  long  ago. 
Wherever  any  of  the  fairly  acceptable  women  preachers  are  heard  and  known 
long  enough  to  make  their  speakmg  and  their  good  work  familiar  and 
appreciated,  there  it  is  already  accepted  that  the  sex  of  the  worker  is  not  a 
bar  to  good  work. 

Women  are  taking  an  active,  increasing  share  in  the  education,  the 
thought  and  the  investigations  of  the  age,  and  are  passing  into  almost 
every  field  of  work,  certainly  to  no  obvious  disadvantage  to  any  worthy 
interest.  This  great  Parliament  of  Religions  is  in  evidence  that  narrow 
conservatism  is  rapidly  decreasing,  and  that  our  conception  of  the  religious 
pulpit  must  widen  until  it  can  take  in  all  faiths,  all  tongues  which  strive  to 
enforce  the  living  spirit  of  love  to  God  and  man. 


BLACKWELL:   WOMAN   AND   THE    PULPIT.  II49 

If  Christianity  had  fully  ilecided  the  inodein  status  of  society,  there 
would  have  been  neither  male  nor  female  in  church,  or  state,  or  education, 
or  property,  or  influence,  or  work,  or  honor.  Ciioice  and  capacity  would 
liave  established  all  questions  of  usefulness.  Is  God,  who  is  no  respecter  of 
persons,  a  respecter  of  sex  ?  Paul's  exposition  of  practical  Christianity  is  : 
"In  honor  preferring  one  another." 

Under  barbarism,  when  no  child  coukl  inherit  except  from  the  mother, 
personal  property  and  power  were  as  yet  but  partially  separate  from  the 
community  interests.  The  tribe,  or  clan,  was  a  social  unit  for  offense, 
defense  and  ownership.  Their  gods  were  tutelary,  household,  and  tribal 
gods.  Like  other  property  safest  around  the  hearthstones,  they  or  their 
symbols  were  given  into  the  safe  keeping  of  women.  In  that  condition  of 
morals,  women  could  only  safely  bequeath  wealth  or  chieftainship  to  sons 
of  their  own  lineage.  That  social  order  was  an  accepted  fact,  and,  mis- 
erable as  it  was,  it  kept  its  women  and  its  men  side  by  side,  equals  in  the 
•  onward  march  toward  a  better  future. 

When  property  and  power  were  gained  by  some  of  the  stronger  males, 
naturally  they  desired  to  bequeath  these  to  their  own  children.  From  that 
time  female  chastity  began  to  be  enforced  as  the  leading  virtue  for  the 
legal  wives  and  daughters.  The  legal  adoption  of  heirs  to  share  with  or 
supersede  children  born  in  wedlock  was  an  accepted  custom.  The  futile 
schemes  for  securing  virtuous  wives  and  legitimate  children  without  entirely 
discontinuing  a  wide  license  for  husbands,  fathers  and  sons,  had  not  arisen 
for  these  simpler  heathen  folk. 

The  later  enforced  civil  inferiority  of  women  sprang  from  the  same 
baneful  root.  And  woman's  long  exclusion  from  the  pulpit,  from  the  most 
consecrated  place  which  Christianity  has  kept  for  its  supposed  best  and 
noblest,  is  the  outgrowth  of  the  same  basal  iniquity. 

The  highest  code  of  morals  is  not  elastic,  but  both  men  and  women 
must  look  aloft  before  they  can  cordially  appreciate  its  teachings.  To  be 
hedged  about  by  conventions  is  not  to  learn  a  self-reliant  rectitude.  Was 
there  ever  a  reason  why  capable  women  should  not  have  continued  to  be 
expounders  of  the  highest  truth  to  which  their  era  could  attain  ? 

There  is  no  impropriety  in  proclaiming  truth  from  the  highest  house- 
top. The  most  consecrated  pulpit  is  less  sacred  than  any  living  principle. 
If  reverent  lips  proclaim  holiness  and  truth,  the  gaze  of  the  thousands  who 
listen  can  brush  no  down  from  the  cheek  of  maidenhood  or  wifehood.  The 
Htness  of  the  primary  educators  of  the  race  to  be  moral  and  religious 
teachers  has  easily  demonstrated  itself.     It  was  inevitable. 

In  1853  an  orthodox  Congregational  Church  called  a  council  and 
ordained  its  woman  pastor ;  who  had  been  already  settled  among  them  for 
six  or  eight  months.  In  1859  two  were  ordained  by  the  Adventists.  In 
1S63  two  women  were  ordained  by  the  Universalist  Church.  In  that 
second  decade,  so  far  as  yet  ascertained,  three  other  women  received  ordi- 


I  I  50        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    THIRTEENTH    DAY. 

nation — only  five  in  ail.  In  tlie  tiiird  decade  thirty  or  forty  were  ordained, 
and  in  the  fourth  decade  more  than  two  liund'red  have  received  ordination 
from  many  denominations. 

Numbers  of  our  most  earnest  religious  speakers  have  not  chosen  to 
seek  ordination.  Most  of  these  women  are,  or  have  been,  stated  preachers 
or  pastors  of  churches,  and  are  believed  to  have  proved  themselves  to  be 
successful  above  the  average  in  promoting  the  religious  welfare  of  the 
church  and  community. 

Women  are  needed  in  the  pulpit  as  imperatively  and  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  they  are  needed  in  the  world — because  they  are  women.  Women 
have  become — or  when  the  ingrained  habit  of  unconscious  imitation  has 
been  superseded,  they  will  become — indispensable  to  the  religious  evolution 
of  the  human  race. 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  MOTHER  OF  RELIGIONS  ON 
THE  SOCIAL  QUESTION. 

By  Rabbi  H.  Berkowitz,  D.D.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

From  the  first  Judaism  proclaimed  the  dignity  and  duty  of  labor  by 
postulating  God,  the  Creator,  at  work,  and  setting  forth  the  divine  example 
unto  all  men  for  imitation,  in  the  command,  "Six  days  shalt  thou  labor  and 
do  all  thy  work."  Industry  is  thus  hallowed  by  religion,  and  religion  in 
turn  is  made  to  receive  the  homage  of  industry  in  the  fulfillment  of  the 
ordinance  of  Sabbath  rest. 

Against  the  iniquity  of  self-seeking,  Judaism  has  ever  protested  most 
loudly,  and  none  the  less  so  against  the  errors  and  evils  of  an  unjust  self- 
sacrifice.  "  Love  thyself,"  she  says.  This  is  axiomatic.  Egoism  as  an 
exclusive  motive  is  entirely  false,  but  altruism  is  not  therefore  exclusively 
and  always  right.  In  the  reciprocal  relation  between  the  responsibility  of 
the  individual  for  society  and  of  society  for  the  individual  lies  one  of  Juda- 
ism's prime  characteristics.  She  has  pointed  the  ideal  in  the  conflict  of 
social  principles  by  her  golden  precept  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself;  I  am  God."  According  to  this  precept  she  has  so  arranged  the 
inner  affairs  of  the  family  that  the  purity,  the  sweetness  and  the  tenderness 
of  the  homes  of  her  children  have  become  proverbial. 

With  her  sublime  maxim,  "Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself ;  I  am  God," 
Judaism  set  up  the  highest  ideal  of  society,  as  a  human  brotherhood  under 
the  care  of  a  Divine  Fatherhood.  According  to  this  ideal  Judaism  has 
sought,  passing  beyond  the  environments  of  the  family,  to  regulate  the  affairs 
of  human  society  at  large.  "This  is  the  book  of  the  generations  of  men," 
was  the  caption  of  Genesis  (v.  i),  indicating,  as  the  Rabbins  taught,  that  all 
men  are  entitled  to  equal  rights,  as  being  equally  the  children  of  one  Crc- 


BERKOWITZ:   JEWISH    SOCIALISM.  II5I 

ator.  The  freedom  of  the  individual  was  the  prime  necessary  consequence 
of  this  precept.  Slavery  stood  forever  condemned  when  Israel  went  forth 
from  the  bondage  of  Egypt. 

Judaism  has  calmly  met  the  wild  outbursts  of  extremists  of  the  Anti- 
poverty  and  Nihilistic  types  with  the  simple  confession  of  the  fact:  "The 
needy  will  not  be  wanting  in  the  land."  The  brotherly  care  of  the  needy 
is  the  common  solicitude  of  the  Jewish  legislators  in  every  age. 

The  freedom  of  the  individual  was  recognized  as  involving  the  devel- 
opment of  unlike  capacities.  From  this  freedom  all  progress  springs.  But 
all  progress  must  be  made,  not  for  the  selfish  advantage  of  the  individual 
alone,  but  for  the  common  welfare  "that  thy  brother  with  thee  may  live." 
Therefore,  private  property  in  land  or  other  possessions  was  regarded  as 
only  a  trust,  because  everything  is  God's,  the  Father's,  to  be  acquired  by 
industry  and  perseverance  by  the  individual,  but  to  be  held  by  him  only  to 
the  advantage  of  all.  To  this  end  were  established  all  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions of  trade,  of  industry  and  of  the  system  of  inheritance  ;  the  code  of  ren- 
tals ;  the  Jubilee  year  that  every  fiftieth  year  brought  back  the  land  which 
had  been  sold,  into  the  original  patrimony ;  the  seventh  or  Sabbatical  year 
in  which  the  lands  were  fallow,  all  produce  free  to  the  consumer ;  the  tith- 
ings  of  field  and  flock ;  the  loans  to  the  brother  in  need  without  usury,  and 
the  magnificent  system  of  obligatory  charities  which  still  holds  the  germ  of 
the  wisdom  of  all  modem  scientific  charity  :  "  Let  the  poor  glean  in  the 
fields,"  and  gather  through  his  own  efforts  what  he  needs  ;  i.  e.,  give  to  each 
one,  not  support,  but  the  opportunity  to  secure  his  own  support. 

A  careful  study  of  these  Mosaic-TaJmudic  institutions  and  laws  is  of 
untold  worth  to  the  present  in  the  solution  of  the  social  question.  True,  these 
codes  were  adapted  to  the  needs  of. a  peculiar  people,  living  under  conditions 
which  do  not  now  exist  in  exactly  the  same  order  anywhere.  We  can  not 
use  the  statutes,  but  their  aim  and  spirit,  their  motive  and  method  we  must 
adopt  in  the  solution  of  the  social  problem  even  to-day. 

The  cry  of  woe  which  is  ringing  in  our  ears  now  was  never  heard  in 
Judea.  In  all  the  annals  of  Jewish  history  there  are  no  records  of  the  revolts 
of  slaves  such  as  those  which  afflicted  the  world's  greatest  empire  ;  no  upris- 
ing like  those  of  the  Plebeians  of  Rome,  the  Demoi  of  Athens,  or  the  Helots 
of  Sparla ;  no  wild  scenes  like  those  of  the  Paris  Commune  ;  no  processions 
of  hungry  men,  women  and  children  crying  for  bread,  like  those  of  London, 
Chicago  and  Denver.  Pauperism  never  haunted  the  ancient  land  of  Judea. 
Tramps  were  not  known  there.  We  have  here  the  pattern  of  what  was  the 
most  successful  social  system  that  the  world  has  ever  known. 

The  hotly  contested  social  questions  of  our  civilization  are  to  be  settled 
according  to  the  ideas  neither  of  the  capitalist,  the  communist,  the  anarch- 
ist, nor  the  nihilist,  but  simply  and  only  according  to  the  eternal  laws  of 
morality,  of  which  Sinai  is  the  loftiest  symbol. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  DAY. 


THE    RELATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY    TO  AMERICA. 

By  Prof.  O'Gorman,  of  WASHrNGTON. 

By  right  of  discovery  and  possession,  dating  back  almost  nine  hundred 
years,  America  is  Christian. 

The  books,  pamphlets,  lectures  and  articles,  written  on  this  Columbian 
anniversary,  prove  beyond  a  candid  doubt  that  the  discovery  of  America 
was  eminently  a  religious  enterprise  ;  and  that  the  desire  to  spread  Chris- 
tianity was,  I  will  not  say  the  only,  but- the  principal  motive  that  prompted 
the  leaders  engaged  in  that  memorable  venture.  Before  you  can  strip  the 
discovery  of  its  religious  character,  you  must  unchristen  the  admiral's  flag- 
ship, and  tear  from  her  bulwarks, the  painting  of  the  patroness  under  whose 
auspices  the  gallant  craft  plowed  her  way  through  the  terrors  of  the  unknown 
ocean. 

The  inspiration  that  gave  the  old  world  a  new  continent  was  also 
the  cause  of  its  colonization  and  civilization.  When  I  say  that  religion 
was  the  primary  motive  in  the  making  of  the  American  nations,  I  make 
all  due  allowance  for  subsidiary  and  lower  motives,  for  greed  and  cru- 
elty, and  all  the  baser  passions  which  in  all  things  human,  alas,  accompany 
and  follow  the  nobler  virtues  and  higher  intentions,  and  seem,  when  they 
alone  are  looked  at,  to  overshadow  and  damn  Christian  civilization. 
Yet,  granting  all  this,  it  is  true  to  say  that  religion  often  originated, 
always  upheld  and  blessed  the  colonization  of  this  continent  and  the  found- 
ing of  the  great  commonwealths  that  to-day  make  America  the  admiration 
of  the  world,  and  to-morrow  may  make  it  the  world's  master. 

In  the  North  our  missionaries  softened  the  nature  and  manners  of  the 
aborigines  and  prepared  them  for  the  civilization,  into  the  possession  of 
which  the  United  Slates  is  leading  them  slowly  but  surely.  I  do  not  deny 
the  evils  which  Christians,  untrue  to  their  religious  creed,  have  inflicted  on 
the  native  races,  but  I  do  say  that  on  the  whole  those  races  have  been  bene- 
fited by  Christianity,  and  that  the  government  of  this  country  intends,  and 
steadily  seeks,  their  greater  good  in  spite  of  the  obstacles  that  contending 
churches,  and  still  more  contending  politicians,  raise  against  its  benign 
desires  and  efforts.  The  improvement  of  a  race,  like  the  improvement  of  a 
man,  is  always  at  the  cost  of  cruel  experience ;  such  is  the  price  of  evo- 
lution. 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1152 


O'GORMAN:   CHRISTIANITY   AND    AMERICA.  II  53 

In  South  America  Christianity  has  swept  away  pagan  civilizations  fair 
in  appearance,  but  reciting  with  slavery  and  human  sacrifices,  and  has  fash- 
ioned to  Christian  life  the  millions  of  natives  who  compose  in  very  great  part 
the  republics  of  that  half  of  our  continent.  There  are  disorders  there,  I 
confess,  in  state  and  church,  which  we  in  the  North  have  happily  escaped  ; 
disorders  in  the  state  which  are  the  strivings  after  that  purer  and  soiider 
democracy  which  was  our  dower  from  the  cradle,  and  was  sealed  to  tis  as  an 
heirloom  once  for  all  by  the  blood  shed  in  the  first  successful  assertion  of 
our  independence ;  disorders  in  the  church  which  are  the  fatal  outcome  of  a 
civilization  not  yet  perfected,  and  above  all  of  a  union  with  the  state  which 
hampers  the  free  and  natural  working  of  the  church.  Yet,  despite  all  this, 
we  may  safely  predict  that  there,  as  here,  as  in  our  mother  land,  Europe,  in 
past  ages,  Christianity,  if  you  but  give  her  time,  will  beget  a  perfect  civil- 
ization, and  that  the  republics  of  the  South  will  move  up  to  the  first  rank 
in  the  grand  march  of  humanity  to  the  goal  of  Christian  progress.  Thus, 
by  her  action  on  the  native  races  of  the  new  world,  an  action  which  may  be 
said  to  begin  only  and  cannot  be  judged  fairly  at  this  stage  of  its  working, 
Christianity  has  made  large  additions  to  the  family  of  civilized  man,  and 
has  given  birth  to  communities  that  may  yet  play  an  important  part  in  the 
future  history  of  the  world. 

But  the  field  of  my  study  is  not  so  much  all  this  continent  as  that  por- 
tion of  it  which  we  inhabit,  and  which  is  allowed  by  common  consent  on 
account  of  its  superiority  in  all  that  makes  civilization  to  be  called  par 
excellence  America.  In  what  relation  does  this  republic  stand  to  Christian- 
ity?    That  is  the  question  before  us. 

It  was  religion  that  wafted  the  first  colonists  to  our  shores.  They  came 
to  seek  liberty  of  worship,  and  some  of  them,  while  finding  that  boon  for 
themselves,  refused  it  to  others.  But  thece  came  to  Maryland  a  band  of 
emigrants  who,  by  the  original  design  of  their  founder.  Lord  Baltimore,  and 
later  by  their  own  legislative  enactment  in  colonial  assembly,  erected  into 
law  within  their  province  civil  and  religious  liberty  for  all  Christians.  The 
first  Marylanders  were  Catholics,  and  to  them  belongs  the  glory  of  enact- 
ing the  freedom  of  religion.  When  the  Colonies  entered  into  federation 
and  formed  the  United  States,  the  Maryland  enactment  became  part  of  our 
constitution.  Thus  Religious  equality  came  to  us  as  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary result  of  political  development.  This  is  secured  by  two  provisions  in 
the  Constitution.  "No  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualification 
to  any  office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States."  This  excludes  the 
establishment  of  any  particular  church  by  doing  away  with  the  religious 
tests  which  had  been  required  in  the  colonies  for  the  holding  of  office. 
"  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or 
prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof."  This  enactment  constitutes  a  bill  of 
rights,  guarantees  to  all  churches  full  liberty,  and  forbids  Congress  ever  to 
abridge  that   liberty.     It   is  a  denial  on  the  part  of  the  federal  government 

73 


I  I  54         PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

of  control  over  religion,  an  acknowledgment  that  it  is  incompetent  in  the 
matter.  The  line  marked  out  by  those  two  provisions  was  the  only  one  left 
open  to  the  fathers  of  the  republic.  The  necessities  of  the  situation  imposed 
this  relation,  and  emphasized  to  the  world  the  providential  destiny  of  the 
United  States,  which  is  to  be  a  home  to  emigrants  of  all  nations  and  ail 
creeds. 

American  Christianity,  therefore,  is  a  self-supporting,  self-governing 
religion  in  independent  but  friendly  relation  to  the  civil  power.  Both  are 
equally  necessary  to  constitute  an  organic  nation  as  soul  and  body  to  con- 
stitute man  ;  both  meet  on  questions  of  public  morality  without  which  there 
is  no  society,"  The  church  gives  stability  and  strength  to  the  foundations  of 
the  state,  the  state  protects  the  church  in  her  property,  legislation  and 
liberty. 

.  ,  We  may  truly  say  that  with  us  separation  of  church  and  state  is  not 
separation  of  the  nation  from  religion.  The  American  conception  is  that 
the  religious  character  of  the  nation  consists  mainly  in  the  religious  belief 
of  the  individual  citizen  and  the  conformity  of  conduct  to  that  belief.  Let 
me  enumerate  some  evidences  of  the  influence  of  Christianity  on  individ- 
uals and  domestic  society,  and  through  them  on  the  organic  nation,  or  the 
state.  Respect  for  the  clergy  and  voluntary  support  generously  given 
.  them  ;  multiplication  and  maintenance  of  churches,  private  schools,  Sunday 
schools,  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Associations,  benevolent  and  charitable  societies,  relig- 
ious associations  for  the  relief  of  every  misery,  physical  and  spiritual,  to 
which  humanity  is  liable ;  cooperation  of  men,  irrespective  of  creeds,  in 
issues  of  public  morality,  reform  or  charity,  and  the  consequent. softening  of 
sectarian  prejudices;  observance  of  Sunday,  not  only  by  rest  from  ordinary 
work,  but  by  attendance  at  public  worship  ;  labors  and  contributions  for 
missions,  especially  for  the  Christianizing  of  our  African  and  Indian  neigh- 
bors ;  zeal  and  practical  work  for  temperance  and  social  purity ;  respect  for 
woman  and  the  opening  to  her  of  new  avenues  and  fields  of  occupation,  the 
giving  to  her  a  vote  in  questions  that  come  close  to  her  as  wife  and  mother, 
such  as  temperance  and  education  ;  the  movement  to  make  the  punishment 
of  crime  reformatory  ;  finally  the  general  interest  taken  in  the  development 
of  religion,  the  evolution  of  its  teaching,  the  interior  life  of  its  churches,  and 
the  connection  of  all  social  and  philanthropic  progress  with  religion. 

Such  a  wide  and  deep  Christian  life  in  the  component  parts  of  the 
state  cannot  but  influence  the  state  itself;  and  of  what  I  should  call  the 
state's  Christianity,  I  give  the  following  evidences  : 

1.  Not  only  does  the  federal  government  make  Sunday  a  legal  day  of 
rest  for  all  its  officials,  but  the  states  have  Sunday  laws,  which  do  not 
enforce  any  specific  worship,  but  do  guard  the  day's  restfulness.  Moreover, 
certain  religious  holidays  are  made  legal  holidays. 

2.  Presidents  and  governors  in  official  documents  recognize  the  depend- 
ence of  the  nation  on  God  and  the  duty  of  gratitude  to  him.     As  notable 


GHERMANUS,  METROPOLITAN  OF  ATHENS,  OK  THE  ORTHODOX 

GREEK  CHURCH. 

"being  absent  and  FAK  away  BOniLV,  BUT  BEING  PRESENT  IN  Sl'IKlT,  1  NEVER  CEASE 
TO  SEND  fl-  MY  PRAYERS  TO  THE  HK;HEST,  AND  TO  PETITION  THAT  A  RAY  OK  DIVINE  LIGHT  MAY 
ILLUMINE  YOUR  GREAT  PARLIAMENT,  AND  SERVE  AS  A  REWARD  FOR  YOUR  LABORS  IN  BRINGING 
IT  TOGETHER." 


I  I  $6        PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

examples  I  will  cite  Washington's  first  and  last  addresses,  Lincoln's  second 
inaugural  and  Gettysburg  speech,  and  Cleveland's  second  inaugural. 

3.  Our  courts  decide  questions  of  church  discipline  and  property  that 
come  before  them  according  to  the  charter  and  the  constitution  of  the  church 
in  litigation. 

4.  The  action  of  Congress  in  regard  to  Mounonism  is  an  upholding  of 
Christian  marriage,  and  in  all  the  states  bigamy  is  a  crime.  Immorality  is 
not  allowed  by  the  civil  power  to  flaunt  itself  in  public,  but  is  driven  to  con- 
cealment, and  the  decalogue,  inasmuch  as  it  relates  to  the  sociaV  relations 
of  man,  is  enforced. 

5.  Celebrations  of  a  public  and  official  character,  sessions  of  state  legis- 
latures and  Congress  are  opened  with  prayer.  Chaplains  are  appointed  at 
public  expense  for  Congress,  the  army,  the  navy,  the  military  and  naval 
academies,  the  state  legislatuies  and  institutions. 

6.  More -than  once  it  has  been  decided  by  courts  that  we  are  a  Christian 
people,  and  that  Christianity  is  part  of  our  unwritten  law,  as  it  is  part  of  the 
common  law  of  England. 

Such  briefly  is  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  American  republic, 
when  we  consider  only  its  internal  life. 

And  now  a  few  words  as  to  the  religious  character  of  the  external  life  of 
the  republic,  by  which  I  mean  the  relations  of  this  nation  with  other  nations. 

As  early  as  1832  the  Senate  of  Massachusetts  adopted  resolutions 
expressing  "  that  some  mode  should  be  established  for  the  amicable  and 
final  adjustment  of  all  international  disputes  instead  of  a  resort  to  war." 
Various  other  legislatures  gave  expression  to  the  same  sentiment,  and  the 
sentiment  grew  apace  on  the  nation.  In  1874  a  resolution  in  favor  of  gen- 
eral arbitration  was  passed  by  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  move- 
ment spread  to  other  countries.  In  1888  two  hundred  and  thirty-three  mem- 
bers of  the  British  Parliament  sent  a  communication  to  the  President  and 
Congress  urging  a  treaty  between  England  and  the  United  States  which 
should  stipulate  "  that  any  differences  or  disputes  arising  between  the  two 
governments,  which  cannot  be  adjusted  by  diplomatic  agency,  shall  be 
referred  to  arbitration."  In  the  same  year  the  government  of  Switzerland 
proposed  to  the  United  States  the  conclusion  of  a  convention  for  thirty 
years,  binding  the  contracting  parties  to  submit  their  mutual  differences  to 
arbitration.  The  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims  showed  that  the  magni- 
tude of  a  controversy  and  the  heat  of  public  feeling  were  not  an  insuperable 
barrier  to  a  peaceful  settlement  by  arbitration.  The  best  known,  as  it  is  the 
latest,  arbitration  treaty,  is  the  one  formulated  by  the  International  American 
Conference  under  the  secretaryship  of  Mr.  Blaine,  whereby  the  republics  of 
North,  Central  and  South  America  adopt  arbitration  as  a  principle  of  Amer- 
ican international  law  for  the  settlement  of  disputes  that  may  arise  between 
two  or  more  of  them.  They  characterize  this  in  the  preamble  of  the  pro- 
posed treaty  as  the  only  Christian  and  rational  procedure  as  between  indi- 


BURRELL:    CHRISTIANITY    IN    AMERICA.  1157 

viduals  so  also  between  nations.  Since  the  establishment  of  ourgovernment 
the  United  States  has  entered  into  forty-eight  agreements  for  international 
arbitration,  has  acted  seven  times  as  arbitrator  between  other  governments, 
has  erected  thirteen  tribunals  under  its  own  laws  to  determine  the  validity 
of  international  claims.  Most  of  the  questions  thus  arbitrated  involved 
national  rights  and  honor  and  might  have  been  considered  as  just  and 
necessary  causes  of  war. 

From  our  review  of  the  relations  between  religion  and  the  republic,  we 
may  conclude  that  this  is  not  an  irreligious  nation ;  we  are  encouraged  to 
hope  for  its  steady  progress  in  all  that  is  noble  and  elevating  and  to  predict 
for  it  the  grandest  future  reserved  to  any  race  of  the  present  day. 


WHAT   CHRISTIANITY    HAS   WROUpHT    FOR 

AMERICA. 

By  David  Jas.  Burrell,  Marble  Collegiate  Church,  New  York  City. 

The  world  will  ultimately  believe  in  the  religion  that  produces  the 
highest  type  of  government  and  the  best  average  man.  All  religions  must 
submit  to  that  criterion.     By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 

Ours  is  distinctly  a  Christian  nation.  The  history  of  America  gives 
proof  on  every  page  that  the  Gospel  of  the  crucified  Nazarene  is  interwoven 
with  our  entire  national  fabric. 

We  trace  the  hand  of  Providence  in  the  discovery  of  this  land.  The 
star  of  its  nativity  was  the  star  of  Bethlehem.  The  light  of  its  earliest 
morning,  glowing  westward  from  bleak  Plymouth,  was  the  luminous  shadow 
of  the  cross.  The  land  thus  opened  up  for  the  development  of  a  new  nation 
lies  within  what  is  familiarly  known  as  "  the  belt  of  power,"  that  is,  between 
the  thirtieth  and  fiftieth  parallels  of  north  latitude.  It  is  significant  that 
within  these  limits  have  dwelt  nearly  all  the  great  historic  peoples,  and  there 
are  those  who  fancy  that  America  may  be  added  to  the  imposing  procession 
which  has  passed  through  chronicles  along  this  magic  zone. 

The  hand  of  Providence  is  further  traced  in  the  settlement  of  the  coun- 
try, and  in  the  development  of  our  American  life  and  character.  In  glanc- 
ing at  the  successive  migrations  hitherward,  one  is  reminded  of  that  old- 
time  Pentecost,  when  strangers  came  from  everywhere.  The  place  of  honor 
is  accorded  to  the  Puritans,  the  Huguenots,  and  the  Beggars  of  Holland, 
all  of  whom  were  fugitives  from  civil  and  religious  oppression.  The 
influence  of  their  sturdy  devotion  to  truth  and  righteousness  has  ever  been 
a  potent  influence  among  us. 

The  people  of  America  are  a  distinct  people;  a  conglomerate,  formed 
of  thesuperflux  of  the  older  lands.  If  ever  it  was  proper  to  characterize 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


II 58    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  FOURTEENTH  DAY. 

this  people  as  English  or  Anglo-Saxon,  it  is  certainly  no  longer  so.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  element  in  our  population  is  relatively  slight.  The  mingling 
of  many  bloods  has  produced  a  new  ethnic  product  which  can  be  aptly  des- 
ignated only  as  American.  The  process  of  assimilation  still  goes  on.  The 
seas  are  dotted  with  ships  .from  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  bringing  the  poor 
and  weary  and  disappointed,  eager  to  renew  their  hopes,  and  rebuild  their 
fortunes  in  a  land  which  gives  an  ungrudging  welcome  to  the  oppressed  of 
all  nations.  And  surely  this  is  not  without  the  gracious  ken  and  purpose  of 
God. 

It  is  a  fact  of  prime  importance,  furnishing,  perhaps,  a  key  to  the  prob- 
lem, that,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  the  dominant  races  of  history  have 
been  of  mixed  blood,  such  as  the  Germans,  the  Romans  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxons.  Proceeding  from  this  fact,  Herbert  Spencer  has  ventured  to  express 
the  hope  that  out  of  our  conglomerate  population  may  be  evolved,  in  process 
of  time,  the  ultimg^te,  ideal  man.  If  so,  however,  it  must  be  brought  about 
through  the  assimilating  power  of  that  principle  of  human  equality  which 
has  its  reason  in  our  filial  relation  with  God.  In  other  words,  religion  fur- 
nishes the  only  guaranty  of  our  national  welfare  and  perpetuity. 

The  life-blood  of  popular  government  is  equality.  In  this  lies  the 
rationale  of  individual  and  civil  freedom.  But  equality  is  only  another  name 
for  the  brotherhood  of  man  ;  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  is  an  empty  phrase 
unless  it  find  its  original  ground  and  premise  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

The  earliest  formulation  of  this  principle  is  in  the  preamble  of  our  Dec- 
laration of  Independence,  which  declares  that  all  men  are  born  free  and 
equal  and  with  certain  inalienable  rights.  Between  the  lines  of  that  virile 
pronouncement  one  may  easily  read  Paul's  manifesto  to  the  Athenian  phil- 
osophers, "God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men,  for  to  dwell 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth."  God,  the  All-Father,  revealing  his  impartial  love 
in  the  cross,  becomes  the  great  Leveler  of  caste. 

Among  the  relics  of  our  early  struggle  for  freedom  is  the  bell  inscribed 
with  the  legend,  "Proclaim  liberty  throughout  all  the  earth  unto  all  the 
inhabitants  thereof."  Our  fathers  deliberated  long  and  anxiousjy  over  the 
truth  which  that  bell  rang  forth.  The  truth  thus  formulated  was,  however, 
not  made  operative  for  almost  a  hundred  years.  The  curse  of  human  bond- 
age was  among  us.  Here  was  a  curious  anomaly,  involving  an  irrepressible 
conflict.  A  free  people,  claiming  equality  as  their  birthright,  held  four 
millions  of  their  fellows  in  chains.  But  God  reigneth ;  and  the  hearts  of 
nations  are  in  his  hand  as  the  rivers  ol  wafer.  In  1862  the  President 
signed  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  ;  and  the  people  of  America  were 
"free  and  equal  "  at  last. 

This  truth,  conceived  in  our  Revolutionary  war  and  born  out  of  the 
travail  pains  of  the  great  Rebellion,  finds  its  ultimate  expression  in  the  bal- 
lot. Our  elective  franchise  rests  in  the  fundamental  truth  of  equality.  One 
man  is  as  good  as  another.     One  man,  one  vote  ;  by  eternal  right  no  more 


BURRELL:   CHRISTIANITY    IN   AMERICA.  II  59 

and  no  less.  There  is  no  primogeniture  in  the  great  family.  We  are  free 
and  equal  because  we  are  all  divinely  born.  This  is  distinctly  a  religious 
principle.  Wherever  a  constitutional  government  has  ignored  its  birthright, 
to  wit :  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  expressing  itself  in  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
through  the  Gospel  of  that  Only-begotten  Son  who  is  Brother  of  all,  it  has  had 
but  a  brief  and  troubled  life.  Republicanism  is  anarchy,  with  a  latent  reign 
of  terror  in  it,  unless  this  truth  is  at  its  center,  shining  like  God's  face 
through  the  mists  and  darkness  of  chaos.  A  common  birth  is  the  sure 
ground  of  mutual  respect.     AU  adventitious  conditions  go  for  naught.  • 

If'  we  turn  now  to  the  distinctive  institutions  of  our  country,  we  shall 
find  them  with  scarcely  an  excej>tion  bearing  the  sign-manual  of  Christ. 

First,  the  American  home.  Where  all  men  are  sovereigns,  all  houses 
are  palaces.  The  hut  becomes  a  cottage,  where  there  is  no  feudal  man- 
sion. There  are  lands  where  homes  are  merely  dormitories  and  refectories, 
where  social  clubs  and  gardens  supplant  the  higher  functions  of  domestic 
life.  But  the  American  lives  at  his  home.  It  is  his  castle  and  his  paradise. 
The  humblest  toiler,  when  his  day's  work  is  over,  makes  this  his  Eldorado. 
The  heart  of  domestic  life  is  the  sanctity  of  wedlock  as  a  divine  ordinance. 
It  may  be  noted,  that  in  lands  where  God  and  the  Bible  are  reverenced, 
"wife''  and  "mother"  and  "  home"  are  sacred  words.  The  influence  of 
religion  may  be  but  an  imperceptible  factor  in  the  peace  and  happiness  of 
many  households  ;  yet  the  Gospel  is  their  roof-tree,  and  their  purest  happi- 
ness is  but  a  breath  from  the  garden  before  that  home  at  Nazareth  where 
the  mother  of  all  mothers  ministered  to  her  Divine  Child. 

The  next  of  our  American  institutions  which  finds  its  sanction  in  relig- 
ion is  the  public  school.  The  distinctive  feature  of  our  national  system  of 
education  is  civil  control.  This  is  in  the  necessity  of  the  case.  As  every 
American  child  is  a  sovereign  in  his  own  right,  born  to  his  apportionate 
share  of  the  government,  it  is  primarily  important  that  he  should  be  edu- 
cated for  his  place.  It  was  in  wise  apprehension  of  this  danger  that  our 
Puritan  forefathers  required  every  fifty  families  to  hire  a  pedagogue'and 
every  hundred  to  build  a  school-house.  The  teaching  of  religion  was  com- 
pulsory in  these  early  schools,  but  as  a  rule  under  such  conditions  as  obvi- 
ated ail  danger  of  denominational  bias.  There  were  no  "godless  schools." 
Indeed,  it  may  be  seriously  questioned  whether,  at  this  stage  of  Christian 
civilization,  there  can  be  any  such  thing  as  a  godless  school. 

Still  another  of  our  institutions  having  distinctive  features  and  borrow- 
ing them  from  the  sanctions  of  the  Christian  religion,  is  the  workshop.  We 
have  no  caste,  no  titled  orders,  no  aristocracy  save  that  of  brains  and  indus- 
try. The  American  toiler  is  the  peer  of  all  his  fellow  citizens.  The  high- 
est places  of  honor  and  emolument  are  wide  open  before  him.  What  a  man 
is  and  does,  not  what  his  father  was  and  owned  before  him,  is  the  criterion 
of  popular  regard.  Whether  this  could  be  the  case  in  any  other  than  a 
Christian  land  is  greatly  to  be  doubted.  It  never  has  been  ;  it  remains  to 
be  proved  that  it  could  be. 


Il60        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

A  just  recognition  of  the  dignity  of  labor  is  a  necessary  inference  from 
the  life  and  teachings  of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth.  That  "best  of  men 
that  e'er  wore  flesh  about  him  "  toiled  in  the  shop,  with  chips  and  shavings 
about  his  feet  and  the  implements  of  his  trade  on  his  bench  before  him,  so 
entering  into  sympathy  with  the  cares  and  struggles  of  workingmen.  That 
sympathy  is  the  most  potent — though  oft  unrecognized — factor  in  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  industrial  problems  of  our  time.  He  taught  fair  wages  for 
honest  toil.  His  "golden  rule  "  is  the  effective  remedy  for  strikes  and  lock- 
outs. Wherever  the  mind  that  was  in  Christ  Jesus  prevails  the  man  and  his 
master  are  bound  to  see  face  to  face  and  eye  to  eye.  And  nowhere,  as  we 
believe,  has  that  consummation  been  more  nearly  reached  than  in  the  indus- 
trial conditions  of  the  new  world.  Indeed,  "man"  and  "master"  are  here 
invidious  terms.  The  man  is  his  own  master.  There  is  no  employer  in  the 
land  who  dare  strike  or  wantonly  affront  his  humblest  employ^.  A  common 
birthright  of  the  Great  Father  blots  out  all  mastership  ;  and  a  fellow  feeling 
toward  the  Elder  Brother  has  made  us  wondrous  kind. 

Not  that  all  things  are  as  they  should  be.  The  millennium  is  still  a 
good  way  off.  There  are  wrongs  to  be  righted  and  middle  walls  of  separa- 
tion to  be  broken  down.  But  so  long  as  the  leaven  is  in  the  meal  there  is 
hope  that  the  lump  may  be  leavened.  And  however  the  American  work- 
man may  at  times  complain  of  his  lot — toil  being  ever  a  burden  and  the 
want  of  it  a  greater — he  would  not  for  a  moment  consent  to  an  exchange  of 
place  with  any  other  workman  on  the  earth.  He  owns  himself ;  as  a  rule 
he  owns  his  home — and  he  still  owns,  in  fee  simple,  one-seventh  of  his  time. 

It  remains — in  thus  briefly  canvassing  our  national  indebtedness  to 
religion — to  speak  of  the  establishment.  If  other  nations  have  their  way  of 
expressing  the  religious  preference  of  the  people,  we  more.  A  national 
church,  indeed,  we  have  not — but  we  have  that  which  is  deemed  incompar- 
ably better,  religious  freedom.  This  is  the  American  establishment,— 
freedom  of  heart  and  conscience,  freedom  to  believe  what  we  will  respecting 
the  great  problems  of  the  endless  life,  freedom  to  consult  our  personal  con- 
victions as  to  whether  or  where  or  how  we  will  worship  God.  This  involves 
an  absolute  divorcement  of  church  and  state.  At  this  point  the  unanimity 
of  sentiment  within  the  church  is  as  entire  as  without  it.  We  want  no 
national  church — we  want  no  clergy  feeding  at  the  public  crib.  Our  experi- 
ment has  been  tried  for  a  hundred  years  and  is  fully  vindicated. 

Observe,  however,  it  is  not  proposed  to  alienate  religion  from  national 
affairs.  On  the  contrary,  by  their  mutual  interdependence  the  wise  and 
effective  influence  of  each  upon  the  other  must  be  greatly  enlarged.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise.  True  religion  is  all  pervasive;  it  touches  life  at 
every  point  in  its  circumference,  physically  and  intellectually,  socially  and 
politically,  every  way.  The  just  attitude  of  the  government  toward  all 
religious  bodies  whose  tenets  do  not  contravene  its  welfare,  is  impartial 
sufferance  and  protection.  Church  and  state  are  coordinate  powers,  each 
supplementing  and  upholding  the  other,  and  both  alike  ordained  of  God,  ' 


CHURCH  1)1"  TH!-;  NATIVITY  OF  THE  HOLY  VIRGIN,  RUSSIA. 


THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF 
.    AMERICA. 

By  H.  K.  Carroll. 

There  are  so  many  religious  bodies  in  America  that  it  is  desirable,  if 
we  would  get  a  comprehensive  idea  of  them,  to  arrange  them,  first,  in  grand 
divisions ;  secondly,  in  classes;  and  thirdly,  in  families.  I  would  specify 
three  grand  divisions  :  I.  The  Christian.  2.  The  Jewish.  3.  Miscellane- 
ous. Under  the  last  head  come  the  Chinese  Buddhists,  the  Theosophists, 
the  Ethical  Culturists,  some  communistic  societies  and  Pagan  Indians.  The 
Jewish  division  embraces  simply  the  Orthodox  and  Reformed  Jews.  The 
Christian  division  contains,  of  course,  the  great  majority  of  denominations 
and  believers,  Catholics,  Protestants,  Latter  Day  Saints — all  bodies  not 
Jewish,  Pagan  or  anti-Christian. 

We  commonly  divide  the  Christian  bodies  into  classes,  as,  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  Evangelical  and  non-Evangelical.  In  the  Catholic  class  there 
are  seven  representatives  in  this  country ;  the  Roman  Catholic,  the  United 
Greek  Catholic,  the  Russian  Orthodox,  the  Greek  Orthodox,  the  Armenian, 
the  Old  Catholic  and  the  Reformed  Catholic.  All  the  Catholic  bodies, 
except  the  Roman,  are  small  and  unimportant  as  represented  in  the  United 
States,  ranging  in  numbers  of  communicants  from  loo  to  less  than  14,000. 

No  denomination  of  Protestantism  has  thus  far  proved  to  be  too  small 
for  division.  •  Denominations  appear  in  the  census  returns  with  as  few  as 
twenty-five  members.  I  was  reluctantly  compelled  to  exclude  one  with 
twenty-one  members. 

We  count  in  all  143  denominations  in  the  United  States,  besides  150  or 
more  congregations  which  are  independent,  or  unassociated  with  any  church. 
Of  the  143  separate  denominational  bodies  six  are  Adventist,  thirteen  Bap- 
tist, three  (River)  Brethren,  four  (Plymouth)  Brethren,  seven  Catholic,  two 
Christian  Connection,  nine  Communistic,  four  Dunkard,  four  Quaker,  two  Jew- 
ish, two  Mormon,  sixteen  Lutheran,  twelve  Mennonite,  seventeen  Methodist, 
twelve  Presbyterian,  two  Episcopalian,  three  Reformed,  and  two  United 
Brethren,  with  twenty-three  single  denominations,  such  as  the  Congregation- 
alists,  Moravians,  Disciples  of  Christ,  Christadelphians,  Christian  Scientists 
and  Salvation  Army.  Many  of  the  143  separate  bodies  are  very  small  and 
unimportant.  We  can  pick  out  ninety-seven,  of  which  no  one  has  as  many 
as  25,000  communicants ;  seventy-five  have  less  than  10,000  communicants 
each ;  fifty-four  less  than  2,500,  and  thirty-two  less  than  1,000,  ranging 
between  20  and  937.  Of  bodies  having  25,000  and  upwards  there  are  only 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H,  B. 

ix6a 


CARROLL:    RELIGION   IN   AMERICA.  I163 

forty-six,  or  about  one-third  of  the  whole  number.     The  other  two-thirds  is 
made  up  of  denominations  having  from  20  to  25,000.     It  Is  the  little  bodies, 
therefore,  that  give  religion  in  the  United  States  such  a  divided  aspect.     If 
most  of  them  were  blotted  out  we  should  lose  little  that  is  very  valuable,  but 
much  that  is  queer  in   belief  and  practice.     What   is  it  has  caused  these 
numerous  divisions  ?     Among  the  Methodists  ten  of  the  seventeen  divisions 
were  due  to  the  race  or  the  slavery  question,  and  six  to  controversies  over 
practical  questions.     The  other  was  imported.     Of  the  twelve  Presbyterian 
bodies  aJl  are  consistently  Calvinistic  but  two,  the  Cumberland  and  the  Cum- 
berland colored,  which  hold  to  a  modified  Calvinism.     All  use  the  Presby- 
terian system  of  government  with  little   variation.     What,  then,  is  it  that 
divides  them  ?    Slavery  divided  the  Northern  and  Southern,  the  race  question 
the  two  Cumberland  bodies.     One  branch  is  Welsh  and  the  rest  are  kept 
apart  largely  by  Scotch  obstinacy.     They  have  close  points  of  agreement, 
but  they  differ  on  questions  that  seem  to  others  utterly  insignificant.     We 
may,  I  think,  sum  up  the  causes  of  division  under  four  heads:  (i)  Contro- 
versies over  doctrine;    (2)  controversies  over  administration  or  discipline; 
(3)  controversies  over  moral  questions  ;  (4)  ambitious  and  disputatious  persons. 
The  last  census,  that  of  1890,  embraced  all  religious  bodies  among  its 
greatly  extended  inquiries,  and  we  have,  therefore,  for  the  first  time,  com- 
plete returns  for  all   forms  of  religion    represented  in  the  United  States. 
These  returns  show  how  many  ministers,  organizations  or  congregations, 
church  edifices  and  communicants  each  denomination  has,  together  with  the 
seating  capacity  of  its  edifices  and  their  value  ;  also  how  they  are  distributed 
among  the  counties,  states  and  territories. 

The  Roman  Catholic  is  now  the  largest  of  the  churches  in  number  of 
communicants,  having,  in  round  numbers,  6,231,000.  A  hundred  years  ago 
it  had  only  about  25,000  ;  fifty  years  ago  it  had  about  1,200,000.  According 
to  this  it  has  increased,  in  the  last  half  century,  five-fold.  This  enormous 
growth  is  due  chiefly  to  immigration.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
comes  second,  with  more  than  2,240,000  ;  the  Regular  Baptists  (colored) 
third  with  1,362,000;  the  Regular  Baptists  (South)  fourth,  with  1,308,000 ; 
and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  (South)  fifth,  with  1,210,000. 

Taking  value  of  church  property  as  our  next  item,  that  is,  the  value  of 
houses  of  worship,  their  furnishings  and  the  lots  on  which  they  stand,  we 
find  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  first  again,  its  property  being  valued  at 
Si  18,000,000.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  second,  reporting  $97,- 
000,000  ;  the  Protestant  Episcopal  third,  $81,000,000;  the  Northern  Presby- 
terian fourth,  $74,000,000 ;  and  the  Southern  Baptists  fifth,  $49,000,000. 
Two  of  these  denominations,  the  Episcopal  and  the  Presbyterian,  are  not 
among  the  five  I  have  just  mentioned  as  having  the  largest  number  of  com- 
municants. They  stand  third  and  fourth,  respectively,  in  the  table  of  church 
property,  showing  that  they  are  much  more  wealthy  in  proportion  to  com- 
municants than  the  other  denominations. 


Il64        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

In  number  of  organizations,  or  congregations,  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  comes  first,  with  25,861,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  last,  with  10,231. 
The  Southern  Baptists  are  second,  with  16,450;  the  Southern  Methodists 
third,  with  15,000;  and  the  Colored  Baptists  fourth,  with  12,650.  The  rea- 
son the  Catholic  congregations  only  number  two-fifths  as  many  as  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal,  is  because  their  parishes  are  so  much  larger  and  more  pop- 
ulous. In  some  cases  a  Catholic  parish  embraces  from  12,000  to  16,000 
communicants,  all  using  the  same  edifice.  It  is  a  common  thing  in  the  cities 
for  Catholic  churches  to  have  five  and  six  different  congregations  every 
Sunday. 

To  recapitulate,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  first  in  the  number  of 
communicants  and  value  of  house  property,  and  fifth  in  number  of  organiza- 
tions and  houses  of  worship";  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  first  in  the 
number  of  organizations  and  houses  of  worship,  and  second  in  the  number 
of  communicants  and  value  of  church  property. 

Let  us  now  see  how  the  five  leading  denominational  families,  or  groups, 
stand.  The  Catholics,  embracing  seven  branches,  come  first  as  to  commu- 
nicants, with  6,258,000;  the  Methodists,  embracing  seventeen  branches, 
come  second,  with  4,589,000 ;  the  Baptists,  thirteen  branches,  are  third,  with 
3,743,000;  the  Presbyterians,  twelve  branches,  are  fourth,  with  1,278,000; 
and  the  Lutherans,  sixteen  branches,  are  fifth,  with  1,231,000.  It  will  be 
observed  that  the  combined  Methodist  branches  have  about  1,600,000  fewer 
communicants  than  the  combined  Catholic  branches.  As  to  value  of  church 
property,  the  Methodist  family  is  first,  the  figures  being  $132,000,000.  The 
Catholic  family  is  second,  $ll8,ooo,ooc ;  the  Presbyterian  third,  $95,000,- 
000;  the  Episcopalians  fourth,  $82,835,000 ;  the  Baptists  fifth,  $82,680,000. 
As  to  organizations,  or  congregations,  the  Methodists  are  first,  with  51,500; 
the  Baptists  second,  with  43,000;  the  Presbyterians  third,  with  13^500;  the 
Catholics  fourth,  with  10,270;  and  the  Lutherans  fifth,  with  8,595. 

Thus,  among  denominational  families,  the  Catholics  are  first  in  the 
number  of  communicants,  second  in  value  of  church  property,  and  fourth  in 
number  of  organizations  and  houses  of  worship.  The  Methodists  are  first 
in  the  number  of  organizations  and  houses  of  worship,  and  value  of  church 
property.  These  figures  are  for  the  five  leading  denominations,  and  the  five 
chief  denominational  families.  The  grand  totals  for  all  denominations'. 
Christian  and  non-Christian,  are  as  follows  :  Ministers,  1 1 1,000;  organiza- 
tions, 165,250;  houses  of  worship,  142,600;  -  ilue  of  church  property, 
$680,000,000  ;  communicants,  20,643,000.  According  to  these  figures,  nearly 
one  person  in  every  three  of  our  entire  population  is  a  member  or  communi- 
cant of  one  or  another  of  the  143  denominations.  This  cannot,  I  should 
say,  be  regarded  as  an  unfavorable  showing  for  the  churches.  It  indicates 
a  religious  population  of  57,720,000.  That  is,  the  communicants,  with  all 
adherents  added,  constitute  57,720,000,  leaving  about  5,000,000  to  compose 
the  non-religious  and  anti-religious  classes,  including  freethinkers  and 
infidels. 


CARROLL.    RELIGION    IN   AMERICA.  II65 

Of  the  165,250  organizations,  all  are  Christian  but  1,855,  or  a  little 
more  than  one  per  cent.,  and  all  are  Protestant,  except  12,131,  or  a  little 
over  seven  per  cent.  That  is.  Christian  organizations  form  nearly  ninety-nine 
per  cent,  of  the  total,  and  Protestant  organizations  about  ninety-three  per 
cent.  Of  the  20,643,000  members  all  are  Christian  except  347,623,  and  all 
are  Protestant  except  6,605,494.  That  is.  Christian  members  form  ninety- 
seven  and  one-quarter  per  cent,  of  the  total,  and  Protestant  members  sixty- 
eight  per  cent.  The  Catholic  percentage  is  about  thirty  and  one-half  and 
the  Jewish  and  miscellaneous  only  one  and  a  half. 

I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  of  the  153,122  Protestant  organiza- 
tions all  but  747  are  evangelical,  and  of  the  14,037,417  Protestant  members 
all  but  128,568  are  evangelical.  That  is,  counting  the  Universalists  with 
the  evangelical  class,  where  I  think  they  really  belong,  ninety-five  per  cent, 
of  Protestant  organizations  are  evangelical ;  and  over  ninety-nine  per  cent, 
of  Protestant  communicants  belong  to  evangelical  denominations. 

In  the  last  ten  years  the  net  increase  in  our  population  was  a  little  less 
than  twenty-five  per  cent..  A  comparison  of  the  returns  of  churches  repre- 
senting 16,500,000  members,  shows  that  in  the  same  period  their  net  increase 
was  about  thirty-five  per  cent.,  or  ten  per  cent,  greater  than  the  increase  of 
the  population.  The  largest  percentage  of  gain  was  sixty-eight,  which 
belongs  to  the  Lutheran  family ;  the  next  was  fifty-seven  per  cent,  by  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South;  the  third,  forty-eight  per  cent.,  by  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  ;  the  fourth,  thirty-nine  pei  cent.,  by  the  Pres- 
byterian family ;  the  fifth,  thirty-seven  per  cent.,  by  the  Regular  Baptists, 
North,  South,  and  Colored  ;  the  sixth,  thirty-three  per  cent.,  by  the  Congre- 
gationalists,  and  the  seventh,  thirty  per  cent.,  by  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church. 

We  must,  of  course,  remember  that  all  the  houses  of  worship  have  been 
built  byvoluntary  contributions.  They  are  valued  at  $680,000,000,  and  fur- 
nish sitting  accommodations  for  43,500,000  persons.  They  have  been  pro- 
vided by  private  gifts,  but  are  offered  to  the  public  for  free  use.  The 
government  has  not  given  a  dollar  to  provide  them,  nor  does  it  appropriate 
a  dollar  for  their  support. 


THE  INVINCIBLE  GOSPEL. 
By  Geo.  F.  Pentecost,  D.D. 

Christianity  is  a  fighting  religion.  Christ  came  not  to  send  peace  but 
a  sword — not  the  sword  of  a  Mohammed,  but  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  which 
is  the  word  of  God.  Christianity  recognizes  the  absolute  freedom  of  the 
human  will  and  conscience.  It  condemns  all  violence  in  its  conflict  with 
other  religions,  appealing  only  to  the  inteligence,  the  conscience  and  the 
iieart  of  men,  by  the  Word  of  God  with  the  Holy  Ghost  sent  down  from 
heaven.  It  is  not  intolerant  of  other  religions,  except  as  light  is  intolerant 
of  darkness,  but  will  in  no  case  compromise  with  error,  or  enter  into  fellow- 
ship with  any  religious  system  or  philosophy  that  is  not  built  on  the  Rock 
of  Ages. 

Paul  went  forth  into  the  Greek  and  Roman  classical  world,  not  only  to 
preach  the  Gospel,  but  to  challenge  the  claims  of  any  and  all  religions  with 
which  the  Gospel  came  in  conflict.  To  the  Romans  he  wrote  :  "  I  am  not 
ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  with  salvation  to 
every  one  that  believeth." 

In  respect  of  the  conquest  of  the  world,  or  what  remains  of  it,  we 
occupy  much  the  same  stand-point  as  did  Paul.  We  are  not  ashamed  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  and  are  ready  to  preach  it  and  vindicate  it  in  the  face  of 
all  the  world.  In  this  regard  it  is  a  great  privilege  for  us  Christians  to 
meet  face  to  face  in  this  Parliament  the  representatives  of  many  ancient 
religions  and  equally  ancient  philosophies  ;  to  give  to  them  a  reason  for  the 
faith  and  hope  that  is  in  us,  and  show  them  the  grounds  upon  which  we 
base  our  contention  that  Christianity  is  the  only  possible  universal  religion, 
as  it  is  certainly  the  only  complete  and  God-given  revelation. 

The  power  of  the  Gospel  is  the  power  of  God,  and  so  is  greater  than 
all  possible  opposing  powers.  All  power  has  been  given  into  the  hands  of 
Jesus  Christ  for  the  propagation  and  defence  of  his  Gospel,  and  to  give 
eternal  life  to  as  many  as  believe  on  him. 

I.  We  are  not  ashamed  of  its  antiquity. — Some  of  the  religions  of  the 
Roman  Empire  boasted  great  antiquity.  Indeed,  they  based  their  religions 
on  myths  whose  fancied  existence  antedated  history.  To  antedate  history 
is  an  easy  way  to  secure  antiquity  for  any  faith.  There  are  those  among 
us  to-day  who  will  tell  you  that,  as  compared  with  their  faiths,  Christianity 
is  but  an  infant  of  days. 

We  are  often  charged  by  Orientals  with  being  the  propagators  of  a 
modern  faith,  because  by  our  own  claims  Jesus  Christ  did  not  appear  until  the 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1 166 


PENTECOST:   THE    INVINCIBLE    GOSPEL.  II67 

comparatively  recent  time  of  two  millenniums  ago.  The  Hindu  faith  was 
then  already  hoary  with  age.  But  Christianity  does  not  date  from  the  birth 
of  Christ.  Christ  incarnate,  crucified  and  raised  from  the  dead  two  thousand 
years  ago  was  only  the  culmination  in  time,  and  to  our  sense,  of  a  revela- 
tion already  ages  old.  Abraham  believed  in  Christ  and  rejoiced  to  see  his 
day  approaching.  Christ  was  believed  on  in  the  wilderness  when  Moses 
was  bringing  the  children  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt ;  for  "  the  Gospel  was 
preached  to  them  as  well  as  to  us." 

We  claim  no  revelation  given  before  the  age  of  our  race,  and  put  forth 
no  myth  which  antedates  the  history  of  earth  and  man.  But  as  far  back  as 
history  goes  the  records  of  our  faith  are  found.  Every  turn  of  the  arch- 
eologist's  spade  confirms  the  truth  of  them.  In  this  respect  we  are  not 
ashamed  of  the  Gospel.  Its  historical  antiquity  stands  unrivaled  among  the 
religions  of  the  world. 

2.  JVe  are  noi  ashamed  of  its  prophetic  character. — Christ's  appearance  in 
this  world  nineteen  centuries  ago  was  not  an  unexpected  event.  For 
centuries,  even  from  the  beginning  of  ihan's  spiritual  need,  he  has  been 
looked  and  longed  for.  The  heroes  of  the  world's  religions  have  been 
either  myths  or  unlooked-for  men  springing  up  from  among  their  fellows, 
for  whom  their  disciples  neither  looked  nor  were  prepared.  Who  prophe- 
sied the  coming  of  Confucius,  or  Zoroaster,  or  Krishna,  or  the  Buddha,  or 
Mohammed  ?  Moreover,  none  of  these  heroes  or  leaders  of  men  were  in  any 
sense  saviours.  They  were  at  best  teachers,  throwing  their  followers  back 
upon  themselves  to  work  out  their  own  salvation  as  best  they  might. 

3.  We  are  not  ashamed  of  the  Divine  Author  of  Christianity. — Whether 
we  consider  the  character  of  Jehovah-God  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  of 
the  Jesus-God  of  the  New  Testament,  there  is  nothing  in  either  that  suffers 
by  the  highest  ethical  criticism  which  may  be  applied  to  them.  In  the  Old 
Testament  from  the  beginning  God  proclaims  himself  in  love,  holiness,  right- 
eousness, truth  and  mercy.  Jesus  stands  without  a  peer  among  men  or  gods. 
The  moral  glory  of  his  character  lifts  him  head  and  shoulders  above  that  of 
all  men  or  beings,  ideal  or  real,  with  which  we  are  acquainted.  Nineteen 
centuries  of  study  has  only  served  to  increase  his  glory  and  confirm  and  deepen 
his  divine-human  influence  over  men.  Even  his  worst  enemies  are  among 
the  first  to  lay  at  his  feet  a  tribute  to  his  greatness,  goodness  and  glory.  He 
is,  indeed,  in  the  language  of  a  distinguished  Hindu  gentleman  and  scholar, 
uttered  in  my  presence  in  the  old  city  of  Poona,  and  before' an  audience  of 
a  thousand  of  his  Brahmanical  fellows,  "  The  Peerless  Christ."  To  compare 
him  with  any  of  the  gods  worshiped  by  the  Hindus  is  to  mock  them  and 
insult  him.  It  is  the  moral  glory  of  Christ's  character  which  compelled 
Renan  to  say  :  "  Whatever  may  be  the  surprises  of  the  future,  Jesus  will  never 
be  surpassed.  His  worship  will  grow  young  without  ceasing.  All  ages  will 
proclaim  that  among  the  sons  of  men,  there  is  none  born  greater  than  Jesus." 
Goethe,  the  father  of   the  modern  school  of  high  culture,  in  one  of  his  laSt 


I  1 68         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

utterances,  expresses  the  conviction,  "  that  the  human  mind,  no  matter  how 
much  it  may  advance  in  intellectual  culture  and  the  extent  and  depth  of  the 
knowledge  of  nature,  will  never  transcend  the  high  moral  culture  of  Christianity 
as  it  shines  and  glows  in  the  Canonical  Gospels."  Napoleon  the  great 
declared  :  "  I  search  in  vain  in  history  to  find  one  equal  to  Jesus  Christ,  or 
anything  which  can  approach  the  Gospel.  Neither  history,  nor  humanity,  nor 
the  ages,  nor  nature  afford  me  anything  with  which  I  am  able  to  compare  or 
by  which  to  explain  it." 

4,  We  are  not  ashamed  of  the  ethical  basis  of  the  Gospel. — Without  deny- 
ing that  there  is  to  be.  found  ethical  teaching  of  great  beauty  in  the  non- 
Christian  religions  of  the  world,  it  is  still  true  that  these  religions  lay  their 
stress  upon  their  cults,  rather  than  upon  moral  culture.  Among  most  of  them 
there  is  a  striking  divorce  between  religion  and  morals  ;  if  indeed  these  are 
ever  found  joined  together.  But  in  the  Gospel  we  find  that  the  final  test  of 
Christianity  is  in  its  power  to  regenerate  and  sanctify  man;  The  moral  basis 
of  Christianity  may  be  found  throughout  the  Scriptures,  but  for  the  sake  of 
brevity  we  take  only  two  examples.  The  first  is  that  code  of  righteousness 
revealed  by  God  to  Moses  and  which  we  commonly  speak  of  as  the  Ten 
Commandments.  It  is  strikingly  significant  that  this  wonderful  moral  law 
was  communicated  at  a  period  when  ethical  truth  among  the  then  existing 
nations  was  at  its  lowest  point,  and  the  morals  of  the  people  lower  than  the 
teaching.  Where  did  Moses  get  these'words  ?  Not  from  Egypt,  nor  from 
the  desert  where  for  forty  years  he  lived  ;  not  from  the  land  toward  which  he 
was  journeying.  It  would  require  a  stretch  of  the  imagination  beyond  any- 
thing we  know  to  suggest  that  he  himself  was  the  author  of  them.  They 
were  written  by  the  finger  of  God,  and  given  to  him.  But  let  them  come  from 
where  they  may  have  come,  our  point  is  that  in  contending  for  the  faith  of 
the  Gospel  we  are  not  ashamed  of  the  ancient  ethic  basis  of  our  religion. 

Passing  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New,  we  have  only  to  callatten- 
tion  to  the  sermon  on  the  mount.  These  words  of  Jesus,"  spoken  to  his  dis- 
ciples, are  but  the  transfiguration  of  the  ten  words  given  by  God  to  Moses. 
Who  ever  assumed  to  revise  the  sermon  on  the  mount  in  order  to  eliminate 
that  which  is  not  good  or  add  to  it  that  which  it  lacked? 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Golden  Rule  was  borrowed  by  Jesus  from  his 
religious  predecessors.  But  even  a  casual  comparison  of  the  sayings  of 
Christ  with  those  of  other  teachers  will  show  a  vast  difference.  Instance 
that  of  Hiiliel,  "  Do  not  to  thy  neighbor  what  is  hateful  to  thyself";  or  that 
of  Isocrates,  "What  stirs  the  anger  when  done  to  thee  by  others  that  do  not 
toothers";  or  that  of  Aristotle,  when  asked  how  we  should  bear  ourselves 
toward  our  friends,  "As  we  would  desire  that  they  should  bear  themselves 
toward  us";  or  that  of  Confucius,  "What  you  do  not  want  done  to  yourself 
do  not  do  to  others  ";  or  a  maxim  mentioned  by  Seneca,  "  Expect  from  others 
what  you  do  to  others."  These  are  all  fore-gleams  from  the  sun  which 
shines  in  its  fullness  in  the  perfect  law  of  Christ,  "  All  things  whatsoever  ye 


Ki:V.  C.KORGI-:  I".  PKNTKCOST,  D.D..  LONnON,  KNGLAND. 

"it  is  a  OREAT  rKIVILEC-E  TO  MEEI'  1-ACE  TO  FACE  IN  THIS  I'AKLIAMENT  THE  REPKESEN- 
TATIVES  OK  MANV  ANCIENT  KELICIONS  AND  EQUALLY  ANCIENT  PKILOSOI'HIES  ;  TO  GIVE  TO  THEM 
A  KEASON  FOK  THE  ["AITH  AND  HOPE  THAT  IS  IN  US,  AND  SHOW  TFIEM  THE  GROUNDS  UPON 
WHICH  WE  IIASE  OUR  CONTENTION  THAT  CKRISTI ANir\'  IS  THE  ONLV  POSSIBLE  UNIVERSAL 
UELICION." 


74 


II/O        PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    FOURTEExVTH    DAY. 

would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  This  is  posi- 
tive and  exhaustive.  All  the  others  are  partial  and  negative,  if  not  merely 
prudential,  not  to  say  selfish./lyHow  is  it  that  in  the  Orient  to-day  it  is  the 
rule  of  Jesus  and  not  those  of.  nieir  own  sages  that  is  quoted  by  the  Orientals 
themselves  ?//i|s  it  not  because  the  one  class  of  maxims  contains  but  partial 
or  half  truta^  while  the  sayings  of  Jesus  are  the  truth,  and  that  Jesus  has 
embodied  and  illustrated  them  in  his  own  life  ? 

But  beyond  the  ethical  teachings  ot  Christ,  which  are  without  question 
far  in  advance  of  all  statements  which  the  world  had  ever  had,  and  which 
stand  to-day  upon  the  outermost  confines  of  possible  statement,  Jesus  has 
brought  to  us  a  revelation  of  God  himself,  not  only  as  to  the  fact  of  his 
being,  but  as  to  his  nature  and  the  fove  and  grace  of  his  purpose  toward 
man.  Moreover,  he  has  shown  us  what  we  are  ourselves ;  from  whence  we 
are  fallen  and  unto  what  the  purpose  of  God  designs  to  lift  us. 

5.  We  are  not  ashamed  of  its  doctrines  of  salvation.  Let  me  briefly 
summarize  these  : 

(l)   The  Incarnation. 

By  the  Incarnation,  roughly  spea"king,  we  mean  that  revelation  which 
God  made  of  himself  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  this  declaration  we  see  (a)  God 
was  in  Christ  seeking  after  man.  All  natural  religions  and  philosophies 
show  us  man  seeking  after  God  ii  haply  he  may  find  him.  Here  only  do  we 
see  God  seeking  after  man.  "  God  is  a  spirit,  and  he  seeketh  such  to  wor- 
ship him."  When  preaching  to  the  educated  English-speaking  gentlemen  of 
India,  I  was  often  confronted  with  the  statement  that:  "The  gods  and 
heroes  of  India  wrought  more  and  greater  miracles  than  Jesus.  They,  too, 
fed  the  multitudes,  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind  and  healed  the  sick."  When 
I  asked  for  the  proof  they  had  none  to  give  except  the  Puranic  stories. 
When  they  in  turn  challenged  me  for  proof,  I  simply  said,  "Gentlemen,  look 
around  you,  even  here  in  India.  The  reported  miracles  of  your  gods  and 
heroes  stand  only  in  stories,  but  each  miracle  of  Christ  was  a  living  seed  of 
power  and  love  planted  in  human  nature,  and  has  sprung  up  and  flourished, 
again  bringing  forth  after  its  kind  wherever  the  Gospel  is  preached.  Who 
cares  for  the  lepers  ?  who  for  the  sick  and  the  blind,  the  deaf  and  the 
maimed  ?  Till  Christ  came  to  India  these  were  left  to  die  without  care  or 
help,  but  now  every  miracle  of  Christ  is  perpetuated  in  some  hospital 
devoted  to  the  care  and  cure  of  those  who  are  in  like  case  with  the  sufferers 
whom  Christ  healed."  This  is  the  difference  between  the  fables  of  the 
ancients  and  the  living  wonders  wrought  by  the  living  Christ.  He,  himself, 
the  embodiment  of  righteousness,  love,  pity,  tenderness,  gentleness,  patience 
\and  all  heavenly  helpfulness,  being  the  greatest  miracle  of  all.  Jesus 
I  among  men  as  we  see  him  in  the  Gospel  is  God's  image  restored  to  us,  and 
through  him  acting  in  grace  toward  man. 

y\  "Sir,"  said  an  old,  gray-haired  Brahman  to  me  one  day,  "I  am  an 
Hindu  and  always  shall  be,  but  I  cannot  help  loving  him  ;  the  world  never 


PENTECOST:   THE   INVINCIBLE    GOSPEL.  II7I 

knew  the  like  of  him  before  —  when  I  think  of  him  I  am  ashamed  of  our 
gods.'yyTruly,  the  Incarnation  of  Christ  is  the  revelation  of  God ;  he  that 
hath  seen  him  hath  seen  the  Father. 

(2)  The  Doctrine  of  Atonement. 

In  this  doctrine  we  see  the  solution  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  stress- 
ful questions  of  the  human  mind  :  How  God  may  still  "  be  just  and  yet  the 
justifier  of  the  ungodly";  how  in  forgiving  transgression,  iniquity  and  sin 
he  establishes  and  magnifies  the  law. 

On  the  basis  of  Christ's  great  sacrifice  God  can  and  does  declare  the 
forgiveness  of  our  sins,  and  justifies  us  "  from  all  things  from  which  we 
could  not  be  justified  by  the  law  of  Moses  " — that  law  standing  alone. 

(3)  The  Doctrine  of  the  Neiv  Birth. 

In  connection  with  this  righteousness  for  us  by  Jesus  Christ  there  is  a 
righteousness  in  us  by  regeneration,  wrought  by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  so  that 
every  saved  man  becomes  a  new  creature  in  Christ.  Thus,  with  righteous- 
ness imputed  freely  by  grace,  and  righteousness  imparted  freely  through 
faith  by  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  man  stands  free  from  sin  and  its  penalties, 
and  is  panoplied  with  a  new  spiritual  nature.  He  is  enabled  not  only  to 
conceive  an  ideal  character  of  holiness,  but  to  attain  to  such  a  character 
through  the  further  sanctification  of  the  spirit  and  belief  of  the  truth. 

(4)  The  Doctrine  of  Immortality. 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead  has  solved  the  problem 
of  immortality,  not  by  argument,  but  by  demonstration^  and  has  guar- 
anteed to  us  a  like  immortality,  not  of  the  soul  only,  but  of  the  whole  man — 
spirit,  soul  and  body ;  for  even  these  bodies  of  ours,  now  humiliated  and 
dishonored  by  sin,  and  too  often  yielding  themselves  instruments  of  unright- 
eousness unto  sin,  shall  be  changed  and  fashioned  like  unto  his  glorious 
body,  according  to  the  working  of  that  mighty  power  that  worketh  in  us  by 
Jesus  Christ. 

6  IVe  are  not  ashamed  of  the  terms  upon  ivhich  this  salvation  is  offered. — If 
It  is  unto  all  who  believe.  It  is  no  aristocratic  privilege  which  is  reserved  for 
the  rich,  the  learned  and  the  mighty.  It  indeed  makes  place  for  these,  for 
they  also  are  sinful  men,  but  it  extends  all  its  unspeakable  privileges  to  the 
poor,  to  the  ignorant,  to  the  outcast  and  to  the  most  degraded.  It  pro- 
claims, "Whosoever  will,  let  him  come."  Jesus  himself  set  the  note  of 
invitation  when  he  said,  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

7  We  are  not  ashamed  of  the  way  in  which  it  deals  with  the  great  prob- 
lems lying  just  beyond  the  lines  en  which  we  disitiss  individual  salvation. 
The  unity  of  God,  and  of  the  race,  and  the  consequent  brotherhood  of  man, 
as  suggested  in  Paul's  great  speech  on  Mars  Hill,  is  a  statement  that  causes 
us  no  blush  or  shame.  And  I  may  say  that  it  is  a  teaching  unique  with 
Christianity.     It  is  not  found  in  the  Hindu  or  Buddhistic  Bibles. 

These   are   some   of  many  reasons  why  with  the  great  apostle,  in  the 


II 72         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

presence  of  this  Parliament  of  Religions,  we  are  emboldened  to  say  we  are 
not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

Where  are  the  religions  of  Greece  and  Rome  with  their  Pantheon  full 
of  gods?  They  are  but  a  historical  memory.  Like  Dagon  before  the  Ark, 
they  have  fallen  before  the  cross  of  Christ.  Overwhelmed  at  times  by  vast 
hordes  of  barbarians,  the  Christian  Church  has,  through  the  Gospel,  converted 
its  conquerors,  and  made  Christians  out  of  savages.  Chained  and  fettered 
to  the  state  in  false  and  unholy  alliance,  the  Gospel  has  burst  forth  with  new 
power  and  freedom  in  the  free  churches  of  Christ,  and  gone  on  its  conquer- 
ing and  saving  way. 

And  now  the  stream  of  life  issuing  forth  in  the  Gospel  is  flooding  back 
to  the  Orient  whence  it  took  its  rise  in  this  world,  and  will  ere  long  heal  all 
those  wonderlands  and  bring  salvation  to  the  great  and  gentle  people  of  the 
East  who  have  ever  been  the  most  eager  in  their  search  after  God. 


THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  OUTLOOK  OF  INDIA. 

By  the  Rev.   L.  E.  Slater,  of  the  London  Missionary  Society, 
Bangalore,  Southern  India. 

The  present  is  a  time  of  transition  throughout  India.  A  struggle  is 
going  on  between  old  customs  and  new  ideas,  such  as  the  world  has  not 
seen  since  the  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire.  On  the  one  hand  the  old 
Hinduism  — the  masses  of  the  people  under  the  dominion  of  the  priesthood, 
all  sunk  in  the  grossest  superstition.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  "Young 
India,"  the  new  thought  and  feeling  of  the  country  reflected  in  the  men 
trained  at  colleges  in  the  highest  western  thought.  Withal  there  are  the 
indigenous  scholars,  versed  in  Sanskrit  lore,  and  still  exerting  a  consider- 
able, though  dwindling  influence.  The  student-class  is  annually  increased 
by  thousands  graduating  from  the  secular  government  colleges,  and  from  the 
missionary  institutions,  and  impressible  alike  by  western  truth  and  western 
skepticism.  A  danger  incident  to  this  class  is  that  of  general  license  and 
demoralization.  There  is  a  tendency  among  them  to  lose  all  religion,  and 
become  absorbed  in  worldliness.  Caste  and  custom  still  bind  them  out- 
wardly to  Hinduism;  but  "they  outwardly  conform  to  rites  that  they 
inwardly  despise."  Their  condition  is  that  of  religious  unsettlement.  As 
Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  in  his  "  Asiatic  Studies,"  has  observed,  "The  sketch  given 
in  Gibbon's  second  chapter  of  the  state  of  religion  in  the  Roman  Empire 
during  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era  might  be  adopted  to  describe 
in  rapid  outline  the  state  of  Hinduism  at  the  present  day Seven- 
teen centuries  ago  the  outcome  was  Christianity;  but  history  does  not  repeat 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


SLATER:    RELIGIOUS   OUTLOOK    OF   INDIA.         I  1 73 

itself  on  so  vast  a  scale It  is  quite  possible  that  more  difficult 

and  dangerous  experiences  than  wholesale  religious  conversion  are  before 
India."  A  leading  Hindu  paper,  recognizing  that  errors  and  superstitions 
in  existing  Hinduism  must  give  way  before  advancing  education,  declares 
that  this  by  no  means  implies  that  Christianity  is  going  to  be  substituted. 

What,  then,  is  to  take  the  place  of  modern  and  idolatrous  Hinduism  ? 
That  this  is  a  thing  of  the  past  for  the  educated  classes,  there  cannot  be  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt.  It  can  no  more  live  in  the  light  that  western  knowl- 
edge is  shedding  across  the  land  than  witchcraft  can  live  in  modern  England, 
The  temples  of  Vishnu  and  Siva  will  be  deserted  as  surely  as  have  been  the 
temples  of  Jupiter  and  Apollo. 

The  awakening  of  India  from  the  sleep  of  ages  is  due  to  Christian 
influence — the  incessant  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  mainly  in  Christian  schools 
and  colleges.  The  cry  now  is  for  a  judicious  repair  of  Hinduism,  by  elim- 
ination and  assimilation.  Men  are  now  reading  Christianity  into  Hinduism, 
explaining  the  Vedas  by  the  Bible  to  find  the  same  truths  in  both.  These 
reformers  urge  that  there  is  a  faith  older  than  polytheistic  and  Puranic  Hin- 
duism. Vedic  and  monotheistic  Hinduism — the  Arya  faith — is  the  true 
religion  of  the  country ;  and  to  this  they  propose  to  return.  Between  the 
two  extremes  of  a  materialistic  skepticism,  and  an  earnest  approach  to 
Christ,  there  is  observable,  during  the  last  decade,  this  strong  undercurrent 
flowing  back  in  the  direction  of  Vedic  Hinduism.  The  IndianRenaissajicfca-. 
a  revival  not  so  much  of  religion  as_^L.philnsnphy,-a-part  of  the  wave  of 
revived  Buddhism  that  has  been  sweeping  over  Ceylon — was  set  on  foot  by 
the  Arya-Somaj  of  North  India,  founded  by  Dyananda  Sarasvati,  who  died 
in  1883,  and  encouraged  by  the  pride  of  Indian  nationality  that  is  stirring; 
and  stimulated  by  the  zeal  of  the  Theosophical  Society ;  and,  above  all, 
provoked  by  the  advancing  power  of  Christianity.  It  holds  that  when  puri- 
fied from  error  Hinduism  can  hold  its  own  against  every  other  form  of  failh. 
It  stands  for  Indian  theism  as  against  foreign  theism,  and  enlists  on  its  side 
the  patriotic  preference  for  Indian  literature  and  thought.  It  has,  without 
doubt,  checked  for  a  time  the  extension  of  the  Christian  Church,  coming 
between  Christ  and  the  awakened  conscience  of  the  Hindus.  But  there  is 
much  in  the  movement  to  excite  our  sympathy.  Those  of  us  who  gladly 
recognize  India's  past  contribution  to  the  religious  thought  of  the  world  may 
welcome  the  attempt  to  discern  between  the  false  and  the  true,  and  to  utilize 
whatever  of  good  the  past  has  bequeathed  to  the  present ;  since  it  is  out  of 
the  old  that  the  new  and  the  better  are  evolved. 

This  movement,  far  more  popular,  because  more  really  Indian,  than 
Brahmoism,  has  been  bitterly  opposed  to  organized  Christianity,  though 
assigning  a  place  of  eminence  to  Christ.  The  Theosophical  Society — from 
the  first  a  distinctively  anti-Christian  force  in  India — has  been  largely 
responsible  for  this.  The  opposition,  and  to  some  extent,  the  Hindu  revival 
itself,  have  been  a  forced  growth ;  and  now  that  the  theosophical  glamor  is 
quietly  fading  away,  the  opposition  is  declining  too. 


II 74         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

There  are  few  signs  of  vitality  in  this  Hindu  renaissance// There  is  a 
revival  of  interest  in  Hindu  philosophy  and  literature,  but  no  real  revival  of 
religion.  /)(Vhat  India  needs  is  not  a  resuscitated  metaphysics,  but  a  new 
moral  life,  the  result  of  getting  into  right  relation  with  God,  which  is  relig- 
ion. While  our  Hindu  brethren  will  do  well  to  understand  what  their  faith 
taught  in  the  purest  days,  with  regard  to  the  burden  of  sin  and  the  problems 
of  existence,  it  is  hopeless  to  hark  back  to  a  past  that  cannot  be  recovered 
— to  put  back  the  hands  on  the  dial  of  human  progress.  The  Hindu 
revival,  though  it  has  probably  passed  its  highest  point,  will  no  doubt  con- 
tinue for  a  time,  as  a  phase  of  educated  thought.  Christian  ideas  are  in  the 
air  and  are  absorbed  even  by  those  who  intend  to  resist  them.  And  scien- 
tific ideas,  which  have  done  much  to  purify  mediaeval  Christianity,  are  taking 
hold  of  the  Indian  mind.  A  As  there  are  two  Buddhisms  now  in  Ceylon,  and 
two  Islams  in  India,  so  tnere  are  two  Hinduisms,  the  one  holding  to  the 
traditions  of  the  past,  the  other  living  in  the  present  and  shaped  by  outside 
influences.  Wphe  advanced  movement  is  likely  to  include  the  fundamental 
conceptions  of  natural  theism — belief  in  one  God  and  in  a  future  life,  purity  in 
thought  and  action,  and  charity  in  social  relations.  This  is  the  most  marked 
transformation  that  has  come  over  the  educated  mind  of  India,  its  truer  con- 
ception of  God  and  of  prayer.  In  the  midst  of  the  pantheism  and  poly- 
theism of  ages,  has  penetrated  the  idea  of  a  personal  and  holy  God — the 
foundation  truth  of  real  religion.  In  ail  modern  religious  reforms,  the  Vedic 
idea  has  been  modified  by  Biblical  theism,  thus  drawing  the  East  and  the 
West  to  a  closer  spiritual  fellowship. 

This  leads  us  to  speak  of  the  organized  Theistic  Church  of  India — 
the  Brahmo-Somaj,  the  highest  and  most  interesting  development  of  relig- 
ious thought  in  the  present  century  outside  of  the  Christian  Church.  Like 
its  younger  brother,  the  Arya-Somaj,  it  started  with  the  Vedas,  but  has  grad- 
ually been  approaching  Christianity. 

It  has  certainly  familiarized  India  with  the  name  of  Christ,  and  the 
voices  that  once  blasphemed  him  are  now  silent.  It  has  brought  Christ 
nearer  to  the  people  ;  and  India  cannot  see  him  without  discovering  new 
beauties  in  his  character,  and  new  depths  in  his  teaching  and  life.  Chris- 
tians are  thus  indebted  to  it  as  being  an  interpreter  to  India  of  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  West,  and  an  interpreter  to  the  West  of  the  best  religious 
aspirations  of  the  East. 

In  the  south  of  India,  however,  one  receives  the  impression  that  Brah- 
moism  is  declining,  or,  at  any  rate,  overshadowed  by  the  influence  of  ihe 
Arya-Somaj.  It  has  no  leadershij),  and  among  a  caste  and  custom-bound 
people,  leadership  is  essential  to  any  reforming  movement.  It  is  nowhere 
conspicuous  as  a  compact  body,  marchmg  with  a  well-defined  and  deter- 
mined purpose  ;  but  seems  rather  a  tendency  of  a  few  unsettled,  yet  earnest 
minds,  journeying,  let  us  hope,  to  some  belter  land.  May  it  not  be,  that  its 
worthy  elements — prayer,  repentance,  moral  struggle,  self-effacing  consecra- 


SWAMl   SI.Ni.AIII    AMM, 
iACiN(;  1IIE-;  i;Niu.\NtR  di'  iiil:  jkinciiai.  sriKiNi;.  mapkas,  indta. 


11 7^        PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

tion  to  God,  active    philanthropy,    and    far-reaching  social    and    domestic 
reforms,  being  essentially  Christian,  can  flourish  only  in  out-and-out  Chris- 
tian soil,  and  that,  therefore,  what  is   best  in  Brahmoism  will  be  gradually 
absorbed  by  Christianity  ?  J^r.  Mozoomdar  once  said  that  "  pure  Theism  "  ) 
could  never  become  a  nati<Hial  religion,  and   added,  "before   India  could^ 
have  that,  she  must  listen  to  the  voices  of  God's  prophets,  among  whom/ 
Christ  held  a  solitary  preeminence. "/^nd,  further,  since  the  movement) 
has  owed  much  of  its  success  and  nora  little  of  its  vigor  to  its  contrast  with 
a  distorted  Christianity,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  caricatures  of  Christian 
doctrine  that  still  disfigure  some  Brahmic  organs,  may  we  not  believe,  that, 
as  a  scientific  and  rational  Christianity — that  of  Christ  rather  than  of  churches 
and  theologies — becomes  better  understood,  the  raisond'  etre  of  Brahmoism 
will  largely  disappear  ? 

If  the  position  occupied  by  Babu  B.  C.  Banerjia,  a  Bengali  Brahman, 
and  a  member  of  the  Church  of  the  "  New  Dispensation,"  founded  by 
Chunder  Sen,  fairly  represents  that  of  his  co-religionists,  then  they  are  cer; 
tainly  preparing  the  way  for  a  true  Eastern  Church,  and  a  wide  acceptance 
of  Christ  by  the  Hindu  nation.  In  starting  a  new  journal,  called  The  Har- 
mony, the  object  of  which  was  to  harmonize  Brahmoism  and  Christianity, 
he  penned  the  remarkable  words  .  jlj'  We  mean  to  preach  the  reconciliation 
-r  -11  _-i:  .-..  Q/ifj^i^  whom  we  believe  to  be  perfectly  divine  and  per- 


Iof  all  religions  in 
fectly  human."// 
Here,  then,  < 


our  Brahmist  brethren  may  almost  join  hands  with  their 
fellow  Christians,  or  with  that  section  of  them  known  as  the  undenomina- 
tional "  Chrisio-SomaJ ;  "  '  and,  later  on,  it  may  be,  with  the  best  spirits  of 
the  Arya-Somaj  ;  and  we  have  rising  before  us  the  vision  of  an  indigenous 
and  united  Indian  Church,  with  form  of  government  and  worship  adapted 
to  the  conditions  of  national  thought  and  life  ;  presenting  many  a  departure 
from  some  ct  the  traditions,  ecclesiastical  and  theological,  of  the  churches  of 
the  West;  and  affording  scope  for  the  varied  and  distinctive  elements— the 
gifts,  talents,  graces— jwhich  the  Indian  mind  and  character  can  so  well 
supply  :  Oie  simplicity  of  the  peasant,  the  indepeiraence  of  the  aborigines, 
the  learning  of  the  pundit,  the  speculatiorfe  of  the  mystic,  the  self4acrifice 
of  the  devotee  :  a  true  Eastern  Church,  which,  while  making  valuable  con- 
tributions to  the  thought  and  reunion  of  Christendom,  would  be  the  means 
of  consolidating  a  great  Indian  nation. 

Writing  to  Mr.  Mozoomdar  a  few  years  ago  with  reference   to  such  a 

church,  he  replied  in  words  that  sufficiently  confirm  the  view  just  outlined  : 

You  do  not  know  what  a  deep  chord  in  my  heart  you  touch  when  you 

speak  of  an  Eastern  Church   of  Christ.     I   behold   it  already  arisen  in  the 

Ikahmo-Somaj.     You  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that  the  great  secret  underly- 

|ing  the  manifold  utterances  of  Keshab  Chunder  Sen  was  to  prepare  his  laud 

^and  nation  for  the  reception  of  the  Son  of  God" 

//«  lis  home  is  Calcutta,     All  that  Is  required  for  membership  is  the  name  of  Christian,  a 
belief  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  a  consistent  Christian  life.      /^ 


SLATER:    RELIGIOUS   OUtLOOR   OF   INDIA.         tl77 

The  great  need  of  India  is  Indian  Christian  scholars,  of  Eastern  fervor 
and  individuality,  who,  not  content  with  respecting  the  shibboleths  of  the 
West,  and  transplanting  to  the  East  all  the  historic  and  dogmatic  types  of 
Christianity,  shall  be  able,  with  sanctified  power  and  insight,  to  guide  I'or- 
ward  such  a  movement,  and  foster  the  growth  of  a  natural  Christianity,  such 
as  India,  with  the  pure  Word  of  God  and  his  Spirit,  may  work  out  for  her- 
self. We  want  our  Krishna  Mohan  Banerjeis,  and  Nehemiah  Gorehs,  and 
Narayan  Sheshadris,  multiplied  a  hundred  fold. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  this  forecast  embraces  only  the  higher  minds. 
What  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  ?  As  already  described,  these  are 
still  sunk  in  the  grossest  superstition;  but  no  religious  outlook  would  be 
complete  without  a  reference  to  the  remarkable  awakening  taking  place  in 
many  parts  of  the  country  among  the  depressed  and  non-caste  classes,  in 
favor  of  Christianity.  Victims  for  ages  of  sore  oppression  and  injustice, 
this  movement  is  largely  a  social  one ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in 
a  few  years  there  will  be  such  an  ingathering  from  this  class  of  the  popula- 
tion as  to  tax  to  the  utmost  the  shepherding  and  training  resources  of  the 
Christian  Church. 

Another  promising  field  for  the  extension  of  Christianity,  where  a  simi- 
lar harvest  will  probably  be  reaped,  is  among  the  millions  of  animistic  hill 
tribes  and  aborigines  and  the  dwellers  in  the  jungles  of  Central  India  ;  though 
here  an  active  Hindu  propaganda,  attracting  little  attention  from  the  outer 
world,  is  being  carried  on  by  the  Yogi  and  Sannyasi — the  ascetic  souls  of 
India,  and  the  survivors  of  its  ancient  Brahmanism. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  province  of  this  paper  to  sketch  the  present 
position — numerical  and  social — and  the  prospects  of  the  native  Christian 
community  proper,  the  facts  relating  to  which  are  pretty  generally  known. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that,  though  still  deficient  in  worldly  prestige  and  in 
self-reliance,  it  numbers  now  560,000,  being  an  increase  of  142,000  since  the 
census  of  188 1  ;  and  that  it  is  advancing  at  an  accelerating  ratio.  What  is 
of  greater  importance,  it  possesses  many  bright  adorners  of  Christian  faith 
and  practice,  and  is  growing  ever>'  year  in  culture,  power,  and  influence,  and 
in  a  sense  of  its  spiritual  responsibilities.  Both  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
(which  claims  over  1,250,000)  and  the  Protestant  are  strongest  in  the 
south  of  India  ;  and  the  Director  of  Public  Instruction  in  Madras  has 
recently  stated,  that  "  There  can  be  no  question,  if  this  community  pursues 
with  steadiness  the  present  policy  of  its  teachers,  that,  with  the  immense 
advantages  it  possesses  in  the  way  of  educational  institutions  and  the 
aljsence  of  caste  restrictions,  in  the  course  of  a  generation  it  will  have 
secured  a  preponderating  position  in  all  the  great  professions,  and  possibly 
too  in  the  industrial  enterprise  of  the  country." 

Thus  in  course  of  time,  a  nominal  Christianity  will  doubtless  be  pro- 
fessed by  the  less  cultured  and  poorer  races  of  the  land,  as  a  multiplied  band 
of  evangelists  from  the  West  bear  fonvard  "the  Everlasting   Gospel,"  the 


117^        PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FOURTEENTH    DAY. 

great  social  lever  of  the  world.  Probably,  too,  at  a  still  more  distant  day, 
the  conversion  may  be  crowned  by  the  higher  and  wealthier  classes,  drawn 
by  the  growing  bands  of  loyalty  and  political  concessions,  if  by  nothing 
higher,  to  accept  the  religion  of  their  rulers.  Modern  Hmduism  for  these 
classes  can  mean  little  more  than  caste  and  custom  ;  and  as  these  fetters 
yield,  sooner  or  later  m  the  Zenanas  which  are  opening  to  receive  the  Gos- 
pel, and  through  increasing  intercourse  with  the  West,  the  Brahmans  and 
other  castes  must  find  themselves  face  to  face  with  a  Christianity  that  has 
come  to  stay,  or  with  the  old  historic  and  ultimate  foe  of  all  religion — a 
rationalistic  and  materialistic  infidelity.  For  the  final  struggle  in  India  is 
not  likely  to  tie  between  Christianity  and  any  purified  Hinduism  or  Islam, 
but,  as  in  all  other  lands,  between  Christ  and  unbelief. 

Even  now  enlightened  Hindus  are  coming  more  and  more  to  regard 
the  religion  of  Christ  as  the  commanding  factor  in  whatever  is  best  in  the 
character  and  progress  of  persons"  and  of  states,  and  to  concede,  with  John 
Stuart  Mill,  that  "Whatever  is  excellent  in  either  may  be  brought  ^^thin 
the  savings  of  Christ." 

Then,  far  in  advance  of  these,  there  is  a  growing  band  of  secret  dis.- 
ciples,  who  recognize  Christ's  right  to  their  allegiance,  but  who,  because  of 
the  social  disgrace  that  it  would  bring,  shrink  from  an  open  profession.  On 
their  behalf  let  us  plead  for  greater  toleration — freedom  to  worship  God 
according  to  their  conscience. 

Happily,  the  religious  nature  of  the  Hindus,  the  national  genius  for  fer- 
vor and  devotion,  the  instinctive  passion  for  transcendental  ideas,  and  the 
ceaseless  searching  after  the  Divine  Essence,  point  to  a  religious  future  for 
the  nation  generally — not  merely  formal,  but  rich  and  deep.  And  that  the 
heart  of  India  will  yet  respond  to  Christ,  though  it  may  decline  to  learn  the 
systematic  theology  of  the  schools ;  that,  when  touched  by  his  grace,  it  will 
produce  a  type  of  saintliness  as  yet  unseen ;  that  there  are  notes  of  sweetest 
music,  hitherto  unheard,  waiting  to  be  struck  by  Hindu  Christianity  and  to 
rise  from  a  great  Eastern  Church,  we  cannot  doubt.  The  best  thought  of 
India  is  not  toward  Hinduism,  but  toward  Christ.  He.  is  still  the  test  of 
souls,  the  touchstone  of  nations,  and  all  that  is  best  in  Hindu  humanity ;  all 
who  are  weary  of  their  sin  and  are  yearning  for  a  something  that  Hinduism 
cannot  give,  will  be  surely  drawn  to  him  as  steel  to  the  magnet,  as  the 
magnet  to  the  pole. 


THE  FIFTEENTH  DA  V. 


THE   BEARING    OF     RELIGIOUS    UNITY    ON    THE 
WORK  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 

By  Rev.  George  T.  Candlin,  of  China. 

Whoever  takes  a  comprehensive  survey  of  the  state  of  religious  thought 
and  sentiment  during  the  nineteenth  century  with  a  view  to  ascertain  their 
prevailing  tendency,  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  with  certain  portentous 
changes  which,  in  obedience  to  some  hidden  law,  are  taking  place.  So  far 
as  Protestant  communities  are  concerned  at  least,  there  has  been  an  enor- 
mous increase  in  missionary  activity.  In  fact,  Protestant  missions  on  any 
scale,  which  even  in  outlook  was  at  all  commensurate  with  the  earth's  area, 
may  fairly  be  said  to  have  been  born  with  the  century.  The  Reformation 
was  a  civil  war  within  the  church,  and  as  in  political  matters  so  in  religion, 
internal  strife  withdrew  men's  thoughts  and  energies  from  "  foreign  affairs." 
It  stood  for  purification  and  for  intensification,  not  for  expansion.  For  at 
least  a  century  and  a  half  this  was  a  prime  characteristic  of  the  reformed 
churches.  But,  with  the  dawn  of  the  century  now  near  its  close,  there 
flamed  forth  as  from  an  inner  furnace  of  spiritual  fervor  the  splendid 
enthusiasm  which  has  given  to  the  church  such  hero  names  as  Moffat,  Liv- 
ingstone, Carey,  Martin,  Bowen,  Gordon,  Morrison,  Burns  and  Hannington. 
The  movement  has  lost  some  of  its  early  romance,  not  because  the  fire  of  its 
zeal  has  abated,  but  because  it  is  settling  down  to  steadfast  purpose  and 
practical,  wisely  calculated  aim.     It  has  yet  to  reach  its  culminating  point. 

The  Roman  Catholic  section  of  Christendom  presented  the  same  phe- 
nomena, but  at  an  earlier  date.  The  Reformation  which  kept  the  reformers 
busy  at  reconstruction  made  the  ancient  church  missionary.  Perhaps  it 
would  hardly  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  magnificent  successes  of  the  prop- 
aganda during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  did  much  to  save  the 
Papacy  from  extinction.  Exploits  like  those  of  Xavier  and  Ricci  have  lent 
a  luster  to  Catholicism  brighter  and  more  lasting  than  all  the  august  grand- 
eur of  the  popes,  and  which  cannot  be  dimmed  by  comparison  with  Protest- 
ant annals.  Nor  can  it  be  fairly  said,  though  Protestant  missions  have  been 
to  the  front,  that  during  the  present  century  there  has  been  any  abatement 
of  missionary  ardor  on  the  part  of  the  older  community. 

Side  by  side  with  this  movement  there  has  grown  up  a  strong  and 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

X179 


II 80  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

general  aspiration  for  religious  union.  So  far  it  can  hardly  be  described  as 
more  than  an  aspiration,  though  in  two  or  three  instances  it  has  reached, 
and  with  the  happiest  result,  the  point  of  organic  amalgamation.  But  the 
force  of  the  sentiment  may  be  partly  measured  by  the  fact  that  all  which  has 
been  accomplished,  either  in  the  fuller  toleration  and  more  friendly  attitude 
of  church  to  church  or  in  such  actual  union  as  has  been  already  brought 
about,  utterly  fails  to  satisfy  its  keen  demand.  It  is  a  growing  hunger  of 
man's  spiritual  nature  which  will  never  rest,  but  will  become  more  ravenous 
until  it  is  fed.  Historic  generalization  is  always  dangerous  and  often  uncon- 
vincing, because  it  can  always  be  confronted  with  the  adverse  facts,  the 
value  of  which  has  only  to  be  somewhat  magnified  to  show  the  conclusion 
wrong.  Still  one  may  venture  the  assertion  that  the  tide  of  tendency  which 
has  been  flowing  since  the  Greek  and  Roman  communion  separated  from 
each  other's  fellowship,  and  which  has  issued  in  the  myriad  divisions  of 
Christendom,  has  already  spent  its  strength,  that  the  set  of  the  current  is 
now  toward  union,  and  that  men  no  longer  care  to  separate  from  each  other's 
communion  to  witness  for  some  particular  phase  of  truth,  but  are  at  least 
earnestly  longing  to  hnd  the  "more  excellent  way"  which  reconciles  fellow- 
ship of  spirit  with  liberty  of  thought.  This  is  not  a  down-grade,  but  an 
up-grade  movement. 

While  the  tendency  is  one,  it  manifests  itself  in  various  Ways.  Its 
widest  exhibition  is  in  the  almost  universal  admission  of  the  political  right 
of  freedom  of  conscience.  It  is  not  confined  to  Protestants,  for  though 
Rome,  boasting  of  her  unchangeableness,  maintains  in  theory  the  right  to 
persecute,  and  Protestants,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  affect  to  think  that  her 
will,  where  she  has  the  power,  is  as  good  as  ever,  there  is  no  real  ground  to 
doubt  that  the  public  sentiment  of  Romanists  themselves  would  be  outraged 
by  the  revival  of  such  horrors  as  those  of  St.  Bartholomewor  the  Inquisition. 
In  the  various  denominations  of  Protestantism  men  are  already  feeling  that 
their  differences  are  rather  matters  to  be  apologized  for  than  to  be  proud  of. 
There  is  a  growing  disposition  to  substitute  a  spiritual  test  for  the  intellectual 
one,  conversion  for  orthodoxy.  There  is  an  increasing  tendency  to  recog- 
nize the  commonwealth  of  Christian  life.  More  and  more  stress  is  being 
laid  upon  what  the  various  churches  have  in  common,  less  and  less  emphasis 
is  being  given  to  their  distinctive  differences.  Here  and  there  one  marks 
the  signs  of  the  capacity  to  learn  from  one  another.  There  is  a  wide  spread 
unity  of  sentiment  and  of  spiritual  aim.  There  is  an  irrepressible  desire  for 
organic  union.  In  some  few  minds,  still  to  be  considered  extreme  and  too 
far  in  advance  of  the  common  sentiment  to  powerfully  affect  the  mass,  the 
idea  is  dimly  entertained  of  some  common  bond  of  union  which  shall  give 
visible  expression  to  the  catholic  sentiment  of  one  common  Christendom. 

Without  the  ranks  of  professing  Christians  the  same  spirit  is  at  work, 
but  in  an  apparently  hostile  direction.  A  strong  sentiment  of  the  value  of 
those  spiritual  and  ethical  impulses  which  make  the  very  heart  and  life  of 


CANDLIN:    RELIGIOUS    UNITY.  II81 

Christianity  accompanies  a  peremptory  rejection  of  specific  theological  doc- 
trines. An  undisguised  contempt  for  and  impatience  with  the  divisions  and 
differences  of  Christians  is  coupled  with  a  wide  and  sympathetic  study  of 
the  non-Christian  religions  of  the  world.  By  the  new  pathway  of  compar- 
ative religion,  men  are  finding  their  way  to  the  belief  in  the  common  pos- 
session of  a  spiritual  nature  on  the  part  of  all  the  members  of  the  human 
family. 

Not  less  notable,  as  a  mark  of  change,  is  the  growth  of  the  cosmopoli- 
tan and  humanitarian  spirit,  which  is  breaking  the  barriers  of  national  pre- 
judice ;  the  democratic  spirit,  which  asserts  the  right  to  a  share  of  political 
power  on  the  part  of  the  humblest  member  of  the  state;  the  socialistic  spirit, 
which  is  fast  abolishing  the  merciless  distinctions  of  caste  and  of  class,  and 
claiming  for  all  a  place  in  society  and  a  share  of  the  necessaries  and  reason- 
able comforts  of  life. 

Can  we  trace  these  various  movements  to  a  common  cause  ?  Different 
and  disconnected  as  they  appear  in  external  aspect,  can  we  ascribe  them  to 
one  originating  force  ?  We  believe  that  we  can.  They  are  the  results  of 
the  action  of  the  essential  spirit  of  Christianity  in  human  life,  upheavals  of 
the  surface  of  society  subject  to  the  permeating  influence  of  Gospel  leaven, 
phases  of  the  age-long  but  age-victorious  process  by  which  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  being  established  on  earth.  They  indicate  the  Gospel  in  practice, 
the  fulfillment  of  the  great  command,  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach 
the  Gospel  to  every  creature  ;  "  the  realization  of  the  Saviour's  prayer  "  that 
they  all  may  be  one  as  thou.  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also 
may  be  one  in  us  ;  "  the  dawning  consciousness  of  the  Saviour's  care  for  all 
the  spiritual  in  all  climes  and  ages,  "  Other  sheep  have  I  which  are  not  of 
this  fold,  them  also  must  I  bring  ;  "  the  application  of  that  practical  Gospel 
apostolically  taught,  "  Whoso  hath  this  world's  goods  and  seeth  his  brother 
have  need,  and  shutteth  up  his  bowels  of  compassion  from  him,  howdweileth 
the  love  of  God  in  him  ?  "  They  mark  and  define  the  epoch  as  one  in 
which  the  best  ideals  of  our  holy  faith  have  held  practical  sway,  in  which 
Christians  are  nobly  striving  to  make  Christ  king  everywhere  and  over  the 
whole  of  life.  The  Chicago  Parliament  of  Religions  will  stand  a  red-letter 
event  in  the  calendar  of  religious  history,  the  grandest  visible  embodiment 
yet  reached  of  these  magnificent  aspirations. 

The  cause  of  Christian  missions  and  that  of  religious  unity  are  so  inti- 
mately related  to  each  other  that  they  need  to  be  considered  together,  as 
each  promotes  the  other,  and  whatever  tends  to  advance  either  will  benefit 
both.  One  of  the  questions  we  often  ask  ourselves  in  the  present  day  is: 
Why  is  missionary  work  on  the  whole  attended  with  so  little  success  ?  And 
undoubtedly  a  partial  answer  is  supplied  in  the  statement  that  it  is  carried 
on  with  divided  and  sometimes  rival  forces.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  ask 
ourselves  what  has  been  the  secret  of  the  unhappy  divisions  which  have  rent 
Christendom  into  countless  sects,  the  answer  is  equally  pertinent — because 


I  1 82  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

the  energy,  the  aggressiveness,  the  battle-spirit  which  should  have  occupied 
themselves  in  combatting  sin  and  darkness  and  subduing  the  powers  of 
superstition  and  evil  without  the  church,  have  been  pent  up  within  her 
bosom. 

It  was  to  the  united  church  that  the  grace  of  Pentecost  was  given; 
it  was  to  equip  her  for  the  conquest  of  the  world  that  she  was  clothed  with 
its  inspiration.  It  is  idle  to  bemoan  the  past,  but  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to 
learn  its  lessons,  and  surely  one  of  the  lessons  God  is  loudly  teaching  us 
to-day  is  that  to  have  larger  measures  of  missionary  success  we  must  have 
increased  Christian  unity.  In  the  very  nature  of  things  these  two  must  go 
together.  In  the  family,  in  business,  in  the  management  of  the  state,  we  do 
not  hesitate  to  recognize  the  principle  that  domestic  harmony  and  outward 
prosperity  are  linked  inseparably  to  each  other.  Can  we  imagine  then  that 
in  religion  alone,  which  ought  co  be  its  grandest  expression,  the  law  is 
relaxed  ?  Is  a  religion  universal  in  its  empire  but  disordered  and  dispar- 
ate in  its  fellowship  so  much  as  conceivable  ?  The  world  conquered  by  a 
divided  church  ?     Never !  • 

It  would  be  an  interesting  subject  of  inquiry,  though  far  beyond  our 
range,  to  discover  how  far  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  Christian  union  has  been 
.the  direct  outcome  of  the  increase  in  missionary  zeal  and  enterprise. 
Reports  of  Gospel  conquests  among  men  of  various  races  and  of  all  grades 
in  the  scale  of  civilization  ;  the  record  of  how  savagery  has  been  tamed, 
cannibalism  diminished,  and  nameless  cruelties  abated,  peaceful  industries 
established  and  the  useful  arts  cultivated  among  those  lower  races  of  Africa, 
Madagascar,  Fiji  and  other  islands  of  Polynesia,  whom  German  writers  style 
the  nature  peoples,  together  with  such  partial  successes  as  have  been 
achieved  amongst  the  followers,  of  the  great  non-Christian  creeds  on  the 
great  continent  of  Asia — the  Hindu,  the  Chinaman  and  the  Japanese,  leav- 
ing the  metaphysical  subtleties  of  Brahm,  the  grotesque  idols  of  Buddhism, 
and  the  cold  abstractions  of  that  Confucianism  which  is  neither  a  religion 
nor  a  philosophy,  and  the  believers  in  Mohammed,  turning  from  the  Prophet 
of  Arabia  to  find  in  Christ  an  eternal  Saviour,  a  new  light  and  a  fresh  hope, 
cannot  have  failed  to  impress  men's  imaginations  and  set  them  asking  the 
question.  Is  not  this  better  far  than  rivaling  one  another  at  home  and  giving 
almost  exclusive  attention  to  the  minor  issues  which  lie  between  us  ?  More- 
over, in  proportion  as  attention  is  directed  to  any  particular  subject  it  is 
withdrawn  from  other  matters  of  controversy.  Automatically,  therefore, 
missions  promote  union. 

But  whatever  has  been  the  force  of  the  missionary  sentiment  hitherto 
in  promotmg  Christian  unity,  there  is  no  question  that  its  influence  might 
be  enormously  increased.  Christian  union  is  a  gigantic  problem  which  the 
wisest  leaders  of  the  churches  do  not  at  all  see  their  way  to  solve  But  if 
there  is  one  thing  clear  about  the  subject,  it  is  that  we  must  have  a  common 
ground  to  unite   upon   and  one  that  we  can  all  accept   with  enthusiasm. 


REV.  GEORGE  T.  CAN'DLIN,  TIENTSIN,  CHINA. 


AS    A     MISSIONARV     I     ANTICIPATE     THAT      THIS    PARLIAMENT    WILL    MAKB    A     NEW     ERA     OP 
MISSIONARY    ENTERPRISE    AND    MISSION. \KY    HOPE.  •  «  «  «  THIS  IS  PENTECOST, 

AND  BEHIND  IS  THE  CONVERSION  OK  THE  WORLD  " 


Il84  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

Unity  is  not  uniformity.  What  we  want  is  not  so  much  an  army  the  stature 
of  whose  soldiers  agrees  with  the  standard,  and  whose  uniforms  are  accord- 
ing to  regulation  patterns,  as  an  army  in  which  every  heart  burns  true  with  the 
common  fire  of  purposa  and  which  moves  with  unswerving  directness  to  a 
common  end.  So  faraswe  can  see,  the  gieat  object  of  the  conversion  of  the 
world,  and  this  object  alone,  supplies  the  want.  Just  as  all  Protestant 
Christians  hold  to  the  Bible  and  say:  "This  is  the  great  source  of  our  relig- 
ion, whatever  our  difference,  we  cling  to  the  inspired  page,  we  meet  in  our 
common  reverence  for  the  Word  of  God,"  so  ought  they  to  say,  so  let  us 
hope  they  will  one  day  say:  "The  world  as  the  subject  of  redemption,  this 
is  the  great  object  of  our  religion,  round  this  one  cause  we  may  cluster  our- 
selves, sink  our  differences  in  the  one  end  in  view  and  link  ourselves  in  a 
new  and  sweeter  brotherhood  as  we  go  unitedly  to  possess  it." 

Consider  only  some  of  the  advantages  to  the  work  of  Christian  missions 
which  may  be  expected  to  accrue  as  a  spirit  of  union  prevails  among  the 
different  sections  of  the  church.  The  union  of  parent  churches  will  mean 
very  substantial  economy  in  church  expenditure  at  home,  and  set  free  very 
considerable  funds  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  abroad.  Fancy  the 
$10,000,000 — the  present  cost  of  the  Christian  army  in  the  greater  crusade, 
being  changed  into  520,000,000  !  •    , 

Union  would  result  in  a  much  more  systematic  mapping  out  of  mission- 
ary fields  and  in  much  more  complete  cooperation  amongst  individual 
missionaries  than  exist  at  present. 

The  moral  effect  of  a  united  front  is  more  difficult  to  estimate,  but  that 
its  influences  on  those  to  whom  the  Gospel  message  is  carried  would  be 
immense,  no  one  can  seriously  deny.  It  is  the  more  difficult  to  speak  on 
this  topic,  as  the  wildest  nonsense  has  passed  current  on  the  subject  among 
the  unsympathetic  critics  of  missions.  The  picture  of  an  unsophisticated 
pagan  bewildered  by  the  confusion  of  tongues  arising  from  jarring  sects, 
tossed  hopelessly  to  and  fro  as  he  pursues  his  anxious  inquiries,  from  Epis- 
copalian to  Presbyterian,  from  Calvinist  to  Armenian,  from  Churchman  to 
Methodist,  from  Trinitarian  to  Unitarian,  and  finally  giving  up  in  despair 
the  vain  attempt  to  ascertain  what  Christianity  is,  and  impartially  inviting 
them  all  to  join  his  own  tolerant  and  catholic  communion — "  More  better 
you  come  Joss  pidgin  side" — is  too  delicious  for  criticism.  Nothing  could 
be  more  supremely  absurd.  The  whole  thing  is  woven  out  of  the  cobwebs 
of  the  critic's  imagination.  It  involves  not  only  the  densest  ignorance  of 
the  missionary,  but  a  still  more  hopeless  state  of  darkness  as  to  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  neophyte.  The  simple  reply  to  it  is,  that  among  Protestant 
missions  nineteen  members  out  of  twenty  could  give  no  account  whatever 
of  the  difference  between  one  mission  and  another. 

It  is  when  we  look  to  the  future  that  we  tremble  for  the  moral  influence 
of  sectarian  divisions.  As  the  foundations  with  which  we  are  now  so  busy 
tjecome  firmly  laid  ;  as  an  enthusiasm  for  the  study  of  Christianity  spreads  ; 


CANDLIN:    RELIGIOUS    UNITY,  II85 

as  large  and  influential  native  churches  become  formed,  then  more  minute 
study  and  more  discriminating  discussion  of  the  faith  will  show  the  deep 
lines  of  hate  and  wrath  which  have  cleft  asunder  the  followers  of  Jesus ;  then 
attempts  may  be  made  to  perpetuate  differences  amongst  those  who  have 
had  no  part  in  producing  them  ;  then,  in  the  face  of  the  'great  heathen 
faiths  which  the  Gospel  is  destined  to  replace,  all  the  ugly  features  of  intol- 
erance and  bigotry  will  show  themselves,  and  we  tremble  for  the  issue,  as 
we  think  how  long  they  may  actually  delay  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  with  power.  In  India  and  in  Japan,  missions  are  in  a  stage  far  in 
advance  of  what  they  have  reached  in  China,  and  in  them  the  evil  effects  of 
division  are  already  exhibiting  the  principle  that  the  advance  of  missionary 
success  makes  the  demand  for  union  more  urgent. 

The  view  here  taken  of  religious  union  does  not  regard  it  as  a  mechan- 
ical combination,  but  as  a  guiding  principle  and  an  animating  spirit.  The 
manner  of  its  embodiment  must  be  left  to  time.  The  problem  is  too  com- 
plex for  men  to  sit  down  and  draw  up  a  scheme  and  say :  "Go  to  now,  let 
us  accept  the  constitution  and  forthwith  become  a  Universal  Church."  It 
must  be  a  growth,  not  a  manufacture  ;  must  be  realized  by  a  process  of  edu- 
cation rather  than  one  of  agitation.  The  ideal  must  mature  in  the  Christian 
consciousness  before  it  can  emerge  as  a  realization  in  practice.  It  must 
result  from  the  catholic  development  of  Christian  thought.  Any  attempt  to 
force  it  would  but  retard  its  advent.  It  can  only  hope  to  include  all  by 
learning  to  give  comprehensive  expression  to  what  is  precious  in  each. 
The  great  thing  is  that  each  and  all  of  us  shguld  keep  the  ideal  unswerv- 
ingly in  view,  seek  by  all  legitimate  means  to  promote  its  realization,  and 
by  patience,  tolerance,  sympathetic  study  of  one  another,  in  a  larger  love,  a 
more  embracing  wisdom,  a  stronger  faith,  move  toward  the  goal.  Could  we 
but  think  that  half  the  zeal,  the  intensity  of  purpose,  the  genius,  the  learn- 
ing, the  power  of  argument  and  persuasion,  the  loyalty  to  conviction,  the 
sacrifice  for  conscience  sake,  the  heroism  of  effort — in  themselves  such  noble 
things — which  in  the  past  have  been  employed  in  the  cause  of  division, 
would  in  the  future  be  enlisted  in  the  service  of  union,  we  should  have  no 
fear  that  the  widest  breach  will  be  healed,  the  strongest  barrier  shattered, 
and  the  followers  of  Christ  made  one. 

Christian  union  is  but  a  part  of  the  wider  question  of  religious  union. 
Contemporaneously  with  the  desire  that  all  the  citizens  of  the  spiritual 
Kingdom  of  our  Divine  King  should  stand  to  the  outer  world  on  terms  of 
mutual  recognition  and  fellowship,  there  has  grown  up  an  almost  equally 
imperious  longing  to  approach  the  non-Christian  religions  in  a  spirit  of  love 
and  not  of  antagonism,  to  understand  and  justly  rate  their  value  as  expres- 
sions of  the  religious  principle  in  man,  to  replace  indiscriminate  condemna- 
tion by  reverential  study,  and  to  obtain  conquest,  not  by  crushing  resistance, 
but  by  winning  allegiance.     And  because   this  is  a  subject  on  which  much 


75 


Il86  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

confusion  of  thought  and  misunderstanding  prevail  it  becomes  us  to  speak 
with  all  possible  explicitness. 

It  appears  to  us  then  that  all  religion  whatever  in  any  age  or  country  is 
in  its  essential  spring  good  and  not  evil.  It  has  been  at  the  root  of  all  moral- 
ity that  ever  made  society  possible,  has  been  the  spring  of  every  philosophy, 
the  incentive  to  every  science  yet  born,  has  formed  the  nucleus  and  animat- 
ing soul  of  every  civilized  nation  the  sun  ever  shone  on,  has  been  the  uplifting 
force  of  whatever  progress  the  world  or  any  part  of  the  world  has  ever  made. 
Religion  has  been  spoken  of  as  "  the  great  divider,"  it  is  in  fact,  che  great, 
the  only  adequate  and  permanent  uniting  power.  Burdened  with  never  so 
much  error,  with  never  so  much  superstition,  it  is  yet  better,  immeasurably 
better,  than  the  error  and  superstition  without  the  religion,  and  they  would  be 
there  in  undisturbed  exercise  if  it  were  not  there.  Define  it  in  what  abstract 
terms  you  will,  as  dependence  on  a  higher  power,  as  a  consciousness  of  the 
reality  of  the  invisible,  as  the  mysterious  feeling  of  the  sacredness  of  con-, 
science,  as  a  sense  of  the  divine  in  human  life,  religion  is  the  one  thing  that 
has  made  union,  heroism,  nobleness,  greatness,  possible  to  men.  Held  in 
connection  with  what  amount  of  falsehood  you  like,  it  is  the  beginning  of 
all  truth.  Everything  worth  having  in  life  is  founded  on  belief ;  nothing 
worth  having  is  founded  on  unbelief.  India  may  be  as  bad  as'you  please 
under  the  reign  of  Brahmanism ;  China,  Thibet  and  Corea  as  degraded  as  you 
choose  under  that  of  Buddhism  and  Confucianism  ;  Arabia  and  Turkey  as 
cruel  and  lustful  as  you  can  imagine  under  Mohammedanism  ;  Africa  as  sav- 
age as  you  care  to  suppose  with  its  dumb,  dark  fetichisms ;  all  would  be  worse 
without  these.  Superstition^  lust,  cruelty,  selfishness,  savagery,  wrong,  hate, 
rage,  can  get  on  without  religion  of  any  kind  ;  they  reign  in  uninterrupted 
devilishness  where  it  has  never  entered.  Lucifer  and  Beelzebub  have  no 
creed,  hell  has  no  religion.  Dim,  dim  and  cold  as  yellow  changeful  moons,  as 
twinkling,  distant,  cloud-obscured  stars,  as  momentary  falling  meteors  in  the 
dark,  dread  night  of  humanity,  yet  are  they  farther- removed  from  the  utter 
darkness,  the  gloom  and  terror  and  despair  which  are  the  death  of  the  soul 
than  from  the  crimson  and  gold  of  the  dawning  sky,  the  splendor  of  the  noon- 
day sun  which  we  behold  in  Jesus  Christ. 

The  one  insurmountable  obstacle  which  prevents  many  of  the  wisest  and 
best  of  men  from  seeing  this,  is  the  almost  ineradicable  tendency  to  ascribe 
to  the  religious  beliefs  of  those  we  call  heathen,  the  abuses  we  find  in  heathen 
society.  No  religion,  Christianity  any  more  than  others,  can  stand  that  test. 
It  is  the  proper  argument  of  infidelity.  Apply  it  fairly  and  you  make  a 
clean  sweep.  All  the  divine  things  which  Jesus  brought  into  the  world  go  by 
the  board.  The  careful,  impartial  student  of  the  working  of  beliefs  on  the 
human  mind  cannot  help  seeing  that  the  gigantic  evils  of  society  which  exist 
in  Christendom  and  heathendom  alike  are  due  to  an  original  corruption  of 
human  nature  against  which  religion  is  always,  in  a  degree  which  is  the  test 
of  its  value,  a  protest.     The  true  root  of  sin  everywhere   and  always  is  irre- 


CANDLIN:    RELIGIOUS   UNITY.  II87 

ligion.  Religion  wherever  we  find  it  makes  its  appeal  to  the  human  con- 
science, addresses  itself  to  the  faculty  of  worship  and  makes  a  stand,  effective 
or  ineffective,  against  evil.  However  ineffective,  to  make  the  attempt  at  all 
is  better  than  to  let  the  flood  roll  irresistibly.  China  is  better  than  Africa 
because  she  has  better  religions.  China  without  Confucius,  would  have  been 
immeasurably  worse  than  China  with  Confucius. 

If  we  regard  the  question  in  the  light  of  the  distinction  between  sub- 
jective and  objective,  we  may  say  that  the  subjective  qualities  in  the  nature 
of  man  which  are  exercised  in  religion,  are  the  same  in  kind,  though  differ- 
ing in  degree  in  all  religious  systems,  and  always,  however  exercised,  are  to 
be  treated  with  reverence;  and  the  proud,  vast  claim  we  make  for  the  Chris- 
tian faith  is,  that  it  alone  furnishes  those^  spiritual  objects  which  can  give 
full  development  and  perfect  expression  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  all  man- 
kind. It  alone  has  certitude  strong  enough,  life  spiritual  enough,  hope  high 
enough,  love  wide  enough,  to  make  summer  in  the  world's  heart.  Because  it 
has  gone  to  the  center  it  can  reach  to  the  circumference.  Its  mission  to  the 
non-Christian  systems  is  one  not  of  condemnation,  but  of  interpretation. 
On  the  same  darkness  into  which  their  glinting  rays  have  feebly  struck,  it 
sheds  its  heaven-kindled,  clear-burning,  all-diffusive  light.  It  holds  the 
keys  of  all  spiritual  mysteries.  To  us  the  non-Christian  religions  are  little 
other  than  archaic  forms,  however  valid  and  fresh  they  may  seem  to  their 
followers.  They  are  crude  attempts  at  theology  which  have  gathered  round 
the  personality  of  men,  who,  in  their  own  spheres,  to  their  own  times  and 
races,  were  spiritual  kings.  Each  presents  a  problem  the  Gospel  is  bound 
to  solve.  It  has  to  explain  them  to  themselves.  But -in  doing  so  it  must 
not  disregard  the  fundamental  law  of  teaching.  It  must  proceed  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown,  from  the  acknowledged  to  the  unacknowledged, 
from  the  truth  partially  perceived  to  the  truth  full-orbed  and  clear.  Every 
ray  of  truth,  every  spark  of  holy  feeling,  every  feeble  impulse  of  pure  desire, 
every  noble  deed,  every  act  of  sacrifice,  every  sign  of  tenderness  and  love, 
which  in  them  have  made  them  dear  to  their  believers,  will  be  an  open  door 
for  its  entrance,  and  its  right  to  supplant  will  rest  finally  on  its  power  to 
comprehend. 

We  have  a  magnificent  example  of  missionary  polemics  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews.  Christianity  had  to  replace  Judaism,  but  before  it  could  do 
so  their  true  relation  had  to  be  shown.  That  mightiest  controversialist  of 
the  apostolic  church  took  the  whole  complicated  system  of  sacrifice,  priest- 
hood, Sabbaths,  purification,  traced  their  intricate  lines  till  they  ran  into  the 
great  redeeming  plan,  flung  over  them  all  the  crimson  mantle  of  Christ  and 
struck  their  foreshadowings  through  and  through  with  the  light  that  never 
fades.  From  that  hour  Judaism  was  a  lost  cause.  The  bridge  was  thrown 
across  the  gulf  by  which  men  might  pass  out  of  the  narrow,  exclusive  limits 
of  a  national  religion  to  the  large  liberty  of  that  new  faith,  whose  aim  was 
to  renew  and  reunite  the  universal  family  of  man.     Henceforth  Moses  must 


I  1 88  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

be  included  in  Christ,  and  instead  of  Christians  becoming  Jews,  Jews  must 
become  Christians.  It  is  true  that  Judaism  was  in  a  peculiar  manner  a 
preparation  for  Christianity,  yet  there  is  a  modified  sense  in  which  all  relig- 
ion whatever  is  a  preparation  for  Christianity  and  this  earliest  polemic  of 
the  church  is  a  model  for  the  Christian  missionary  in  dealing  with  the  relig- 
ions of  every  country  and  of  every  era. 

To  sum  up  what  has  already  been  advanced  :  Christianity,  in  the  con- 
ception of  her  Divine  Founder,  and  according  to  her  best  traditions  in  every 
century,  is  a  religion  for  the  whole  world.  To  bring  all  mankind  into  fel- 
lowship with  Christ  is  her  chief  mission.  That  was  the  grand  master- 
purpose  which  gave  to  the  apostolic  age  its  fervor,  its  inspiration,  its  resist- 
less sway  over  men's  hearts.  But,  alas,  through  centuries  darkened  by 
selfishness,  by  pnde,  by  love  of  power,  by  intolerant  bigotry,  by  intestine 
strife,  she  has  gone  far  to  forget  her  errand  to  the  world.  Yet  again,  in 
our  own  times,  this  great  thought  of  a  love  for  all  men,  wide,  tender,  toler- 
ant as  that  of  Christ  himself,  is  bemg  bom  in  men's  hearts.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  modem  Christianity,  shall  we  say  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  the  idea  has  been  conceived  of  bringing 
together,  face  to  face,  not  only  representatives  of  the  many  branches  of 
Christendom,  but  also  leafers  of  the  great  historic  faiths  of  the  world. 
Surely  this  in  itself  indicates  that  great  movements  are  preparing  beneath 
the  surface,  full  of  hope  and  promise  for  the  future.  The  splendid  courage 
which  has  undertaken  such  a  task  will  not  be  lost.  Everything  is  calling 
loudly  for  a  radical  change  of  attitude  on  the  part  of  Christian  men.  Our 
denominational  distmctions  have  for  the  most  part  become  anachronisms. 
They  rest  on  certain  hopeless  arguments  which  can  never  be  settled  one  way 
or  another.  Our  divisions  are  strangling  us.  Much  of  the  world's  best 
literature  and  the  world's  best  science  are  already  without  our  borders.  The 
leaders  of  social  reform  look  upon  us  with  suspicion  and  distrust.  Our  atti- 
tude toward  the  non-Christian  world  is  stiff  and  unbending  in  the  extreme. 
Meanwhile  material  changes  and  civilizing  influences  are  flinging  the 
nations  into  each  other's  arms.  The  great  world  which  does  not  understand 
the  mystery  of  its  sin  and  misery  is  left  without  its  Saviour,  and  he  yet 
waits  to  possess  the  world  he  bought  with  his  blood.  The  federation  of 
Christian  men  and  the  prosecution  in  a  spirit  of  loving  sympathy  of  her 
evangel  throughout  the  world,  are  the  great  ideals  which  in  the  past  have 
made  the  church  illustrious,  which  in  the  future  must  be  her  salvation. 

Is  all  this  distant,  far  out  of  reach  and  impracticable?  Doubtless  like 
the  millennium — and  we  might  almost  say  it  will  be  the  millennium — it  is  by 
no  means  at  our  doors.  These  are  only  ideals,  and  men  sneer  at  ideals. 
Already  sarcasm  has  been  at  work  on  the  aims  of  this  great  Congress.  It 
has  been  "weighed  in  the  balances"  of  a  present-day  prudence  and  has  been 
"found  wanting."  Now,  in  the  nature  of  things,  what  is  to  be  attempted  by 
this  assembly  must  be  provisional,  tentative,  and  not  immediately  realizable. 


G 

2 


2; 

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I  1 90  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

It  must  deal  with  unmatured  schemes  and  unripe  issues.  Else  how  is  a 
beginning  to  be  made  ?  Men  of  hard  and  unimaginative  minds  are  sure  to 
stigmatize  its  hopes  as-  visionary.  But  we  are  not  afraid  of  a  word,  and  if 
we  were,  this  is  not  a  word  to  be  afraid  of.  The  world  is  led  by  its  ideals. 
It  is  the  golden  age  to  come  that  cheers  us  through  the  dark  and  dreary 
winter  of  present  experience.  It  is  Canaan  with  its  "milk  and  honey" 
that  makes  the  wilderness  of  our  wanderings  endurable.  Every  great  cause 
for  which  heroes  have  bled  and  brave  souls  have  toiled  and  sorrowed  has 
been  once  an  idea,  a  dream,  a  hope,  and,  on  coward  tongues,  an  impossi- 
bility. It  has  been  the  peculiar  business  of  religion  to  furnish  those  illumin- 
ating and  inspiring  ambitions  which  have  been  as  "songs  in  the  night"  of 
humanity's  upward  march.  Speaking  humanly,  religion  is  the  strongest 
force,  and  it  always  will  be,  because  it  has  always  enlisted  imagination  in 
its  service. 

Will  you  hear  a  parable  from  the  political  history  of  China  ?  China, 
great  and  ancient,  we  are  accustomed  to  think  and  speak  of  her  as  one  wide 
empire  dwelling  apart  from  the  nations,  unchanged  by, the  course  of  millen- 
niums, well  nigh  impervious  to  the  tooth  of  time.  While  other  nations  have 
come  and  gone,  while  empires  have  risen  and  fallen,  in  the  misty  past  and 
in  the  clearer  present  alike,  seemingly  unaffected  by  the  changes  that  have 
convulsed  the  outer  world,  China  has  been  China  still.  But  this  is  partly 
delusive.  China  has  been  one  through  all  the  ages  of  history  because  we 
had  only  one  name  for  her,  and  our  ignorance  of  her  internal  state  prevented 
us  from  knowing  otherwise.  The  truth  is  that  not  only  on,ce  in  her  history, 
but  many  times,  China  has  been  a  loose  aggregation  of  petty  kingdoms,  dif- 
ferent races,  different  laws,  different  languages,  different  customs,  and 
waging  war  on  each  other  as  remorseless  as  the  internecine  struggles  of  the 
Saxon  Heptarchy. 

Yet  notwithstanding  this,  she  has  displayed  one  characteristic  seen 
nowhere  else,  a  phenomenon  absolutely  unique  in  history.  Elsewhere  we 
have  seen  kingdoms  fall  and  others  rise  in  their  place,  but  nowhere  have  we 
seen  the  resurrection  of  a  ruined  empire.  Egypt,  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Persia, 
Greece,  Rome,  all  fell,  "never  to  rise  again."  Here  only  we  see  the  broken 
empire  rising  from  its  own  ruins,  and  after  being  rent  by  faction,  crushed  by 
conspiracy,  torn  into  countless  fragments  by  contending  despots,  at'the  next 
turn  of  the  wheel  of  destiny  once  more  coalescing  into  a  harmonious  whole, 
and  standing  one  and  impregnable  still,  the  most  populous,  the  most  homo- 
geneous nation  on  earth. 

And  the  secret  of  this  strange  power  has  been  an  idsal.  Down  the 
long,  almost  unnumbered,  line  of  her  rulers,  through  every  change  of  her 
many  dynasties,  in  times  of  order  and  confusion  alike,  the  ideal  with  which 
Confucianism  furnishes  her,  the  very  goal  and  ultimate  aim-of  the-  cult,  the 
ideal  of  a  united  and  peaceful  empire,  " p'ing  T'ien  hsia," — "to  pacify  all 
under  heaven,"  was  never  for  a  moment    lost   sight   of.      Rivers  of  blood 


CANDLIN:    RELIGIOUS    UNITY.  II9I 

might  drench  but  could  not  submerge  it,  treachery  and  despotism  and  licen- 
tiousness might  delay  but  could  not  avert  it.  The  star  of  her  darkest  night, 
it  has  ever  lured  the  nation  on,  and  from  every  chaos  has  brought  forth 
order. 

Like  that  is  the  infinitely  greater  ideal  of  Christianity.  It,  too,  aspires 
in  a  deeper,  holier,  more  lasting,  more  blessed  sense  to  " p'ing  T'ien  hsia," 
to  pacify — give  peace  to  all  under  heaven.  Another  peace  than  that  of 
external  order — the  peace  which  comes  from  rest  of  conscience,  trust  in 
the  unseen,  intimate  communion  through  a  living  Saviour  with  a  Father 
God.  Not  a  conventional  ".under  heaven,"  whose  world  is  limited  to 
Christendom  as  China's  world  is  limited  to  China,  but  one  that  runs  all 
round  the  equator  and  stretches  out  to  both  the  poles.  Its  program  lies 
still  before  us,  shame  to  us  that  after  these  nineteen  centuries  it  is  unaccom- 
plished! Shame,  deeper  shame  still,  if  like  cravens  we  count  the  cost  or 
magnify  the  difficulties  or  blench  in  the  hour  of  danger!  But  deepest,  most 
infamous,  most  undying  shame,  if  in  our  littleness  or  narrowness,  or  love  of 
forms  and  theologies  and  ecclesiasticisms  and  rituals,  the  great  ideal  itself 
should  be  lost  which  angels  sang  that  night,  when  the  starry  spaces  were 
glad,  and  did  not  know  how  to  hold  their  exultation  because  they  divined 
where  the  message  came  from — "  Peace  on  earth,  good-will  toward  men." 

"  Peace  beginning  to  be 
Deep  as  the  sleep  of  the  sea. 
When  the  stars  their  faces  glass 
In  its  blue  tranquillity. 
Hearts  of  men  upon  earth. 
From  the  first  to  the  second  birth. 
To  rest  as  the  wild  waters  rest 
With  the  colors  of  heaven  on  their  breast. 

"  Love,  which  is  sunlight  of  peace, 
Age  by  age  to  increase, 
Till  anger  and  hate  are  dead, 
And  sorrow  and  death  shall  cease  : 
Peace  on  earth  and  good-will ; 
Souls  that  are  gentle  and  still 
Hear  the  first  music  of  this 
Far-off,  infinite  bliss." 


THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM. 

By  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  New  York. 

The  reunion  of  Christendom  presupposes  an  original  union  which  has 
been  marred  and  obstructed,  but  never  entirely  destroyed.  The  Church  of 
Christ  has  been  one  from  the  beginning,  and  he  has  pledged  to  her  his 
unbroken  presence  "all  the  days  to  the  end  of  the  world."  The  one  invis- 
ible church  is  the  soul  which  animates  the  divided  visible  churches. 

Let  us  briefly  mention  the  prominent  points  of  unity  which  underlie  all 
divisions.  Christians  differ  in  dogmas  and  theology,  but  agree  in  the  fund- 
amental articles  of  faith  which  are  necessary  to  salvation.  They  are  divided 
in  church  government  and  discipline,  but  all  acknowledge  and  obey  Christ 
as  the  Head  of  the  Church  and  chief  Shepherd  of  our  souls.  They  differ 
widely  in  modes  of  worship,  rites  and  ceremonies,  but  they  worship  the  same 
God  manifested  in  Christ,  they  surround  the  same  throne  of  grace,  they  offer 
from  day  to  day  the  same  petitions  which  the  Lord_has  taught  them,  and 
can  sing  the  same  classical  hymns.  There  is  a  unity  of  Christian  scholar- 
ship of  all  creeds,  which  aims  at  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but 
the  truth.  The  English  Version,  in  its  new  as  well  as  its  old  form,  will  con- 
tinue to  be  the  strongest  bond  of  union  among  the  different  sections  of  Eng- 
lish-speaking Christendom — a  fact  of  incalculable  importance  for  private 
devotion  and  public  worship.  Formerly,  exegetical  and  historical  studies 
were  too  much  controlled  by,  and  made  subservient  to,  apologetic  and  pol- 
emic ends ;  but  now  they  are  more  and  more  carried  on  without  prejudice, 
and  with  the  sole  object  of  ascertaining  the  meaning  of  the  text  and  the 
facts  of  history  upon  which  creeds  must  be  built. 

Finally,  we  must  not  overlook  the  ethical  unity  of  Christendom,  which 
is  much  stronger  than  its  dogmatic  unity  and  has  never  been  seriously 
shaken. 

The  unity  and  harmony  of  the  Christian  Church  were  threatened  and 
disturbed  from  the  beginning  partly  by  legitimate  controversy,  which  is 
inseparable  from  progress,  partly  by  ecclesiastical  domination  and  intoler- 
ance, partly  by  the  spirit  of  pride,  selfishness  and  narrowness  which  tends 
to  create  heresy  and  sch'sm.  The  church  had  hardly  existed  twenty  years 
when  it  was  brought  to  the  brink  of  disruption  by  the  question  of  circum- 
cision as  a  condition  of  church  membership  and  salvation.  The  party  spirit 
which  characterized  the  philosophical  schools  of  Greece  manifested  itself  in 
the  congregation  at  Corinth,  and  created  four  divisions,  calling  themselves 
respectively  after  Paul,  ApoUos,  Cephas,  and  Christ  (in  a  sectarian  sense). 

1199 


SCHAFF:    REUNION   OF   CHRISTENDOM.  Hg^ 

1.  Many  schisms  arose  in  the  early  ages  before  and  after  the  Council  of 
Nicaea.  Almost  every  great  controversy  resulted  in  the  excommunication  of 
the  defeated  party,  who  organized  a  separate  sect,  if  they  were  not  extermi- 
nated by  the  civil  power. 

2.  In  the  ninth  century,  the  great  Catholic  Church  itself  was  split  in 
two  on  the  doctrinal  question  of  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the 
ecclesiastical  question  of  the  primacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  The  Greek 
schism  lasts  to  this  day  and  seems  as  far  from  being  healed  as  ever. 

In  view  of  this  greatest,  and  yet  least  justifiable,  of  all  schisms,  neither 
the  Greek  nor  the  Latin  Church  should  cast  a  stone  upon  the  divisions  of 
Protestantism.  They  all  share  in  the  sin  and  guilt  of  schism,  and  should 
also  share  in  a  common  repentance. 

3.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Latin  or  Western  Church  was  rent  into 
two  hostile  camps,  the  Roman  and  the  Protestant,  in  consequence  of  the 
evangelical  reformation  and  the  papal  reaction. 

4.  In  England,  a  new  era  of  division  dates  from  the  Toleration  Act  of 
1688,  which  secured  to  the  orthodox  dissenters — Presbyterians,  Independents, 
Baptists  and  Quakers — a  limited  toleration,  while  the  Episcopal  Church 
remained  the  established  or  national  religion  in  England,  and  the  Reformed 
or  Presbyterian  Church  remained  the  national  religion  in  Scotland. 

The  principle  of  toleration  gradually  developed  into  that  of  religious 
freedom,  and  was  extended  to  the  Methodists,  Unitarians,  and  Roman  Cath- 
olics. 

We  find,  therefore,  the  largest  number  of  denominations  in  England 
and  America  where  religious  freedom  is  most  fully  enjoyed  ;  while  on  the 
continent  of  Europe,  especially  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  freedom  of 
public  worship  is  denied  or  abridged,  although  of  late  it  is  making  irresistible 
progress. 

5.  In  the  United  States,  all  the  creeds  and  sects  of  Europe  meet  on  a 
basis  of  liberty  and  equality  before  the  law,  and  are  multiplied  by  native 
ingenuity  and  enterprise. 

The  number  is  much  too  large,  and  a  reproach  to  the  Christian  name. 
For  these  divisions  promote  jealousies,  antagonisms,  and  interferences  at 
home  and  on  missionary  fields  abroad,  at  the  expense  of  our  common  Chris- 
tianity. The  evil  is  beginning  to  be  felt  more  and  more.  The  cure  must 
begin  where  the  disease  has  reached  its  crisis,  and  where  the  church  is  most 
free  to  act.  For  the  reunion  of  Christendom,  like  religion  itself,  cannot  be 
forced,  but  must  be  free  and  voluntary.  Christian  union  and  Christian  free- 
dom are  one  and  inseparable. 

Before  we  discuss  reunion,  we  should  acknowledge  the  hand  of  Provi- 
dence in  the  present  divisions  of  Christendom.  There  is  a  great  difference 
between  deno'minationalism  and  sectarianism.  Denominationalism  is  a 
blessing  ;  sectarianism  is  a  curse.  We  must  remember  that  denominations 
are  most  numerous  in  the  most  advanced   and  active  nations  of  the  world. 


I  194  PARLIAMENT    PAPER^:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

The  historic  denominations  are  permanent  forces,  and  represent  various 
aspects  of  the  Christian  religion  which  supplement  each  other.  The  Greek 
Church  is  especially  adapted  to  the  East,  to  the  Greek  and  Slavonic  peo- 
ples ;  the  Roman,  to  the  Latin  races  of  Southern  Europe  and  America ;  the 
Protestant,  to  the  Teutonic  races  of  the  North  and  West.  Among  the 
Protestant  Churches,  again,  some  have  a  special  gift  for  the  cultivation  of 
Christian  science  and  literature  ;  others  for  the  practical  development  of 
the  Christian  life  ;  some  are  most  successful  among  the  higher,  others  among 
the  middle,  and  still  others  among  the  lower  classes.  All  divisions  of 
Christendom  will,  in  the  providence  of  God,  be  made  subservient  to  a 
greater  harmony.  Where  the  sin  of  schism  has  abounded,  the  grace  of 
future  reunion  will  much  more  abound. 

Taking  this  view  of  the  divisions  of  the  church,  we  must  reject  the  idea 
of  a  negative  reunion,  which  would  destroy  all  denominational  distinctions, 
and  thus  undo  the  work  of  the  past.  Variety  in  unity  and  unity  in  variety 
is  the  law  of  God  in  nature,  in  history,  and  in  his  kingdom.  We  must, 
therefore,  expect  the  greatest  variety  in  the  church  of  the  future.  There  are 
good  Christians  who  believe  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  their  own  creed,  or 
form  of  government  and  worship,  but  they  are  all  mistaken,  and  indulge  in 
a  vain  dream.  The  world  will  never  become  wholly  Greek,  nor  wholly 
Roman,  nor  wholly  Protestant,  but  it  will  become  wholly  Christian,  and  will 
include  every  type  and  every  aspect,  every  virtue  and  every  grace  of  Chris- 
tianity— an  endless  variety  in  harmonious  unity,  Christ  being  all  in  all. 

Every  denomination  which  holds  to  Christ  the  Head  will  retain  its  dis- 
tinctive peculiarity,  and  lay  it  on  the  altar  of  reunion,  but  it  will  cheerfully 
recognize  the  excellences  and  merits  of  the  other  branches  of  God's  king- 
dom. No  sect  has  the  monopoly  of  truth.  The  part  is  not  the  whole ;  the 
body  consists  of  many  members,  and  ail  are  necessary  to  each  other. 

Doctrinal  differences  will  be  the  most  difficult  to  adjust.  When  two 
dogmas  flatly  contradict  each  other,  the  one  denying  what  the  other  asserts, 
one  or  the  other,  or  both,  must  be  wrong.  Truth  excludes  error  and  admits 
of  no  compromise. 

But  truth  is  many-sided  and  all-sided,  and  is  reflected  in  different  col- 
ors. The  creeds  of  Christendom,  as  already  remarked,  agree  in  the  essen- 
tial articles  of  faith  and  their  differences  refer  either  to  minor  points,  or 
represent  only  various  aspects  of  truth  and  supplement  one  another. 

Different  movements  within  the  church  have  already  made  themselves 
felt  in  the  line  of  bringing  together  the  scattered  members  of  the  one  fold. 
There  have  been  voluntary  associations  of  individual  Christians.  Historj- 
records  the  Confederate  Union  of  Churches,  as  realized  in  the  Pan-Metho- 
dist and  Presbyterian  Councils,  the  International  Congress  of  Congregation- 
alists  and  the  meetings  of  the  Anglican  Council.  The  third  meeting  of  the 
latter  Council  adopted  a  program  for  the  union  of  Christendom,  consisting  of 
four  articles,  looking  toward  a  confederation  of  all  English-speaking  Evan- 


SCHAFF:   REUNION   OF  CHRISTENDOM.  II95 

gelical  Churches,  and  possibly  even  to  an  organic  union.  As  it  comes  from  the 
largest,  most  conservative,  and  most  churchly  of  all  the  Protestant  com- 
munions, it  is  entitled  to  the  highest  respect  and  to  serious  consideration. 
It  commends  itself  by  a  remarkable  degree  of  liberality.  The  only  serious 
difficulty  is  the  "historic  episcopate."  This  is  the  stumbling-block  to  all 
non-Episcopalians,  and  will  never  be  conceded  by  them  as  a  condition  of 
church  unity,  if  it  is  understood  to  mean  the  necessity  of  three  orders  of  the 
ministry  and  of  Episcopal  ordination  in  unbroken  historic  succession.  But 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Episcopal  Church  will  give  the  historic  episcopate 
as  "locally  adapted,"  such  a  liberal  construction  as  to  include  "the  historic 
presbyterate,"  which  dates  from  the  apostolic  age  and  was  never  interrupted, 
or  will  drop  it  altogether,  as  a  term  of  reunion.  In  any  case,  we  hail  the 
proposal  as  an  important  step  in  the  right  direction,  and  as  a  hopeful  sign 
of  the  future. 

We  pass  to  the  instances  of  organic  union. 

1.  An  organic  union  between  the  Lutheran  and  German  Reformed 
Churches,  into  which  German  Protestantism  has  been  divided  since  the  six- 
teenth century,  was  effected  in  1817  in  connection  with  the  third  centennial 
of  the  Reformation,  under  the  lead  of  Frederick  William  III.,  king  of 
Prussia  and  father  of  the  first  emperor  of  united  Germany. 

2.  In  our  country,  the  recent  history  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  fur- 
nishes an  example  of  organic  union.  The  Old  School  and  the  New  School, 
which  were  divided  in  1837  on  doctrinal  questions,  were  reunited  by  a  free 
and  simultaneous  impulse  in  the  year  1869  on  the  basis  of  orthodoxy  and 
liberty,  and  have  prospered  all  the  more  since  their  reunion,  although  the 
differences  between  conservative  and  progressive  tendencies  still  remain, 
and  have,  within  the  last  few  years,  come  into  collision  on  the  questions  of 
a  revision  of  the  Westminster  Standards,  and  the  historical  criticism  of  the 
Bible. 

3.  The  four  divisions  of  Presbyterians  in  Canada  have  forgotten  their 
old  family  quarrels,  and  have  been  united  in  one  organization  in  1875. 

4.  The  Methodists  in  Canada,  who,  till  1874,  were  divided  into  five 
independent  bodies,  have  recently  united  in  one  organization. 

If  all  the  Protestant  Churches  were  united  by  federal  or  organic  union, 
the  greater,  the  most  difficult,  and  the  most  important  part  of  the  work 
would  still  remain  to  be  accomplished  ;  for  union  must  include  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  Churches.  They  are  the  oldest,  the  largest,  and  claim 
to  be  the  most  orthodox  ;  the  former  numbering  about  84,000,000  members, 
the  latter  215,000,000,  while  all  the  Protestant  denominations  together  num- 
ber only  130,000,000. 

If  any  one  church  is  to  be  the  center  of  unification,  that  honor  must  be 
conceded  to  the  Greek  or  the  Roman  communion.  The  Protestant  denomi- 
nations are  all  descended,  directly  or  indirectly,  from  the  Latin  Church  of 
the  middle  ages  ;  while  the  Greek  and   Latin  Churches  trace   their  origin 


1 196 


PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 


back  to,  the  apostolic  age,  the  Greek  to  the  congregation  of  Jerusalem,  the 
Latin  to  the  congregation  at  Rome. 

First  of  all,  the  two  great  divisions  of  Catholicism  should  come  to  an 
agreement  among  themselves  on  the  disputed  questions  about  the  eternal 
procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  On 
both  points,  the  Greek  Church  is  supported  by  the  testimony  of  antiquity, 
and  could  not  yield  without  stultifying  her  whole  history.  Will  Rome  ever 
make  concessions  to  history?     We  hope  that  she  will. 

The  difficulty  of  union  with  the  Roman  Church  is  apparently  increased 
by  the  modem  dogmas  of  papal  absolutism  and  papal  infallibility  declared 
by  the  Vatican  Couneil  in  1870.  These  decrees  are  the  logical  completion 
of  the  papal  monarchy,  the  apex  of  the  pyramid  of  the  hierarchy.  But  they 
can  refer  only  to  the  Roman  Church.  The  official  decisions  of  the  pope,  as 
the  legitimate  head  of  the  Roman  Church,  are  final  and  binding  upon  all 
Roman  Catholics,  but  they  have  no  force  whatever  for  any  other  Christians. 

What  if  the  pope,  in  the  spirit  of  the  first  Gregory  and  under  the 
inspiration  of  a  higher  authority,  should  infallibly  declare  his  own  fallibility 
in  all  matters  lying  outside  of  his  own  communion,  and  invite  Greeks  and 
Protestants  to  a  fraternal  pan-Christian  council  in  Jerusalem,  where  the 
mother-church  of  Christendom  held  the  first  council  of  reconciliation'  and 
peace  ? 

The  reunion  of  the  entire  Catholic  Church,  Greek  and  Roman,  with  the 
Protestant  Churches,  will  require  such  a  restatement  of  all  the  controverted 
points  by  both  parties  as  shall  remove  misrepresentations,  neutralize  the 
anathemas  pronounced  upon  imaginary  heresies,  and  show  the  way  to  har- 
mony in  a  broader,  higher  and  deeper  consciousness  of  God's  truth  and 
God's  love. 

The  whole  system  of  traditional  orthodoxy,  Greek,  Latin  and  Protest- 
ant, must  progress,  or  it  will  be  left  behind  the  age  and  lose  its  hold  on 
thinking  men.  The  church  must  keep  pace  with  civilization,  adjust  herself 
to  the  modern  conditions  of  religious  and  political  freedom,  and  accept  the 
established  results  of  biblical  and  historical  criticism,  and  natural  science. 
God  speaks  m  history  and  science  as  well  as  in  the  Bible  and  the  church, 
and  he  cannot  contradict  himself.  Truth  is  sovereign,  and  must  and  will 
prevail  over  all  ignorance,  error  and  prejudice. 

The  history  of  the  Bible  is  to  a  large  extent  a  history  of  abuse  as  well 
as  use,  of  imposition  as  well  as  exposition.  No  book  has  been  more 
perverted.  The  mechanical  inspiration  theory  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
which  confounded  inspiration  with  dictation  and  reduced  the  biblical  authors 
to  mere  clerks,  is  given  up  by  scholars  for  a  spiritual  and  dynamic  theory. 
Textual  criticism  has  purified  the  traditional  text  of  the  Greek  Testament, 
correcting  many  passages  and  omitting  later  interpolations.  The  criticism 
of  the  Hebrew  Bible  text  and  the  Septuagint  has  begun  the  same  funda- 
mental process.     Historical  criticism  is  putting  the  literature  of  both  Testa- 


REV.  PHILIP  SCHAFF,  D.D.,  NEW  YORK. 

"the  idea  of  this  parliament  will  survive  all  criticism,  the  critics  will  die 
nirr  the  cause  will  remain,  i  think  the  lord  will  give  me  strength  to  si-rvtve  this 
parliament  of  religions.     I  was  determined  to  beak  my  last  dying  testimony  to  the 

CAUSE  of  christian  UNION  IN  WHICH  I  HAVE  WEEN  INTERESTED  ALL  MV  LIFE. 


1 198  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY, 

ments  in  a  new  light,  and  makes  it  more  real  and  intelligible  by  explaining 
its  environments  and  organic  growth  until  the  completion  of  the  canon.  The 
wild  allegorical  exegesis,  which  turns  the  Bible  into  a  nose  of  wax  and  makes 
it  to  teach  anything  that  is  pious  or  orthodox,  has  been  gradually  super- 
seded by  an  honest,  grammatical  and  historical  exegesis,  which  takes  out 
the  real  meaning  of  the  writer  instead  of  putting  in  the  fancies  of  the  reader. 
Many  proof  texts  of  Protestants  against  popery,  and  of  Romanists  against 
Protestantism,  and  of  both  for  orthodoxy  or  against  heresy,  can  no  longer 
be  used  for  partisan  purposes. 

Church  history  has  undergone  of  late  a  great  change,  partly  in  conse- 
quence of  the  discovery  of  lost  documents  and  deeper  research,  partjy  on 
account  of  a  new  spirit  and  standpoint  of  the  historian.  The  sfudy  of  his- 
tory— "with  malice  toward  none,  but  with  charity  for  all" — will  bring  the 
denominations  closer  together  in  an  humble  recognition  of  their  defects  and 
a  grateful  praise  for  the  good  which  the  same  Spirit  has  wrought  in  them 
and  through  them. 

With  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  church  to  natural  and  physical 
"science,  concessions  will  be  made  to  modem  geology  and  biology,  when 
they  have  passed  the  stage  of  conjecture  and  reached  an  agreement  as  to 
facts.  The  Bible  does  not  determine  the  age  of  the  earth  or  man,  and  leaves 
a  large  margin  for  differences  of  opinion  even  on  purely  exegetical  grounds. 
The  theory  of  the  evolution  of  animal  life,  far  from  contradicting  tte  fact 
of  creation,  presupposes  it;  for  every  evolution  must  have  a  beginning,  and 
this  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  an  Infinite  intelligence  and  creative  will. 
God's  power  and  wisdom  are  even  more  wonderful  in  this  gradual  process. 
The  theory  of  historical  development,  which  corresponds  to  the  theory  of 
natural  evolution  and  preceded  it,  is  now  adopted  by  every  historian,  and 
is  indorsed  by  Christ  himself  in  the  twin  parables  of  the  mustard-seed  and 
the  leaven.  But  there  is  another  law  of  development  no  less  important, 
which  may  be  called  the  law  of  creative  headships.  Every  important  intel- 
lectual and  religious  movement  begins  with  a  towering  personality  which 
cannot  be  explained  from  antecedents,  but  marks  a  new  epoch.  The  Bible, 
we  must  all  acknowledge,  is  not,  and  never  claimed  to  be,  a  guide  of  chro- 
nology, astronomy,  geology,  or  any  other  science,  but  solely  a  book  of  relig- 
ion, a  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  a  guide  to  holy  living  and  dying.  There 
is,  therefore,  no  room  for  a  conflict  between  the  Bible  and  science,  faith  and 
reason,  authority  and  freedom,  the  church  and  civilization. 

Before  the  reunion  of  Christendom  can  be  accomplished,  we  must 
expect  providential  events,  new  Pentecosts,  new  reformations — as  great  as 
any  that  have  gone  before.  The  twentieth  century  has  marvelous  surprises 
in  store  for  the  church  and  the  world.  Let  us  consider  some  of  the  moral 
means  by  which  a  similar  affiliation  and  consolidation  of  the  different 
churches  may  be  hastened. 

I.  The  cultivation  of  an  eirenic  and  evangelical-catholic  spirit  in  the 
personal  intercourse  with  our  fellow  Christians  of  other  denominations. 


SCHAFF:    REUNION   OF   CHRISTENDOM.  II 99 

2.  Cooperation  in  Christian  and  philanthropic  worii  draws  men  together 
and  promotes  their  mutual  confidence  and  regard. 

3.  Missionary  societies  should  at  once  come  to  a  definite  agreement, 
prohibiting  all  mutual  interference  in  their  efforts  to  spread  the  Gospel  at 
home  and  abroad. 

4.  The  study  of  church  history  has  already  been  mentioned  as  an 
important  means  of  correcting  sectarian  prejudices  and  increasing  mutual 
appreciation.  The  study  of  symbolic  or  comparative  theology  is  one  of  the 
most  important  branches  of  history  in  this  respect,  especially  in  our  country, 
where  all  the  creeds  of  Christendom  come  into  daily  contact,  and  should 
become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  one  another. 

5.  One  word  suffices  as  regards  the  duty  and  privilege  of  prayer  for 
Christian  union,  in  the  spirit  of  our  Lord's  sacerdotal  prayer,  that  his  dis- 
ciples may  all  be  one  in  him,  as  he  is  one  with  the  Father. 

We  welcome  to  the  reunion  of  Christendom  all  denominations  which 
have  followed  the  divine  Master  and  have  done  his  work.  Let  us  forget  and 
forgive  their  many  sins  and  errors,  and  remember  only  their  virtues  and 
merits.  The  Greek  Church  is  a  glorious  church  ;  for  in  her  language  have 
come  down  to  us  the  oracles  of  God,  the  Septuagint,  the  Gospels  and  Epis- 
tles ;  hers  are  the  early  confessors  and  martyrs,  the  Christian  fathers,  bish- 
ops, patriarchs  and  emperors ;  hers  the  immortal  writings  of  Origen, 
Eusebius,  Athanasius  and  Chrysostom  ;  hers  the  CEcumenical  Councils  and 
the  Nicene  Creed,  which  can  never  die." 

The  Latin  Church  is  a  glorious  church  ;  she  was  the  Alma  Mater  of  the 
barbarians  of  Europe  ;  she  stimulated  and  patronized  the  Renaissance,  the 
printing  press  and  the  discovery  of  a  new  world  ;  she  still  stands,  like  an 
immovable  rOck,  bearing  witness  to  the  fundamental  truths  and  facts  of  our 
holy  religion,  and  to  the  catholicity,  unity,  unbroken  continuity,  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  church  ;  and  she  is  as  zealous  as  ever  in  missionary  enter- 
prise and  self-denying  works  of  Christian  charity. 

We  hail  the  Reformation  which  redeemed  us  from  the  yoke  of  spiritual 
despotism,  and  secured  us  religious  liberty — the  most  precious  of  all  liber- 
ties— and  made  the  Bible  in  every  language  a  book  for  all  classes  and  con- 
ditions of  men.  The  Evangelical  Lutheran  Church,  the  first-born  daughter 
of  the  reformation,  is  a  glorious  church  :  for  she  set  the  word  of  God  above 
the  traditions  of  men,  and  bore  witness  to  the  comforting  truth  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith  ;  she  struck  the  keynote  to  thousands  of  sweet  hymns  in  praise 
of  the  Redeemer;  she  is  boldly  and  reverently  investigating  the  problems 
of  faith  and  philosophy,  and  is  constantly  making  valuable  additions  to 
theological  lore.  The  Evangelical  Reformed  Church  is  a  glorious  church  : 
for  she  carried  the  reformation  from  the  Alps  and  lakes  of  Switzerland  "to 
the  end  of  the  West ; "  she  is  rich  in  learning  and  good  works  of  faith  ;  she 
keeps  pace  with  all  true  progress  ;  she  grapples  with  the  problems  and  evils 
of  modern  society;  and   she   sends  the  Gospel  to  the  ends   of  the  earth. 


1200  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEEN!  II    DAY. 

The  Episcopal  Church  of  England,  the  most  churchly  of  the  reformed 
family,  is  a  glorious  church:  for  she  gave  to  the  English-speaking  world 
the  best  version  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  best  prayer-book  ;  she  pre- 
served the  order  and  dignity  of  the  ministry  and  public  worship;  she 
nursed  the  knowledge  and  love  of  antiquity,  and  enriched  the  treasury  of 
Christian  literature.  The  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland  is  a  glorious 
church  :  for  she  turned  a  barren  country  into  a  garden,  and  raised  a  poor 
and  semi-barbarous  people  to  a  level  witn  the  richest  and  most  intelligent 
nations;  she  diffused  the  knowledge  of  the  Bible  and  a  love  of  the  kirk  in 
the  huts  of  the  peasant  as  well  as  the  palaces  of  the  nobleman ;  she  has 
always  stood  up  for  church  order  and  discipline,  for  the  rights  cf  the  laity, 
and  first  and  last  for  the  crown-rights  of  King  Jesus,  which  are  above  all 
earthly  crowns,  even  that  of  the  proudest  monarch  in  whose  dominion  the 
sun  never  sets.  The  Congregational  Church  is  a  glorious  church  :  for  she 
has  taught  the  principle,  and  proved  the  capacity,  of  congregational  inde- 
pendence and  self-government  based  upon  a  living  faith  in  Christ,  without 
diminishing  the  effect  of  voluntary  cooperation  in  the  Master's  service,  and 
has  laid  the  foundation  of  New  England,  with  its  literary  and  theolog- 
ical institutions  and  high  social  culture.  The  Baptist  Church  is  a  glorious 
church  :  for  she  bore,  and  still  bears,  testimony  to  the  primitive  mode  of 
baptism,  to  the  purity  of  the  congregation,  to  the  separation  of  church  and 
state,  and  the  liberty  of  conscience.  The  Methodist  Church  is  a  glorious 
church  :  for  she  produced  the  greatest  religious  revival  since  the  day  of 
Pentecost ;  she  preaches  a  free  and  full  salvation  to  all ;  she  is  never  afraid 
to  fight  the  devil,  and  she  is  hopefully  and  cheerfully  marching  on,  in  both 
hemispheres,  as  an  army  of  conquest.  The  Society  of  Friends,  though  one 
of  the  smallest  tribes  in  Israel,  is  a  glorious  society:  for  it  has  borne  wit- 
ness to  the  inner  light  which  "lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world";  it  has  proved  the  superiority  of  the  Spirit  over  all  forms;  it  has 
done  noble  service  in  promoting  tolerance  and  liberty,  in  prison  reform,  the 
emancipation  of  slaves,  and  other  works  of  Christian  philanthropy.  The 
Brotherhood  of  the  Moravians,  founded  by  Count  Zinzendorf — a  true  noble- 
man of  nature  and  of  grace — is  a  glorious  brotherhood  :  for  it  is  the  pioneer 
of  heathen  missions  and  of  Christian  union  among  Protestant  Churches ;  it 
was  Mke  an  oasis  in  the  desert  of  German  rationalism  at  home,  while  its 
missionaries  went  forth  to  the  lowest  savages  in  distant  lands  to  bring  them 
to  Christ. 

Nor  should  we  forget  the  services  of  many  who  are  accounted  heretics. 
The  Waldenses  were  witnesses  of  a  pure  and  simple  faith  in  times  of  super- 
stition, and  have  outlived  many  bloody  persecutions  to  be  missionaries 
among  the  descendants  of  their  persecutors.  The  Anabaptists  and  Socin- 
ians,  who  were  so  cruelly  treated  in  the  sixteenth  century  by  Protestants 
and  Romanists  alike,  were  the  first  to  raise  their  voice  for  religious  liberty 
and  the  voluntary  principle  in  religion.     Unitarianisni  is  a  serious  departure 


FREMANTLE:    RELIGIOUS    REUNION.  I  20 1 

from  the  trinitarian  faith  of  orthodox  Christendom,  but  it  was  justified  as  a 
protest  against  tritheism,  and  against  a  stiff,  narrow  and  uncharitable  ortho- 
doxy. It  has  brought  into  prominence  the  human  perfection  of  Christ's 
character  and  illustrated  the  effect  of  his  example  'n  the  noble  lives  and 
devotional  writings  of  such  men  as  Channing  and  Martineau.  Universal- 
ism  may  be  condemned  as  a  doctrine ;  but  it  has  a  right  to  protest 
against  a  gross  materialistic  theory  of  hell -with  all  its  Dantesque  horrors, 
and  against  the  once  widely  spread  popular  belief  that  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  human  race,  includmg  countless  millions  of  innocent 
infants,  will  forever  perish.  And,  coming  down  to  the  latest  organization 
of  Christian  work,  which  does  not  claim  to  be  a  church,  but  which 
is  a  help  to  all  churches — the  Salvation  Army :  we  hail  it,  in  spite  of  its 
strange  and  abnormal  methods,  as  the  most  effective  revival  agency  since 
the  days  of  Wesley  and  Whitetleld ;  for  it  descends  to  the  lowest  depths  of 
degradation  and  misery,  and  brings  the  light  and  comfort  of  the  Gospel  to 
the  slums  of  our  large  cities. 

There  is  room  for  all  these  and  many  other  churches  and  societies  in 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  whose  height  and  depth  and  length  and  breadth, 
variety  and  beauty,  surpass  human  comprehension. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM. 

By  the  Hon.  W.  H.  Fremantle,  Canon  of  Canterbury. 

This  is  a  great  subject ;  it  might  be  thought  superfluous  to  write  upon 
it ;  for  is  not  the  Parliament  itself  a  witness  that  we  are  united  ?  If  we  can 
calmly,  and  with  no  sense  of  mutual  enmity,  discuss  with  all  religionists. 
Christian  and  non-Christian,  our  various  beliefs,  it  must  be  an  easy  thing  for 
those  who  are  Christians  to  be  at  one  amongst  themselves.  Alas,  it  is  a 
very  different  thing,  to  meet  in  a  brotherly  way  in  a  conference,  and  to  act 
as  Christian  brothers  in  practical  life.  But  it  is  by  the  practical  life  that  we 
are  to  be  tested  here  and  judged  hereafter.  The  Parliament  will,  I  doubt 
not,  do  much  good,  and  may  shame  many  into  a  sense  of  the  evil  of  dis- 
union. It  may  suggest  thoughts  which  will  fructify  in  honest  hearts.  I  feet 
sure,  also  (I  speak  from  unvarying  experience),  that  when  men  meet,  as  they 
must  here,  to  try  to  understand  each  other  sympathetically,  the  points  of 
union  will  loom  out  larger,  and  those  of  disunion  grow  less.  But  we  should 
deceive  ourselves  and  show  great  ignorance  of  human  nature,  if  we  fancied 
that  the  disintegrating  tendencies  could  be  stayed  by  a  few  brave  words.  It 
is  up-hill  work  to  endeavor  to  roll  back  the  enmities  of  the  past,  and  the 
reunionist  must  be  prepared  for  sacrifice  and  for  effort.  Indeed,  there  is  a 
danger  in  the  assertion  of  unity  in  great  enthusiastic  gatherings  apart  from 

76 


1202  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

the  scene  of  our  common  duties.  The  question  is  not  how  men  feel  at  Chi- 
cago toward  their  fellow-Christians  from  distant  parts  of  the  world,  but  how 
they  are  going  to  act  six  months  hence. 

The  fact  is,  we  do  not  recognize  with  all-sufficient  clearness  the  evils  of 
religious  disunion.  Like  war  among  nations,  it  has  become  so  customary 
that  we  speak  of  it  without  pain  or  attempt  to  remove  it.  Where  there  is 
not  discord  there  is  rivalry,  and  this  means  a  diminished  interest  in  good 
works  carried  on  outside  our  own  denomination,  a  tendency  even  to  dispar- 
age them,  until  they  are  forced  to  our  attention  and  win  public  recognition. 
It  is  even  thought  that  a  strong  sympathy  with  the  good  done  in  other  com- 
munions implies  a  certain  disloyalty  to  our  own,  and  possibly  a  weakness  of 
faith.  We  cannot  frankly  accept  or  recommend  some  teaching  or  move- 
ment, though  it  is  thoroughly  good,  lest  this  should  give  undue  influence  to 
a  denomination  from  which  we  differ.  We  cannot  join  together  even  in 
matters  like  the  relief  of  the  poor. or  the  education  of  children,  because 
we  mistrust  each  other.  All  social  progress  is  apt  to  be  hindered  by 
denominational  consideration  and  truth  suffers  in  the  same  way.  But 
most  of  all  our  disunion  alienates  mankind  from  God.  It  makes  men 
think  of  religion  as  a  scene  of  controversy  which  they  wish  to  avoid,  not  gf 
attractive  love;  and  Christ  becomes  then  the  author,  not  of  humble  love  and 
mutual  considerateness,  but  of  discord  and  confusion.  We  are  always  look- 
ing back  to  the  disruption  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  and 
their  melancholy  causes,  not  realizing  the  vast  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  interval,  nor  seeing  that  lay  minds  have  lost  almost  all  their  inter- 
ests in  our  discords,  and  that  what  then  meant  the  imposing  of  the  papal 
yoke,  with  its  inquisitions  and  burnings,  or  the  caftt  of  high  communionism 
and  the  suppression  of  spiritual  liberty,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  great  national 
revolts  and  resistance  even  to  blood,  is  now  often  little  more  than  a  squab- 
ble of  rival  clerics,  which  becomes  contemptible  to  the  common  sense  of 
mankind. 

I  could  point  out  here  how  great  is  the  responsibility  of  the  clergy  and 
ministers  of  public  worship  in  all  these  altered  circumstances.  They  are  apt 
to  look  at  these  matters  as  if  the  case  remained  such  as  it  was  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  when  questions  of  public  worship  swayed  the  whole  life. 
While  that  was  the  case,  the  differences  in  the  statement  of  doctrines,  the 
modes  of  public  worship  and  the  government  of  the  clergy  were  matters  for 
which  men  contended  as  for  their  lives,  which  they  were  ready  to  enforce 
upon  others,  or  for  which  they  might  have  to  suffer,  while  they  looked  upon 
their  opponents  in  such  matters  as  heretics  or  rebels.  The  interest  of  man- 
kind has  shifted;  such  matters  excite  but  a  languid  interest,  while  men  are 
looking  to  religion  in  common  life  and  social  well  doing.  But  the  ministers 
of  public  worship  are  apt  to  ignore  this  change,  or  at  least  not  to  realize  its 
full  significance,  and  thus  they  impart  into  the  sphere  of  common  life  and 
mutual  well-doing  the  peculiarities  and  narrowness  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 


REV.  W.  M.  BARROWS.  U.D. 


RELIGIOUS  .MISSIONS  HAVE  BEEN  THE  MOTHERS  OF  CIVILIZATION.  THE  WORK  THAT  THEY  DID 
IN"  EARLY  TIMES,  IN  NORTHERN  AND  WESTERN  EUROPE,  THEY  ARE  DOING  NOW  AMONG  SAVAGE 
AND  SEMI-CIVILIZED  l-EOPLES  IN  ALL  PARTS  OP  THE  WORLD.  THEY  ARE  ALSO  GIVING  A  NEW 
AND  PROGRESSIVE  CHARACTER  TO  THE  OLD  CIVILIZATIONS  OF  ASIA.  NEVER  WAS  THIS 
MISSIONARY  MOVEMENT  SO  WIDESPREAD,  NEVER  WAS  THE  WORK  CARRIED  FORWARD  ON  MORE 
RATIONAL  PRINCIPLES,  OR  WITH  MORE  UPLIFTING  POWER.  AS  THE  MISSIONARY  MOTIVE  WAS 
•ONE  OF  THE  IMPELLING  FORCES  THAT  LED  TO  THE  DISCOVERY  AND  SETTLEMENT  OF  THE  NEW 
WORLD,  THE  COLUMBIAN  EXPOSITION  OF  l8<)3,  TO  BE  HELD  IN  A  CITV  WHOSE  FIRST  CHURCH  WAS 
PLANTED  ONLY  SIXTY  YEARS  AGO  BY  A  HOME  MISSIONARY,  IS  CERTAINLY  A  FtTTING  OCCASION 
TO    SET   FORTH  THE  RESULTS  OF  MODERN    MISSIONS." 


1204  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY, 

tury  ecclesiasticism.  While  this  is  the  case,  there  is  great  danger  lest  it 
should  be  found  that  the  worst  of  all  hinderers  of  the  religion  of  the  future 
are  the  sects  established  for  religious  worship,  and  the  worst  of  all  enemies 
to  this  religion  are  those  whom  we  call  preeminently  ministers  of  religion. 
What  is  wanted  is  that  the  worshiping  bodies  and  their  ministers,  instead  of 
supposing  that  they  themselves  constitute  the  church,  should  realize  that 
they  are  but  parts  of  the  larger  church,,  which  embraces  the  whole  human 
life,  and  should  strive  to  vitalize  every  sphere  of  social  existence  with  the 
Christian  spirit.  In  this  way  only  will  they  assume  their  true  position,  and 
this  is  the  first  condition  of  union  ;  we  must  be  fellow-workers  for  the  king- 
dom of  God ;  that  is,  for  a  new  social  state  in  which  righteousness  reigns. 

When  the  evils  of  disunion  are  pointed  out,  it  is  sometimes  thought 
enough  to  answer  by  pointing  out  the  evils  of  uniformity.  If,  it  is  said,  all 
Christian  sects  could  be  drawn  into  one,  with  one  system  of- government, 
doctrine  and  ritual,  would  there  be  any  real  gain  ?  Would  not  this  uniform- 
ity be  reached  by  compromise  of  principle?  Would  it  not  act  as  tyranny 
upon  consciences  ?  Would  not  the  better  sort  of  rivalry,  the  provoking  to 
love  and  to  good  works,  be  removed  ?  All  this  may  well  make  us  pause  if 
we  are  inclined  to  advocate  a  complete  uniformity  of  system.  For  the 
present  it  would  seem  that  what  we  most  rightly  aim  at  is  unity  of  spirit  and 
mutual  recognition,  understanding  and  sympathy,  leading  by  degrees  to 
cooperation.  When  we  have  got  thus  far  we  shall  see  our  way  more  clearly 
as  to  any  change  of  ecclesiastical  system  that  may  be  needed. 

I  propose  to  show  what  are  the  means  by  which  this  unity  of  spirit  may 
be  realized  and  manifested  ;  and  then  to  give  instances  of  movements  which 
tend  to  this  religious  reunion. 

The  two  directions  in  which  we  may  look  for  means  of  union  are,  first, 
that  of  faith  as  contrasted  with  system  ;  second,  that  of  the  social  move- 
ments, which  is  growing  to  importance  from  year  to  year  in  the  view  of  all 
sections  of  the  Christian  Church. 

Faith  as  Contrasted  with  Systems. — Faith  is  a  supreme  religious  faculty.. 
It  does  not  belong  to  Christianity  exclusively.  It  is,  indeed,  an  eminently  Ori- 
ental grace.  There  were  controversies  about  faith  in  works  among  the  Hin- 
dus and  Buddhists  long  before  the  Christian  era,  and  in  St.  Paul's  hands  it 
became  at  once  the  expression  of  the  most  intense  and  positive  and  of  the 
most  universal  religious  feeling.  Such  it  was  also  to  Luther  and  to  all 
great  reformers  ;  and  such  it  must  be  to  us  in  the  new  reformation  which 
looks  beyond  ecclesiastical  systems  to  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

It  is  sometimes  said  of  those  who  seek  for  a  common  basis  of  religion 
not  narrowed  to  ecclesiastical  systems,  that  they  are  depriving  religion  of  its 
force.  You  cut  away,  it  is  said,  one  article  from  this  system,  another  from 
that,  till  what  is  left  is  something  flimsy  and  unsubstantial,  without  any 
backbone  or  principle.  We  have  no  idea  of  abolishing  the  religious  sys- 
tems under  which  men  have  lived  ;  but  we  insist  that  they  hold  a  secondary 


FREMANTLE:   RELIGIOUS   REUNION.  I205 

place,  and  must  not  be  compared  with  the  truth  of  which  they  are  reflec- 
tions. The  variety  is  good,  according  with  the  order  of  nature,  and  helpful 
to  true  religion  so  long  as  the  central  unity  is  preserved.  It  is- quite  possi- 
ble to  value  our  own  methods  strongly,  while  we  maintain  still  more  strongly 
that  they  are  only  methods  and  that  the  end  to  which  they  lead  is  greater 
than  they. 

It  is  certainly  not  true  that  to  fix  the  mind  upon  the  central  objects  of 
faith — God,  Christ,  love,  truth — instead  of  on  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  or  the 
Westminster  Confession,  or  the  canons  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  or  other 
denommational  standards,  makes  religion  weak  and  flaccid.  The  experience 
of  many,  if  not  the  most  of  the  greatest  minds,  has  been  that  they  have 
tended,  as  life  goes  on,  to  think  more  of  the  former  and  less  of  the  latter.  I 
appeal  to  the  experience  of  Richard  Baxter,  than  whom  no  one  was  more 
qualified  to  speak,  having  lived  through  the  seventeenth  century  and  taken 
a  prominent  part  in  all  its  disputesr 

"  In  my  youth,"  he  says,  "  I  was  quickly  past  my  fundamentals  and  was 
running  up  into  a  multitude  of  controversies.  .  ,  .  But  the  older  I  grew, 
the  smaller  stress  1  laid  upon  these  controversies  and  curiosities,  as  finding 
far  greater  uncertainties  in  them  than  I  at  first  discovered,  and  finding  less 
usefulness  comparatively  even  where  there  is  the  greatest  certainty.  And  now 
it  is  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  catechism  which  I  highest  value,  and 
daily  think  of,  and  find  most  useful  to  myself  and  others.  The  creed,  the 
Lord's  prayer,  and  the  ten  commandments  do  find  me  now  the  most  accept- 
able and  plentiful  matter  for  all  my  meditations ;  they  are  to  me  as  my  daily 
bread  and  drink,  and,  as  I  can  speak  and  write  of  them  over  and  over  again, 
so  I  had  rather  read  and  hear  of  them  than  of  any  of  the  school  niceties 
which  once  so  pleased  me.  And  thus  I  observed  that  it  was  with  old  Bishop 
Usher,  and  with  many  other  men." 

I  believe  that  the  tendency  described  by  Baxter  is  that  of  our  own  age, 
notwithstanding  some  counter-currents  at  the  side.  The  great  central  truths 
of  religion  have  come  out  more  distinctly  under  the  light  of  modem  thought 
as  objects  of  our  faith. 

God  himself,  the  central  object  of  our  faith,  stands  out  before  us  in 
greater  vividness  than  in  former  ages.  Physical  science  has  made  us  realize 
his  unchangeableness  ;  scientific  thought  has  led  us  to  know  him  as  a  God 
not  far  off  but  near,  immanent  in  the  creation  and  in  man ;  our  larger  knowl- 
edge of  the  human  race  has  brought  out  into  prominence  his  universal  father- 
hood, while  a  series  of  great  teachers,  Schleiermacher,  Erskine  of  Linlathen 
Maurice,  Bushnell  (I  only  name  a  few  among  many),  have  led  us  to  dwell 
not  only  on  those  points  but  still  more  so  on  this,  that  he  is  on  our  side  against 
all  evil,  incessantly  seeking  and  saving  men.  Surely  we  have  learnt  to  know 
him  better,  to  misinterpret  him  less.  But  let  it  be  observed  as  to  this  clearer 
knowledge  of  God — (i)  It  is  quite  independent  of  special  systems  and  is 
the  heritage  of  all  or  nearly  all.     (2)  It  is  very  far  from  that  feeble,  emas- 


I206  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

culated  remnant  which  is  sometimes  said  to  be  all  that  will  remain  when 
special  systems  are  put  in  the  second  rank.  (3)  Yet  it  vivifies  these  special 
systems  by  giving  to  their  modes  of  thought  or  action  a  noble  significance. 

Similarly,  we  may  take  the  work  of  Christ  as  the  object  of  faith.  Here 
.the  result  of  modem  thought  has  been  to  show  it  throughout  a  moral  process ; 
to  dwell  on  the  character  of  Jesus  as  giving  its  essential  quality  and  value  to 
his  sacrifice  both  before  God  and  men  ;  to  make  us  think  of  the  imparting  of 
this  character  to  men  so  that  they  become  sons  of  God"  and  saviours  of  their 
fellows,  as  the  final  purpose  of  the  atonement  and  of  the  incarnation  ;  and 
to  realize  him  as  a  present,  living  power  both  in  the  individual  and  social  life. 

And  so  again  as  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  and  of  inspiration.  We 
have  learnt  more  than  in  other  ages  to  understand  St.  Paul's  great  saying, 
"The  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life."  If  verbal  inspiration  is  not 
dwelt  upon  it  is  because  we  feel  that  the  true  meaning  of  a  book  is  not 
found  in  the  words  taken  one  by  one,  but  in  the  thoughts  behind  the  words, 
and  that  the  particular  thoughts  are  governed  by  the  general  message.  We 
realize  the  personality  and  position  of  the  writer.  It  is  a  positive  spiritual 
gain,  and  moreover  it  has  a  wide  effect  upon  our  view  of  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tems. We  are  taught  to  view  them  all  as  partial  but  real  productions  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  to  sympathize  with  them  and  their  authors,  and  to  use  our  own 
system  more  intelligently,  insisting  on  those  facts  that  are  important,  but 
not  thinking  it  faultless  or  excluding  others. 

We  have  looked  thus  far  on  the  objects  of  faith  as  making  for  unity. 
The  same  is  the  result  if  we  look  at  faith  as  a  quality  in  the  heart  of  man, 
for  it  is  essentially  moral,  and  though  it  may  be  helped  and  guided  by  sys- 
tems of  belief  and  worship,  it  is  in  its  nature  independent  of  them.  It  goes 
direct  to  God.  Its  very  essence  is  to  place  a  man  face  to  face  with  its 
object,  no  man  intervening. 

Faith  is  the  acceptance  of  God  and  of  his  Word.  Whatever  has  been 
made  known  to  us  as  to  his  nature,  his  truth  or  his  will,  faith  is  that  which 
says  "  Amen"  to  it.  And  no  one  can  do  this  for  us.  Each  individual  must 
for  himself  open  his  heart  to  accept  God's  message.  The  systems  of  belief 
or  of  worship  may  bring  the  truth  near  an  appeal  to  the  soul,  may  train  it, 
court  it,  woo  it,  but  the  ultimate  assent  must  be  its  own. 

But  faith  is  not  the  mere  assent  of  the  mind.  It  is  always  a  moral 
attachment.  It  is  trust  in  a  person,  and  this  implies  sympathy  and  admira- 
tion; and  then  it  is  an  aspiration  like  that  which  Saint  John  experienced  in 
the  words,  "  We  know  that  we  shall  be  like  Him  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  he 
is,  and  every  one  that  hath  this  hope  in  Him  purifieth  hiniself  even  as  He  is 
pure."  And  faith,  again,  as  we 'see  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Hebrews,  is 
the  master  principle  of  life,  the  source  of  insight  into  present  and  future 
realities,  of  obedience,  of  courage,  of  endurance  ;  the  source  of  all  that  is 
original  in  thought  or  action  lies  within  ;  it  is  only  the  issues  of  faith  which 
can  be   partially  shaped   by  the  ecclesiastical  systems.      Thus  we  have  a 


FREMANTLE:    RELIGIOUS    REUNION.  120/ 

whole  life  of  faith  independent  of  ecclesiasticisra  in  which  we  all  can  join. 
It  is  by  living  this  life  that  we  shall  overcome  our  dissensions. 

It  is  necessary  to  insist  upon  this  point  since  the  history  of  religion 
shows  that  there  is  a  constant  tendency  to  tie  faith  down  to  system.  Every 
sect  in  turn  has  been  inclined  to  ixiake  some  definition  of  the  atonement  or  of 
inspiration,  of  miracles,  of  conversions,  of  the  Divine  decrees,  of  apostolic 
succession,  or  the  papacy,  essential  to  a  true  faith. 

The  teaching-uf  Christ  and  of  St.  Paul  is  perfectly  clear  about  all  such 
matters.  They  are  in  a  different  plane  from  that  of  faith.  "  To  eat  with 
unwashen  hands  defiles  not  man."  "Circumcision  is  nothing,  and  uncir- 
cumcision  is  nothing,  but  faith  that  worketh  by  love."  If  we  would  apply 
this  principle  and  cease  to  compare  secondary  matters  with  primary,  sys-' 
tems  with  faith,  we  should  be  a  long  way  advanced  towards  the  union  of 
Christendom. 

May  we  not  glance  at  a  further  point  ?  We  are  here  in  a  Parliament 
of  all  Religions,  and  we  cannot  but  ask  the  question  how  the  reunion  of 
Christendom  may  effect  non-Christian  peoples.  Christianity  is  not  exclus- 
ive. It  teaches  that  in  every  nation  he  that  findeth  God  and  hath  right- 
eousness is  accepted  of  him.  A  Christian  man  is  simply  a  man  in  his 
highest  conditioti  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  being  ;  the  Christian  Church  is 
simply  human  society  transformed  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ ;  and  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  taken  in  its  principle,  and  apart  from  the  special  cults  which 
have  grown  up  in  connection  with  it,  is  not  so  much  the  sole  as  the  highest 
mode  of  approach  to  God.  We  vindicate  for  it  not  exclusiveness  but 
supremacy.  There  are  affinities  to  Christian  belief  and  Christian  life  in  all 
forms  of  religion,  and  it  should  be  our  task  to  find  these  out,  to  acknowledge 
and  to  loster  them. .  Faith  is  the  expression  under  which  all  these  may  be 
united.  The  patriarchs  had  faith  in  Christ  before  Christ  came,  and  by  faith 
they  were  saved.  And  if  Christ  is  the  Eternal  Word,  the  Life  and  Light  of 
all  men,  he  may  be  known  by  faith  apart  from  his  incarnation.  This  was 
plainly  taught  in  the  first  great  effort  of  Christian  theology  undei  Clement 
and  Origen  at  Alexandria.  They  held  that  Greek  philosophy  was  a  true, 
though  imperfect  acknowledgment  of  the  Divine  Word.  We  may  regard 
all  those,  therefore,  who  are  seeking  truth  and  righteousness  throughout  the 
world  as  united  with  us  in  that  moral  faith  which  we  have  described  above, 
the  faith  of  trust  in  the  highest  good,  of  sympathy  with  the  noblest  life  of 
aspirations  to  the  true  ideal.  And  we  may  believe  that  this  inchoate  faith 
will  ultimately  find  its  completion  when  it  comes  in  contact  with  the  life  and 
spirit  and  personality  of  Jesus  Christ.  Thus  the  reunion  of  Christendom, 
on  the  basis  of  a  moral  faith,  has  a  significance  for  the  whole  world. 

Social  Movements  as  a  Bond  of  Union. — The  other  chief  field  in  which 
I  look  for  the  means  of  union  is  that  of  the  great  social  movement  of  our 
time.  The  attention  of  all  bodies  of  Christians  is  turned  to  it.  We  are  all 
feeling  that  if  our  Christianity  is  sound,  it  must  issue  in  the  constant  effort 


I208  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

to  relieve  the  misery  which  weighs  upon  so  many  classes  of  our  fellow  men. 
To  teach  the  young,  to  promote  culture  among  the  rough  and  rude  lives,  to 
inculcate  temperance  and  thrift,  to  prevent  cruelty  to  children  and  animals, 
to  regulate  the  conditions  of  labor,  to  make  charity  tend  to  moral  and  eco- 
nomical progress,  to  insure  some  provision  in  old  age  to  all,  are  coming  to 
be  recognized  not  merely  as  a  part,  but  as  the  main  part,  of  the  religion  of 
the  future.  They  flow  directly  from  faith,  the  faith  that  is  in  the  original 
Gospel  of  the  kingdom  which  Christ  preached.  That  social  righteousness 
which  was  the  burden  of  the  law  and  the  prophets,  Christ  came  himself  to 
fulfill,  and  he  announced  that  he  was  come  to  proclaim  the  year  of  jubilee, 
to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  release  the  prisoners,  to  give  sight  to  the 
blind.  He  set  about  this  by  his  works  of  beneficence,  and  left  it  to  be  car- 
ried dn  by  the  new  social  state,  the  society  which  he  founded  as  the  model 
of  a  regenerate  world.  That  society  has  confessedly  done  vast  things  for 
the  renewal  of  social  conditions,  but  till  now  it  has  never  realized  that  this 
is  its  main  task.  It  has  turned  aside  into  by-paths  quite  unknown  to  its 
masters,  the  formulation  of  doctrine,  the  establishment  of  separate  disci- 
pline, the  elaboration  of  forois  of  public  worship.  Christ  said  nothing  of 
these,  his  apostles  very  little.  His  followers  in  after  times  have  said  little 
else.'  Christianity  has  meant  a  peculiar  cult  or  a  philosophy  or  a  system  of 
church  government — that  is,  a  government  of  the  clergy  and  a  small  part  of 
human  life,  instead  of  a  vast  impulse  and  plan  for  the  regeneration  of  the 
whole.  The  mistake  is  now  being  acknowledged.  The  pope  has  issued 
pastorals  on  the  subject;  Protestant  bodies,  whether  of  Episcopal  or  other 
forms,  are  all  alive  with  it ;  the  parliaments  and  municipalities  are  feeling 
that  the  social  question  is  their  chief  concern,  and  that  the  Christian  princi- 
ple is  that  which  must  be  applied  to  its  solution.  But  I  shall  not  be  in  the 
least  better  able  to  solve  social  questions  because  I  am  an  Anglican  or  a 
Presbyterian,  a  Roman  Catholic,  a  Baptist,  a  Wesleyan,  or  a  member  of  the 
Salvation  Army.  It  is  common  ground  for  us  all,  and  the  principles  to  be 
applied  to  it  are  those  in  v/hich  all  the  sects  may  agree.  Then  no  sect,  and 
no  union  of  sects,  can  possibly  conduct  this  renewal  of  our  social  state. 
The  efforts  of  sects  only  touch  its  fringe.  They  often  do  more  harm  than 
good,  because  they  misdirect  men's  efforts,  as  in  the  case  of  impulsive 
charity. 

If  this  be  true,  then  I  again  point  out  that  in  this  Christianizing  of 
society  we  are  hardly  helped  at  all,  and  often  very  much  hampered,  by  our 
ecclesiastical  connections.  We  must  pass  beyond  them  to  do  any  good. 
If  we  are  trying  to  help  social  efforts  in  the  hands  of  the  bodies  organized 
for  public  worship  and  its  adjuncts,  which  are  totally  inadequate  to  the  task 
and  are  weakening  in  the  hands  of  public  bodies  which  can  undertake  it, 
by  disclaiming  that  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  religion  (though  religion 
means  a  Christian  service  of  man  in  the  spirit  of  Christ),  we  shall  incur  the 
terrible  sentence  of  the  Master  :     "  Ye  have  shut  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ; 


STEAD:   THE   CIVIC   CHURCH.  I  2G9 

ye  entered  not  in  yourselves  and  those  that  were  entering  in  ye  hindered." 
But,  if  putting  away  our  rivalries,  we  use  our  religious  organizations,  which 
will  be  greatly  strengthened  by  the  task,  for  public  Christian  purposes,  we 
shall  inevitably  be  drawn  into  union  in  the  vast  work  which  we  have  to  per- 
form in  common. 


THE   CIVIC   CHURCH. 
By  W.  T.  Stead. 

I  gladly  respond  to  the  invitation  to  lay  before  the  Parliament  of  Relig- 
ions some  account  of  what  seems  to  me  the  only  conception  of  a  church 
that  is  as  catholic  as  this  assembly.  I  have  called  it  the  Civic  Church 
because  the  idea  of  good  citizenship  is  free  from  all  sectarian  or  national 
limitations.  All  other  adjectives,  whether  geographical  or  ecclesiastical, 
impair  the  catholic  conception  of  the  church.  But  that  is  not  the  only  rea- 
son for  choosing  that  title.  The  Civic  Church  is  a  phrase  recalling  to  the 
mind  of  man  that  religion  is  concerned  not  merely  with  the  salvation  of  the 
individual  man,  but  with  the  regeneration  of  the  whole  community.  The 
work  of  the  Civic  Church  is  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  heaven  here  among 
men — in  other  words,  to  reconstitute  human  society,  to  regenerate  the  state, 
and  to  inspire  it  with  an  aspiration  after  a  divine  ideal.  For  this  purpose 
civic,  as  referring  primarily  to  cities,  is  preferable  to  national  or  imperial, 
which  deal  with  larger  areas,  or  municipal  and  parochial,  which  unduly 
limit  the  range  of  the  idea.  Patriotism  has  introduced  a  religious  ideal  into 
national  life  ;  but,  unless  America  is  greatly  belied,  the  conception  of  a 
divine  order  in  city  government  is  far  from  being  naturalized  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  run  the  civic  machine.  It  is  here,  therefore,  that  the  organi- 
zation of  a  Civic  Church  to  redeem  civic  life  seems  so  urgently  needed.  In 
a  hemisphere  which  has  given  us  the  City  of  Chicago,  the  City  of  Saint 
Louis,  the  City  of  New  York,  there  is  need  of  the  Civic  Church  to  build  the 
City  of  God. 

General  Idea  of  the  Civic  Church. — The  fundamental  idea  of  the  Civic 
Church  is  that  of  the  intelligent  and  fraternal  cooperation  of  all  those  who 
are  in  earnest  about  making  men  and  things  somewhat  better  than  they  are 
to-day.  Men  and  things,  individually  and  collectively,  are  far  short  of  what 
they  ought  to  be,  and  all  those  who,  seeing  this,  are  exerting  themselves  in 
order  to  make  them  better,  ought  to  be  enrolled  in  the  Civic  Church.  From 
the  pale  of  its  communion  no  man  or  woman  is  excluded  because  of  spec- 
ulative differences  of  opinion  upon  questions  which  do  not  affect  the  prac- 
tical cooperation. 

Of  course  it  is  as  impossible  for  me,  a  western  child  of  Christian  civil- 
ization, to  escape  from  the  atmospheric  pressure  of  Christian  ideas  as  it  is 


I  2  10  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

for  me  to  sever  myself  from  the  subtle  influences  of  the  law  of  heredity,  or 
to  neutralize  the  silent  but  potent  suggestions  of  my  environment.  The  very 
idea  of  a  church  may  be  said  to  be  a  Christian  idea,  and  certainly  the  aim 
and  object  of  the  Civic  Church  seems  to  us  essentially  Christian.  But  pos- 
sibly Buddhists,  and  Moslems,  and  Hindus  may  find  the  conception  as 
essentially  Buddhist,  Moslem  or  Hindu  as  it  seems  to  us  essentially  Chris- 
tian. For  all  religions  are  but  attempts  made  by  man  to  define  the  angle  at 
which  he  looks  at  God.  The  angle  of  vision  varies  indefinitely  according 
to  the  stand  point  of  the  observer  and  the  objective  on  which  he  fixes  his 
gaze.  Humanity  toiling  laboriously  up  an  immense  slope  toward  the  distant 
peaks  on  which  is  throned  Infinity,  measures  >n  enormous  distance  between 
the  ranks  of  the  vanguard,  and  the  wearied  stragglers  of  the  rear.  Atveach 
observation  point  in  this  millennial  upward  march,  the  contour  of  thecon- 
stantly  receding  peak  will  appear  different.  Yet  it  is  the  same  peak.  "  It  is 
only  our  standpoint  that  differs.  The  Civic  Church  recognizes  this,  and 
embraces  in  its  comprehensive  synthesis  all  the  religions,  from  the  fetich 
worshipper  to  the  Christian  philanthropist,  believing  that  ''All  paths  to  the 
Father  lead,  when  self  the  feet  spurned."  The  bond  of  union  is  no  mere 
intellectual  agreement  as  to  the  order  of  church  government,  the  precise 
form  of  ritual,  or  the  phrasing  of  metaphysical  formulae.;  it  is  the  comrade- 
ship of  soldiers  of  different  regiments,  with  different  uniforms  and  different 
weapons,  who  have  nevertheless  a  common  objective  to  gain  and  a  common 
enemy  to  overcome,  and  therefore  ought  to  have  common  headquarters,  a 
common  intelligence  department,  and  a  common  directing  staff,  if  they  are 
to  make  the  best  use  of  their  collective  strength  against  the  common  foe. 

Here  let  me  at  the  very  outset  forestall  one  common  misconception. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  idea  of  the  Civic  Church  that  is  hostile  to  the  exist- 
ence and  prosperity  of  all  the  existing  churches.  It  presupposes  the 
existence  of  such  organizations,  each  of  which  is  doing  necessary  work  that 
is  more  efficiently  done  by  small  groups  acting  independently,  than  by  a 
wider  federation  acting  over  a  broader  area.  The  idea  of  any  antagonism 
between  the  Civic  Church  and  the  innumerable  religious  societies  already 
existing  is  as  absurd  as  the  notion  of  an  antagonism  between  the  main  drain 
of  the  city  and  the  wash  hand-basin  of  the  individual  citizen.  For  the  sal- 
vation of  the  individual  soul  our  existing  churches  may  be  the  best  instru- 
ment, while  for  the  redemption  of  the  whole  community  the  Civic  Church  is 
still  indispensable. 

What  is  the  objective  of  the  Civic  Church  ?  The  restitution  of  human 
society,  so  as  to  establish  a  state  of  things  that  will  minimize  evil  and 
achieve  the  greatest  possible  good  for  the  greatest  possible  number.  What 
is  the  enemy  that  has  to  be  overcome  ?  The  selfishness  which  in  one  or  the 
other  of  its  innumerable  forms — either  by  indolence,  indifference  or  down- 
right wrong-doing — creates  a  state  of  things  which  renders  it  difficult  to  do 
right  and  easy  to  do  wrong.     What  is  the  field  of  its  operations?     The 


WILLIAM  T.  STEAD. 


"  IT  IS  HERE  THEREFORE  THAT  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  A  CIVIC  CHLKCH  TO  REDEEM  CIVIC  I.IFE 
SEEMS  SO  URGENTLY  NEEDED.  IN  A  HEMISPHERE  WHICH  HAS  GIVEN  US  THE  CITY  OF  CHICAGO, 
*  *  *  THERE  IS  NEED  UV  THE  CIVIC  CHUKCH    lO  UUILD  THE  CITY  OF  GOD." 


J 


I2I2  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

whole  range  of  the  life  of  man,  so  far  as  it  touches  the  life  of  his  brother 
man.  And  what  is  the  principle  on  which  it  is  constituted  ?  The  principle 
of  brotherly  cooperation  on  the  part  of  all  who  are  willing  to  take  the 
trouble  to  make  things  better,  so  that  the  collective  moral  force  of  the  whole 
community  may  be  brought  to  bear  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
community.  . 

To  a  Christian  such  a  church  seems  to  be  based  upon  the  central  prin- 
ciples of  the  Christian  religion.  To  him  that  religion  is  the  truest  which 
helps  most  to  make  men  like  Jesus  Christ.  And  what  is  the  ideal  which 
Christ  translated  into  a  realized  life  ?  For  practical  purposes,  this :  To  take 
trouble  to  do  good  to  others.  A  simple  formula,  but  the  rudimentary  and 
essential  truth  of  the  whole  Christian  religion.  To  take  trouble  is  to  sacri- 
fice time.  All  time  is  a  portion  of  life.  To  lay  down  one's  life  for  the 
brethren — which  is  sometimes  literally  the  duty  of  the  citizen  who  is  called 
\  to  die  fpr  his  fellows — -is  the  constant  and  daily  duty  demanded  by  all  the 
thousand  and  one  practical  sacrifices  which  duty  and  affection  call  upon  us 
to  make  for  men. 

Thus  the  Civic  Church,  which  includes  men  of  all  religions,  is  based 
upon  the  central  principle  of  the  Christian  religion.  I  now  proceed  to  point 
out  why  it  is  the  natural  and  necessary  outcome  of  the  development  of  civil- 
ization of  our  times. 

.  The  world  has  passed,  or  is  fast  passing,  under  the  sway  of  the  demo- 
cratic idea.  But  that  idea  has  always  been  most  fruitful  when  it  has  had  a 
theocratic  basis.  Of  this  the  two  most  salient  examples  are  the  rise  of 
Islam  in  the  seventh  century  and  the  foundation  of  the  democratic  America 
by  the  men  of  the  Mayflower  in  the  seventeenth.  Both  Islam  and  New 
England  were  manful  attempts  to  realize  the  theocratic  ideal  on  the  broad 
basis  of  democratic  fraternity.  But  it  has  been  reserved  for  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century  io  bring  us  within  sight  of  the  realization  of  the  apos- 
tolic ideal,  which  is  so  essentially  democratic.  There  is  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  there  is  nether  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female,  for 
ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  Civic  Church  accepts  that  principle  and 
carries  it  out  to  its  logical  ultimate.  Who  are  those  who  are  in  Christ 
Jesus?  Those  who  conform  to  certain  outward  rites,  call  themselves  by  par- 
ticular names,  or  worship  according  to  a  certain  order?  Not  so.  Those 
who  are  in  Christ  Jesus  are  those  who  have  put  on  Christ,  who  are  baptized 
with  his  spirit,  those  who  take  the  trouble  to  do  good  to  others.  And  it  is 
time  they  were  gathered  into  a  society  which  could  act  as  an  associated 
unit  of  organization  for  the  realization  of  the  ideal.  The  recognition  of  this 
wide  brotherhood  of  all  who  take  up  their  cross  to  follow  Christ,  must  neces- 
sarily precede  the  attempt  to  secure  federated  cooperation  for  the  attain- 
ment of  a  common  end. 

If  this  Parliament  of  Religions  is  to  found  the  church  of  the  future,  in 
the  shape  of  a  federal  organization  of  all  the  forces  which  make  for  righc- 


STEAD:   THE    CIVIC   CHURCH.  12 1 3 

eousness,  it  can  be  fenced  by  no  party  walls  of  speculation  ;  all  must  meet 
on  the  common  ground  of  the  ser\ace  of  man.  That  to  me,  as  a  Christian, 
has  always  seemed  to  be  the  central  essence  of  the  religion  of  Christ,  and 
any  church  or  association  formed  to  help  and  succor  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  so  far  as  it  helped  and  succored  them,  formed  part  of  the  work- 
ing Church  of  Christ,  however  much  its  members  might  repudiate  the  title. 

What  is  proposed  in  the  Civic  Church  is  that  in  every  center  of  popula- 
tion there  should  be  one  church  center,  constituted  by  representatives  and 
by  delegates  from  all  the  churches  and  all  the  organizations  which  ^xist  for 
the  purpose  of  making  men  better  and  the  world  sweeter  to  live  in.  One 
town,  one  church,  is  as  old  as  the  days  of  the  apostles.  We  had  the  angel 
of  the  Church  of  Thyatira,  the  angel  of  the  Church  of  Ephesus.  Who  is 
the  angel  of  the  Church  of  Chicago?  Who  is  the  accredited  chief  of  the  relig- 
ious and  moral  forces  of  this  great  city?  For  combatting  sin  when  it  develops 
into  crime  you  have  your  chief  constable.  For  combatting  sin  when}t  takes 
the  form  of  disease  you  have  your  sanitary  authority;  and  for  combatting 
sin  when  it  takes  the  form  of  anything  touching  the  pockets  or  the  bodies 
of  our  citizens  you  have  the  mayor.  Everywhere  centralized  authority,  defi- 
nite responsibility,  recognized  and  obeyed  by  every  citizen  within  your 
civic  boundaries.  But  when  sin  only  threatens  the  soul  of  men,  where  is 
your  central  authority?  In  the  great  campaign  against  the  power  of  evil 
seated  in  the  heart  of  man,  where  is  your  spiritual  director-general? — the 
spiritual  counterpart  of  your  chief  constable  or  your  mayor.  You  have  no 
such  officer.  Is  it  not  time  you  made  some  effort  to  see  whether,  even  now, 
he  could  not  be  brought  into  being? 

There  is  no  longer  any  possibility  of  any  such  official  being  imposed 
from  above.  The  whole  tendency  of  modern  democracy  is  in  the  opposite 
direction.  The  center,  if  there  is  to  be  a  center,  must  be  elective;  the 
director-general,  whoever  he  may  be,  must  be  representative,  and  the  basis 
upon  which  any  Civic  Church  is  constituted  must  be  on  that  of  voluntary 
federation. 

There  is  no  suggestion  on  the  part  of  the  advocates  of  the  Civic  Church 
that  a  committee  representing  the  various  existing  organizations  for  mend- 
ing the  world,  the  men  and  women  who  are  willing  to  take  the  trouble  to  do 
good  to  others,  should  supersede  any  existing  institution.  The  Civic  Church 
comes  into  existence  not  to  supersede  but  rather  to  energize  all  the  institu- 
tions that  make  for  righteousness,  to  bring  them  into  sympathetic  communi- 
cation the  one  with  the  other,  and  to  adapt  the  sensible  methods  of  munici- 
pal administration,  with  its  accurate  geographical  demarcation  and  strict 
apportionment  of  responsibility,  to  the  more  spiritual  work  of  the  church. 

We  have  our  Thirty-nine  Articles,  our  Westminister  Confession,  our 
Roman  dogma,  and  our  Greek  orthodox  creeds,  with  which  no  one  thinks  of 
interfering.  What  we  want  is  the  formulating  of  a  New  Confession  of 
Faith  of  what  is  assuredly  believed  amongst  all  those  who  care  for  their  fellow 


I  2  14  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

men,  as  to  what  constitutes  a  normal  standard  of  human  comfort,  or  rather 
what  should  be  within  the  reach  of  each  child  of  man  in  order  that  he  may 
have  a  fair  chance  of  developing  the  best  and  repressing  the  worst  elements 
of  his  complex  nature.  The  New  Confession  of  Faith  in  the  Civic  Church 
is  not  destructive  of  or  antagonistic  to  any  other  Confessions  of  Faith,  but 
it  covers  the  whole  field  of  active  human  life. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  difference  between  the  municipality  and  the 
Civic  Church  is  that  one  deals  solely  with  the  enforcement  of  such  a  mini- 
mum of  cooperation  as  is  laid  down  by  Act  of  Parliament,  while  the  other 
seeks  to  secure  conformity,  not  to  the  clauses  of  a  law,  but  to  the  higher 
standard  which  is  fixed  -by  the  realizable  aspirations  of  mankind  for  a 
higher  life  and  a  more  human,  not  to  say  divine,  existence.  The  church 
lives  forever  in  the  realm  of  the  ideal.  She  labors  in  the  van  of  human 
progress,  educating.the  community  up  to  the  ever-widening  and  expanding 
conception  of  social  obligations.  As  soon  as  her  educational  work  is  com- 
plete she  hands  over  to  the  state  the  performance  of  duties  which  formerly 
were  exclusively  discharged  by  the  church.  The  relief  of  the  poor,  the  estab- 
lishment of  hospitals,  the  opening  of  libraries,  the  education  of  children,  all 
thes^  in  former  times  were  entrusted  to  the  church.  But  as  the  church  edu- 
cated the  people,  these  duties  were  transferred  one  by  one  to  the  care  of  the 
state.  The  church  did  not,  however,  lose  any  of  her  responsibilities  in 
regard  to  these  matters,  nor  did  the  transfer  of  her  obligations  to  the  shoul- 
ders of  ratepaid  officials  leave  her  with  a  corresponding  lack  of  work  to  be 
performed.  The  duty  of  the  church  became  indirect  rather  than  direct. 
Instead  of  relieving  the  poor,  teaching  the  young,  caring  for  the  sick,  her 
duty  was  to  see  that  the  public  bodies  who  had  inherited  the  responsibilities 
were  worthy  of  their  position,  and  never  fell  below  the  standard  either  in 
morals  or  in  philanthropy  which  the  church  had  attained.  And  in  addi- 
tion to  the  duties,  which  may  be  styled  electoral,  the  church  was  at  once 
confronted  with  a  whole  series  of  new  obligations  springing  out  of  the 
advance  made  by  the  community  in  realizing  a  higher  social  ideal.  The 
duty  of  the  church  is  ever  to  be  the  pioneer  of  social  progress,  to  be  the 
educator  of  the  moral  sentiment,  so  as  to  render  it  possible  to  throw  upon 
the  whole  community  the  duties  which  at  first  are  necessarily  borne  exclu- 
sively by  the. elect  few. 

But  in  no  community  is  there  any  organized  effort  to  secure  for  all  the 
citizens  all  the  advantages  which  have  been  secured  for  a  favored  few  here 
and  there.  What  is  wanted  is  a  civic  center  which  will  generalize  for  the 
benefit  of  all  the  results  obtained  by  isolated  workers.  The  first  desideratum 
is  to  obtain  a  man  or  woman  who  can  look  at  the  community  as  a  whole, 
and  who  will  resolve  that  he  or  she,  as  the  case  may  be,  will  never  rest  until 
they  bring  up  the  whole  community  to  the  standard  of  the  most  advanced 
societies.  Such  a  determined  worker  has  the  nucleus  of  the  Civic  Church 
under  his  own  hat ;  but,  of  course,  if  he  is  to  succeed  in  his  enterprise  he 


WHITMAN:   INTERDENOMINATIONAL   COMITY.        I  21  5 

must  endeavor  by  hook  or  by  crook  to  get  into  existence  some  federation  of 
the  moral  and  religious  forces  which  could  be  recognized  by  the  community 
as  having  authority  to  speak  in  the  name  and  with  the  experience  of  the 
Civic  Church.  The  work  will  of  necessity  be  tentative  and  slow.  Nor  do  I 
dream  of  evolving  an  ideal  collective  Humanitarian  Episcopate  on  dem- 
ocratic lines  all  at  once.  But  if  the  idea  is  once  well  grasped  by  the  right 
man  or  woman,  it  will  grow.  The  necessities  of  mankind  will  foster  it,  and 
all  the  forces  of  civilization  and  of  religion  will  work  for  the  establishment 
of  the  Civic  Church. 


INTERDENOMINATIONAL  COMITY. 
By  Rev.  D.  L.  Whitman,  D.D.,  President  of  Colby  University. 

The  conditions  favorable  to  interdenominational  comity  are  preemi- 
nently American.  The  comparatively  homogeneous  populations  of  other 
countries  make  certain  of  them  impossible  in  those  countries.  Noteworthy 
among  these  conditions  are  the  following : 

First,  realization  of  change  in  the  character  of  the  work  to  be  done. 
This  is  emphatically  an  American  condition.  States  have  sprung  up  here 
in  a  night.  The  center  of  population  has  shifted  year  by  year.  The 
character  of  the  population  has  changed  as  often.  Changes  have  been  so 
rapid  that  it  is  only  by  figure  of  speech  that  we  can  speak  of  an  American 
tvpe.  Heterogeneity,  rapid  growth  and  shifting  of  elements  of  population 
have  made  old  methods  insufficient. 

Second,  recognition  of  wasteful  methods.  Denominational  competi- 
tion has  at  times  been  sharp.  Denominational  jealousy  has  not  been  wholly 
unknown.  Men  and  money  have  been  expended  by  each  body  irrespective 
of  what  others  were  doing.  Towns  with  a  population  of  less  than  a  thou- 
sand have  three,  four  or  five  churches.  This  means  several  men  where  at 
most  two  are  needed  and  where  one  could  do  the  work.  The  result  is 
meager  support  for  all,  small  congregations,  and  emphasis  of  peculiarities 
which  have  no  salvation  in  them.  Naturally  enough  the  same  method  is 
c:iiried  into  the  field  of  foreign  missions,  though  there  the  work  is  so  wide 
that  the  effect  is  not  so  noticeable. 

Third,  conviction  of  inadequacy  of  resources  at  present  available. 
Tiiree-quarters  of  the  world  is  as  yet  unevangelized  in  any  proper  sense. 
Much  has  been  done.  More  yet  is  now  immediately  possible.  Men  and 
moans  are  more  easily  available  than  was  formerly  the  case.  Intelligence, 
zeal  and  ability  are  finding  their  right  combination.  But  the  need  is  still 
c<miparatively  infinite  in  comparison  with  the  supply.  Even  in,  the  United 
J^tates  ordained  ministers  average  but  little  more  than  one  in  a  thousand  of 
jiopulation.  In  many  Christianized  countries  the  proportion  of  ministers  is 
still  smaller. 


I2l6  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAV. 

In  lines  of  foreign  evangelization  the  disproportion  of  workers  to  pop- 
ulation is  startling.  Even  assuming  the  best  possible  distribution  of 
workers,  the  disproportion  is  fearful.  It  is  made  still  greater  by  methods 
already  suggested. 

Fourth,  better  conception  of  the  Christian  mission.  The  Christian 
spirit  has  been  growmg  more  Christlike.  More  brotherly  relations  exist 
between  representatives  of  different  creeds.  Denominations  are  the  ser- 
vants of  the  kingdom.  Movements  of  a  cooperative  character  have  been 
successfully  conducted  in  evangelistic  work  and  social  reform.  A  new  and 
larger  thought  is  cherished.  The  Christian  mission  is  to  preach  the  Gospel. 
More  than  the  local  church  is  the  universal  church — no  ecclesiastical  body, 
but  those  in  every  place  who  call  upon  the  Name. 

These  conditions  in  themselves  amount  to  little.  As  conditions,  how- 
ever, they  must  arise  before  better  things  could  come.  They  are  of  value 
as  making  imperative  that  for  which  they  have  cleared  the  way. 

The  principles  of  interdenominational  comity  are  in  the  main  three  : 

First,  different  interpretations  of  scripture  give  rise  to  different  ecclesi- 
astical organizations. 

We  are  bound  to  assure  a  good  conscience  for  every  man.  What  each 
does  presumably  he  does  in  accordance  with  his  conception  of  the  will  of 
God.  Without  this  assumption,  we  inevitably  fall  into  the  error  of  suppos- 
ing that  we  alone  possess  the  spirit  of  truth.  In  this  assumption  lies  the 
secret  of  denominational  life.  In  many  cases,  no  doubt,  appeal  is  ii;<ide  in 
the  first  instance  to  a  denominational  creed.  In  some  cases  it  is  painfully 
evident  that  such  creed  is  accepted  as  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  denomina- 
tional faith.  But  the  larger  view  alone  is  intelligent  which  regards  creeds 
as  provisional  statements  for  the  sake  of  clearness  and  definiteness  of  what 
the  Word  of  God  teaches.  It  is  worth  while  to  emphasize  this,  for  a  short 
cut  to  Christian  union  is  supposed  by  many  to  lie  through  a  total  ignoring 
of  creeds.  But  creeds  are  simply  the  interpretation  and  formulation  of 
what  the  makers  of  creeds  understand  scripture  to  teach. 

Thus,  when  we  have  abolished  creeds,  instead  of  having  done  every- 
thing we  have  done  nothing.  Forced  back,  as  is  right,  to  scripture  as  the 
ultimate  rule  of  doctrine  and  life,  we  face  the  fact  that  no  two  men  under- 
stand the  message  of  scripture  in  precisely  the  same  way.  The  truths  that 
save  are  plain  beyond  question.  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  redemption 
through  Jesus  Christ,  sanctification  by  the  Holy  Spirit — no  man  need  remain 
in  doubt  concerning  these.  But  the  form  of  ecclesiastical  organization,  the 
methods  of  Christian  benevolence,  the  details  of  Christian  experience,  are 
not  described.  Principles  are  laid  down,  to  some  extent  hints  are  given, 
but  that  is  all.  It  could  not  well  be  otherwise  if  the  word  was  to  have 
permanent  significance. 

Further,  in  all  revelation  the  subjective  element  is  large.  Our  Lord 
could  not  declare  his  message  all  at  once,  even  to  his  immediate  followers. 


77 


I2l8         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

Little  by  little,  as  they  were  able  to  bear  it,  he  taught  them.  Revelation  is 
conditioned  upon  capacity  to  receive.  And  even  where  there  is  ability  to 
receive,  the  exact  meaning  will  depend  upon  personal  experience.  Two 
men  may  use  the  same  words,  and  in  the  main  their  understanding  of  these 
■words  be  the  same,  but  they  will  attach  to  those  words  in  their  finer  shades 
precisely  the  meaning  which  their  own  experience  gives  them.  The  same 
truth  finds  different  expression  in  different  lives.  Interpretation  of  scrip- 
ture is  subject  to  this  general  condition. 

With  the  best  intention  in  the  world  men  will  understand  the  details  of 
the  Gospel  differently.  Different  men  will  emphasize  different  doctrines. 
According  as  one  or  another  doctrine  is  emphasized  the  spiritual  life  will 
vary  in  expression.  Expressions,  whether  in  word,  deed  or  symbol,  tend  to 
become  fixed.  So  different  types  of  religious  organizations  are  developed. 
Denominational  life  finds  its  explanation  in  this. 

A  denomination  is  a  body  of  Christians  basing  their  faith  on  the  Word 
of  God,  but  understanding  the  details  of  duty  differently  enough  from  other 
bodies  of  Christians  to  warrant  a  different  name.  The  true  conception  of 
denominationalism  sees  behind  it  the  Word  of  God,  with  liberty  of  con- 
science and  consequent  possibility  of  honest  difference  of  judgment.  T'ie 
difference  is  at  bottom  difference  of  judgment :  no  more,  no  less.  Back  of  all 
"denominational  names  is  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  and  Christian  fellowship.  No 
one  denomination  is  all.  Each  is  part,  accordmg  to  its  light  serving  all. 
So  the  whole  Christian  world  can  say,  "  I  believe  in  the  holy  Catholic 
Church.  I  believe  in  the  communion  of  saints."  But  it  is  only  on  basal 
truth  that  agreement  has  been  reached.  There  are  one  hundred  and  forty 
denominations  in  the  United  States  alone.  For  the  entire  Christian  body 
the  number  would  be  considerably  increased.  And  the  great  majority  vin- 
dicate their  existence  by  appeal  to  the  Word  of  God.  It  follows  easily  and 
inevitably  that  denominational  organizations  will  continue  until  men  agree 
upon  the  interpretation  of  scripture.  Thus,  apart  from  all  other  considera- 
tions, we  find  a  working  explanation  of  the  existence  of  different  religious 
bodies. 

Second,  intelligent  loyalty  to  denominational  interests  is  a  worthy  senti- 
ment. 

Strictly  speaking,  there  is  no  Catholic  Church  as  an  ecclesiastical 
organization.  It  is  a  spiritual  body  alone  which  shows  the  marks  of  cathol- 
icity in  a  wide  sense.  Back  of  all  local,  provincial  or  national  bodies, 
embracing  all,  it  stands  an  ideal  whose  existence  we  acknowledge  when  we 
say,  "I  believe  in  the  holy  Catholic  Church,"  whose  realization  is,  in  part, 
secured  by  the  bodies  which  bear  its  name,  whose  perfect  realization  is 
sought  when  we  pray,  "  Thy  kingdom  come."  Our  inspiration  comes  from 
this  ideal.  We  are  working  toward  a  better  conception  of  it.  But  as  yet 
our  largest  attainment  toward  its  accomplishment  has  taken  shape  in 
denominational  life. 


WHITMAN:   INTERDENOMINATIONAL  COMITY.        I219 

This  is  likely  still  to  be  the  case  in  great  measure.  When  we  recall  the 
origin  of  denominational  organization  we  do  not  wonder  that  the  facts 
should  be  as  they  are.  When  we  consider  what  has  been  brought  to  pass 
through  denominational  agencies,  we  may  doubt  whether,  under  existing 
conditions,  such  results  could  have  been  secured  otherwise. 

Narrowness,  bigotry,  jealousy,  strife  are  not  at  all  necessary  even  when 
different  lines  of  faith  and  action  are  followed.  Instead  may  be  found  con- 
viction that  knowledge  at  best  is  but  partial ;  that  our  formula  is  our  state- 
ment of  the  truths  which  seem  supreme,  and  that  our  duty  as  a  body  of 
believers  is  to  translate  those  truths  into  life.  Denominational  loyalty  at 
bottom  means  only  this,  and  this  must  be  counted  good. 

Third,  Christian  interests  are  larger  than  denominational  interests. 

All  truths  are  true,  but  not  all  are  of  equal  importance.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  system  of  truth.  In  a  system  right  subordination  rs  indispens- 
able. One  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  comity,  whatever  the  sphere,  is 
that  emphasis  may  be  laid  upon  the  supreme  things  without  damage  to  things 
relatively  unimportant.  The  difficult  comes  in  getting  the  emphasis  rightly 
placed.  A  man  responds  to  personal  interests  more  quickly  than  to  the 
interest  of  a  stranger.  The  near  seems  larger  than  the  distant.  This  life  is 
more  real  than  the  life  to  come.  So  men  deceive  themselves  when  they 
intend  to  be  fair.  The  work  of  the  local  body  is  magnified  out  of  all 
proportion. 

But  activity  in  the  local  body  can  be  permanently  effective  only  as  there 
is  thought  of  larger  things.  The  kingdom  of  -heaven  has  relation  to  all 
men.  The  redeemed  life  is  not  individual,  but  social.  The  ultimate  pur- 
pose is  the  gathering  of  all  the  redeemed  into  one  body,  of  which  Christ  is 
the  head.  It  is  this  that  interdenominational  comity  emphasizes.  Here 
is  a  world  to  be  redeemed.  The  preaching  of  redemption  is  the  mission  of 
followers  of  Christ.  Called  out  by  the  principle  of  election,  which  is 
appointment  to  preeminent  service,  those  who  have  been  taught  of  God  are 
to  impart  what  they  have  received.  Faith  in  a  common  Lord  unites  them. 
A  common  purpose  inspires  therh.  The  body  thus  formed  is  the  church,  that 
portion  of  the  world  at  any  time  filled  with  the  spirit  of  Christ.  Names  will 
differ,  but  essential  belief  will  be  the  same.  The  true  interests  of  all  are 
secured  by  bringing  individual  lives  and  denominational  orders  into  subor- 
dination to  the  main  doctrine,  which  is  to  know  God,  and  to  the  main  work, 
which  is  to  save  men. 

A  good  beginning  has  already  been  made  in  practical  effort  in  interde- 
nominational comity  toward  giving  expression  to  the  principles  outlined. 
Sometimes  the  work  has  been  local  and  temporary.  Two,  three,  half  a 
dozen  churches  in  a  community  have  united  in  evangelistic  or  benevolent 
undertaking.  It  is  a  common  thing  for  different  denominations  to  combine 
for  the  canvass  of  a  city  for  one  purpose  or  another.  In  some  cases  organ- 
izations have  been  formed  of  a  permanent   character.     Certain    forms   of 


1220  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  FIFTEENTH   DAY. 

city  mission  work  illustrate  this.  In  the  same  line  is  the  action  of  neigh- 
boring pastors  in  some  country  districts  who  have  combined  for  more 
effective  service.  There  is  much  promise  of  good  in  such  combinations  as 
soon  as  it  is  understood  that  the  salvation  of  men  takes  precedence  of  the 
question  of  denominational  tenets.  The  Evangelical  Alliance  has  done 
much,  as  have  also  interdenominational  congresses,  which  find  their  legiti- 
mate outcome  in  the  World's  Parliament  of   Religions. 

Granted  right  spirit,  methods  will  develop  themselves.  Happily  the 
tendency  of  the  age  is  along  the  line  of  fellowship.  Practical  union  accom- 
plished puts  beyond  question  the  fact  that  practicaLunion  is  possible.  What 
has  been  done  is  a  prophecy  of  better  things  to  be.  The  logic  of  events  is 
working  out  the  solution.  The  work  may  be  delayed,  but  its  ultimate  accom- 
plishment is  sure. 


THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  BIBLE  ORTHODOXY. 
By  Rev.  Luther  F.  Townsend,  D.D.,  of  Boston, 

What  we  mean  by  Bible  orthodoxy,  in  distinction  from  other  orthodox- 
ies, is  a  creed  based  on  the  manifest  teachings  of  the  Bible  and  conformity 
in  faith  and  practice  to  that  creed.  While  not  affirming  as  yet  what,  by  a 
universal  standard,  is  right  or  wrong,  in  faith  and  practice,  yet  our  subject, 
when  put  into  the  form  of  a  logical  proposition,  is  this :  Bible  orthodoxy 
has  inherently  that  which  has  brought  it  on  through  the  ages  past  and  will 
hand  it  on  through  the  ages  to  come,  and  by  implication  is  therefore  right, 
for  truth  alone  is  permanent.  If  our  proposition  is  correct,  Bible  orthodoxy, 
though  assailed,  will  not  be  endangered  ;  other  things  may  mature,  decline 
and  pass  away,  but  the  essentials  of  Bible  orthodoxy,  such  as  the  special 
inspiration  of  the  Bible,  the  atonement  through  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ,  the  endless  punishment  of  the  finally  impenitent  sinner  and  the  end- 
less glory  of  God's  true  children,  as  well  as  the  duty  of  obeying  the  ten 
commandments  and  of  bringing  the  daily  life  into  conformity  with  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  will  be  found  standing  firmly,  though  many  times  that 
which  is  apparently  the  most  permanent  shall  disappear. 

Evidence  of  this  permanency  and  persistency  in  Bible  orthodoxy  is 
what  our  subject  first  demands. 

We  are  not  unfamiliar  with  the  fact  that  there  are  those  who  think  that 
certain  phases  of  Bible  orthodoxy  will  have  to  be  modified  in  order  to  suit 
a  progressive  philosophy,  and  that  even  now  the  time  fully  has  come  in 
which  to  restate  at  least  some  of  the  dogmas  of  Bible  orthodoxy. 

During  what  is  designated  as  the  second  period  in  church  history  there 
were  several  attempts  to  restate  Christianity  ;  especially  noteworthy  were 
the  efforts  of  Clement  of  Alexandria.     His  "progressive  "  views  led  him  to 


TOVVNSEND:  BIBLE    ORTHODOXY.  I  22  I 

make  the  teaching  and  example  of  Christ  of  more  importance  than  his  death 
and  sufferings,  and  it  looked  for  a  time  as  if  there  would  be  a  reconstruction 
of  Bible  orthodoxy. 

Clement  was  not  able  in  any  perceptible  degree  to  disturb  the  founda- 
tions of  apostolic  Christianity.  Origen  also  held  certain  very  radical  and 
progressive  views.  He  was  in  some  respects  the  greatest  man  and  the 
profoundest  scholar  among  the  fathers.  Origen's  scheme  of  an  endless 
probation  died  with  him. 

Likewise,  during  the  next  period,  from  320  to  726  A.  D.,  there  were 
■occasional  waverings  in  belief.  Gregory  may  be  taken  as  a  representative 
of  one  phase  of  the  "  progressive  "  orthodoxy  of  those  times.  He  appears  to 
have  felt  that  he  was  raised  up  for  the  special  purpose  of  establishing  the 
doctrine  that  good  is  ultimately  to  succeed  all  evil.  But  his  efforts  were 
unavailing. 

Men  may  say  what  they  please  to  the  contrary,  there  never  yet  has  been 
in  Christian  lands  a  revival  of  religion  or  an  improvement  in  morals,  except 
in  connection  with  the  preaching  of  Bible  orthodoxy  as  defended  by  the 
Church  of  Christ  through  the  ages.  Dr.  Ballou  contended  in  1795  that 
Christianity  in  America  needed  a  restatement.  Universalism  was  the  result, 
and  its  advocates  confidently  predicted  the  speedy  and  final  overthrow  of 
the  worn-out  creeds  of  Christendom.  Dr.  Channing,  in  1815,  thought  that 
another  restatement  was  needed,  and  clearly  saw,  as  he  thought,  the  speedy 
and  final  burial  of  the  moss-grown  doctrines  of  Bible  orthodoxy.  But  some- 
how those  doctrines  survived,  and  the  "progressive"  views  of  Dr.  Chan- 
ning, like  those  of  Dr.  Ballou,  have  utterly  failed  in  accomplishing  what 
was  expected  and  intended.  Those  views  do  not  harmonize  with  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible.     Therefore  they  are  rejected. 

But  is  it  replied  that  there  have  been  in  this  Congress  representatives  of 
existing  religions  that  are  older  than  Christianity,  and  are  claimed  to  be 
older  than  Judaism,  the  forerunner  of  Christianity?  Or,  is  it  replied  that 
whatever  can  be  argued  in  favor  of  the  excellence  of  Bible  orthodoxy,  from 
its  continuance  through  the  ages,  can  still  more  forcefully  be  argued  in  sup- 
port of  these  religions  that  are  venerable  and  impressive  by  reason  of  their 
antiquity  ?  The  conclusion  we  think  is  inevitable  that  any  form  of  religion 
that  has  endured  for  centuries  and  has  had  any  considerable  number  of 
adherents  is  in  some  of  its  teachings  essentially  correct.  The  science  of 
comparative  religions  reaches  the  additional  conclusion  that  outcroppings  of 
all  or  nearly  all  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Bible  theology  are  to  be  found 
in  each  of  the  religions  that  have  been  represented  on  this  platform,  and, 
therefore,  according  to  the  soundest  principles  of  philosophy,  one  need  not 
be  surprised  that  these  great  religions  have  survived  in  the  midst  of  error. 
But  is  it  not  equally  true  and  as  strictly  philosophical  that  in  fair  and  open 
fields  all  other  religions,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  will  have  to  surrender 
■when  brought  into  competition  with  the  essential  religion  of  humanity,  what- 


1222  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

ever  that  religion  may  be  ?  The  half  truth  or  any  part  of  the  truth  will 
overmaster  error,  but  the  whole  truth  will  overmaster  the  half  truth  or  any 
part  of  the  truth  when  the  competition  is  open  or  fair. 

The  hypothesis  we  now  place  over  against  every  other — and  we  do  this 
with  the  utmost  Christian  courtesy  and  yet  with  confidence — is  that  Bible 
orthodoxy  is  showing  itself  to  be  the  essential  religion  of  humanity,  and  if 
this  it  is,  it  will  outlive  all  other  religions  of  whatever  name. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  JAINS. 
By  Virchand  A.  Ghandi,  of  Bombay. 

I.  Jainism  has  two  ways  of  looking  at  things — one  called  Dravyarthe- 
karaya  and  the  other  Paryayartheka  Noya.  According  to  the  Dravyarthe- 
karaya  view  the  universe  is  without  beginning  and  end,  but  according  to  the 
Paryayartheka  view  we  have  creation  and  destruction  at  every  moment. 

The  Jain  canon  may  be  divided  into  two  parts:  First,  Shrute  Dharma, 
i.  e.,  philosophy ;  and  second,  Chatra  Dharma,  i.  e.,  ethics. 

The  Shrute  Dharma  inquiries  into  the  nature  of  nine  principles,  six 
kinds  of  living  beings  and  four  states  of  existence — sentient  beings,  non- 
sentient  things,  merit,  demerit.  Of  the  nine  principles,  the  first  is  soul. 
According  to  the  Jain  view  soul  is  that  element  which  knows,  thinks  and 
feels.  It  is  in  fact  the  divine  element  in  the  living  being.  The  Jain  thinks 
that  the  phenomena  of  knowledge,  feeling,  thinking  and  willing  are  condi- 
tioned on  something,  and  that  that  something  must  be  as  real  as  anything 
can  be.  This  "soul"  is  in  a  certain  sense  different  from  knowledge  and  in 
another  sense  identical  with  it.  So  far  as  one's  knowledge  is  concerned  the 
soul  is  identical  with  it,  but  so  far  as  some  one  else's  knowledge  is  con- 
cerned it  is  different  from  it.  The  true  nature  of  soul  is  right  knowledge, 
right  faith  and  right  conduct.  The  soul,  so  long  as  it  is  subject  to  transmi- 
gration, is  undergoing  evolution  and  involution. 

The  second  principle  is  nonsoul.  It  is  not  simply  what  we  understand 
by  matter,  but  it  is  more  than  that.  Matter  is  a  term  contrary  to  soul.  But 
nonsoul  is  its  contradictory.     Whatever  is  not  sou!  is  nonsoul. 

The  rest  of  the  nine  principles  are  but  the  different  states  produced  by 
the  combination  and  separation  of  soul  and  nonsoul.  The  third  principle  is 
merit;  that  on  account  of  which  a  being  is  happy.  The  fourth  principle  is 
demerit;  that  on  account  of  which  a  being  suffers  from  misery.  The  fifth 
is  the  state  which  brings  in  merit  and  demerit.  The  seventh  is  destruction 
of  actions.  The  eighth  is  bondage  of  soul,  with  actions.  The  ninth  is 
total  and  permanent  freedom  of  soul  from  all  actions. 

Substance  is  divided  into  the  sentient,  or  conscious,  matter,  stability, 

Coypright,  18Q3,  by  J.  H.  B. 


GHANDI:    ETHICS   OF   THE   JAINS.  I223 

space  and  time.  Six  kinds  of  living  beings  are  divided  into  six  classes, 
earth  body  beings,  water  body  beings,  fire  body  beings,  wind  body  beings, 
vegetables,  and  all  of  them  having  one  organ  of  sense,  that  of  touch.  These 
are  again  divided  into  four  classes  of  beings  having  two  organs  of  sense, 
those  of  touch  and  of  taste,  such  as  tapeworms,  leeches,  etc.;  beings  having 
three  organs  of  sense,  those  of  taste,  touch  and  smell,  such  as  ants,  lice,  etc.; 
beings  having  four  organs  of  sense,  those  of  touch,  taste,  smell  and  sight, 
such  as  bees,  scorpions,  etc.;  beings  having  five  organs  of  sense,  those  of 
touch,  taste,  smell,  sight  and  hearing.  These  are  human  beings,  animals, 
birds,  men  and  gods.  All  these  living  beings  have  four,  five  or  six  of  the 
following  capacities  :  capacity  of  taking  food,  capacity  of  constructing 
body,  capacity  of  constructing  organs,  capacity  of  respiration,  capacity  of 
speaking  and  the  capacity  of  thinking.  Beings  having  one  organ  of  sense, 
that  is,  of  touch,  have  the  first  four  capacities.  Beings  having  two,  three 
and  four  organs  of  sense,  have  the  first  five  capacities,  while  those  having 
five  organs  have  all  the  six  capacities. 

The  Jain  canonical  book  treats  very  elaborately  of  the  minute  divisions 
of  the  living  beings,  and  their  prophets  have  long  before  the  discovery  of 
the  microscope  been  able  to  tell  how  many  organs  of  sense  the  minutest 
animalcule  has.  I  would  refer  those  who  are  desirous  of  studying  jain 
biology,  zoology,  botany,  anatomy  and  physiology  to  the  many  books  pub- 
lished by  our  society. 

I  shall  now  refer  to  the  four  states  of  existence.  They  are  naraka, 
tiryarch,  manushyra  and  deva.  Naraka  is  the  lowest  state  of  existence, 
that  of  being  a  denizen  of  hell  ;  tiryarch  is  next,  that  of  having  an  earth 
body,  water  body,  fire  body,  wind  body,  vegetable,  of  having  two,  three  or 
four  organs,  animal  and  birds.  The  third  is  manushyra,  of  being  a  man, 
and  the  fourth  is  deva,  that  of  being  a  denizen  of  the  celestial  world.  The 
highest  state  of  existence  is  the  Jain  Moksha,  the  apotheosis  in  the  sense 
that  the  mortal  being  by  the  destruction  of  all  Karman  attains  the  highest 
spiritualism,  and  the  soul  being  severed  from  all  connection  with  matter 
regains  its  purest  state  and  becomes  divine. 

Having  briefly  stated  the  principal  articles  of  Jain  belief,  I  come  to  the 
grand  questions  the  answers  to  which  are  the  objects  of  all  religious  inquiry 
and  the  substance  of  all  creeds. 

I.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  universe? 

This  involves  the  question  of  God.  Gautama,  the  Buddha,  forbids 
inquiry  into  the  beginning  of  things.  In  the  Brahmanical  literature  bear- 
ing on  the  constitution  of  cosmos  frequent  reference  is  made  to  the  days  and 
nights  of  Brahma,  the  periods  of  Manuantara  and  the  periods  of  Peroloya. 
But  the  Jains,  leaving  all  symbolical  expressions  aside,  distinctly  reaffinn 
the  view  previously  promulgated  by  the  previous  hierophants,  that  mat- 
ter and  soul  are  eternal  and  cannot  be  created.  You  can  affirm  exist- 
ence of  a  thing  from  one  point  of  view,  deny  it  from  another  and  afhrm  both 


1224  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

existence  and  non-existence  with  reference  to  it  at  different  times.  If  you 
should  think  of  affirming  both  existence  and  non-existence  at  the  same  time 
from  the  same  point  of  view,  you  must  say  that  the  thing  cannot  be  spoken 
of  similarly.  Under  certain  circumstances  the  affirmation  of  existence  is 
not  possible  ;  of  non-existence  and  also  of  both. 

What  is  meant  by  these  seven  modes  is  that  a  thing  should  not  be  con- 
sidered as  existing  everywhere  at  all  times,  in  all  ways,  and  in  the  form  of 
everything.  It  may  exist  in  one  place  and  not  in  another  at  one  time.  It 
is  not  meant  by  these  modes  that  there  is  no  certainty,  or  that  we  have  to 
deal  with  probabilities  only  as  some  scholars  have  taught.  Even  the  great 
Vedantist  Sankaracharya  has  possibly  erred  when  he  says  that  the  Jains  are 
agnostics.  All  that  is  implied  is  that  every  assertion  which  is  true  is  true 
only  under  certain  conditions  of  substance,  space,  time,  etc. 

This  is  the  great  merit  of  the  Jain  philosophy,  that  while  other  philoso- 
phies make  absolute  assertions,  the  Jain  looks  at  things  from  all  standpoints, 
and  adapts  itself  like  a  mighty  ocean  in  which  the  sectarian  rivers  merge 
themselves.  What  rs  God,  then  ?  God,  in  the  sense  of  an  extra  cosmic 
personal  creator,  has  no  place  in  the  Jain  philosophy.  It  distinctly  denies 
such  creator  as  illogical  and  irrelevant  in  the  general  scheme  of  the  universe. 
But  it  lays  down  that  there  is  a  subtle  essence  underlying  all  substances, 
conscious  as. well  as  unconscious,  which  becomes  an  eternal  cause  of  all 
modifications,  and  is  termed  God. 

The  doctrine  of  'the  transmigration  of  soul,  or  the  reincarnation,  is 
another  grand  idea  of  the  Jain  philosophy.  The  companion  doctrine  of 
transmigration  is  the  doctrine  of  Karma.  The  Sanskrit  of  the  word  Karma 
means  action.  "  With  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you 
again,"  and  "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap,"  are  but  the 
corollaries  of  that  most  intricate  law  of  Karman.  It  solves  the  problem  of 
the  inequality  and  apparent  injustice  of  the  world. 

The  Karman  in  the  Jain  philosophy  is  divided  into  eight  classes  :  Those 
which  act  as  an  impediment  to  the  knowledge  of  truth ;  those  which  act  as 
an  impediment  to  the  right  insight  of  various  sorts ;  those  which  give  one 
pleasure  or  pain,  and  those  which  produce  bewilderment.  The  other  four 
are  again  divided  into  other  classes,  so  minutely  that  a  student  of  Jain  Kar- 
man philosophy  can  trace  any  effect  to  a  particular  Karma.  No  other  Indian 
philosophy  reads  so  beautifully  and  so  clearly  the  doctrine  of-  Karmas. 
Persons  who,  by  right  faith,  right  knowledge  and  right  conduct,  destroy  all 
Karman  and  thus  fully  develop  the  nature  of  their  soul,  reach  the  highest 
perfection,  become  divine  and  are  called  Jinas.  Those  Jinas  who,  in  every 
age,  preach  the  law  and  establish  the  order,  are  called  Tirtharkaras. 

2.  I  now  come  to  the  Jain  ethics,  which  direct  conduct  to  be  so  adapted 
as  to  insure  the  fullest  development  of  the  soul — the  highest  happiness,  that 
is  the  goal  of  human  conduct,  which  is  the  ultimate  end  of  human  action. 
Jainism  teaches  to  look  upon  all  living  beings  as  upon  oneself.     What  then 


VIRCHAND  A.GANDHI,  INDIA. 


DO  WE  NOT  WISH  THAT  THIS  l'ARLIAME>JT  WOULD  LAST  SEVENTEEN  TIMES  SEVENTEEN  DAVS? 
DO  WE  NOT  SEE  THAT  THE  SLBLIME  DREAM  OF  THE  ORCANIZEKS  OF  THIS  UNIQUE  PARLIAMENT 
HAS  BEEN  MORE  THAN  REALIZED?  I  NOW  THANK  VOU  FROM  THE  BOTTOM  OF  MV  HEART  FOR  THE 
KINDNESS  WITH  WHICH  VOU  HA\E  RECEIVED  LS,  AND  FOR  THE  LIBERAL  SPIRIT  AND  i'ATlENCE 
WITH  WHICH  VOL'  HAVE  HEARD  IS." 


1226  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

is  the  mode  of  attaining  the  highest  happiness  ?  The  sacred  books  of  the 
Brahmans  prescribe  devotion  and  Karma.  The  Vedanta  indicates  the  path 
of  knowledge  as  the  means  to  the  highest.  But  Jainism  goes  a  step  farther 
and  says  that  the  highest  happiness  is  to  be  obtained  by  knowledge  and 
religious  observances.  The  five  Maharatas  or  great  commandments  for 
Jain  ascetics  are: 

Not  to  kill,  i.  e.,  to  protect  all  life  ;  not  to  lie  ;  not  to  take  that  which  is 
not  given  ;  to  abstain  from  sexual  intercourse ;  to  renounce  all  interest  in 
worldly  things,  especially  to  call  nothing  one's  own. 


SPIRITUAL  IDEAS  OF  THE  BRAHMO-SOMAJ. 
By  B.  B.  Nagarkar,  of  Bombay. 

During  the  last  few  days  various  faiths  have  been  pressing  their  claims 
upon  your  attention.  And  it  must  be  a  great  puzzle  and  perplexity  for  you 
to  accept  any  of  these  or  all  of  these.  But  during  all  these  discussions  and 
debates  I  would  earnestly  ask  you  all  to  keep  in  mind  one  prominent  fact  — 
that  the  essence  of  all  these  faiths  is  one  and  the  same.  The  truth  that  lies 
at  the  root  of  them  all  is  unchanged  and  unchanging.  But  it  requires  an 
impartial  and  dispassionate  consideration  to  understand  and  appreciate  this 
truth.     One  of  the  poets  of  our  country  has  said  :  • 

"When  scriptures  differ,  and  faiths  disagree,  a  man  should  see  truth 
reflected  in  his  own  spirit." 

This  truth  cannot  be  observed  unless  we  are  prepared  to  forget  the  acci- 
dent of  our  nationality.  We  are  all  too  apt  to  be  carried  away  for  or  against 
a  system  of  religion  by  our  false  patriotism,  insular  nationality  and  scholarly 
egotism.  This  state  of  the  heart  is  detrimental  to  spiritual  culture  and  spir- 
itual development.  Self-annihilation  and  self-effacement  are  the  only  means 
of  realizing  the  verities  of  the  spiritual  world. 

1  stand  before  you  as  an  humble  member  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj,  and  if 
the  followers  of  other  religions  will  commend  to  your  attention  their  own 
respective  creeds,  my  humble  attempt  will  be  to  place  before  you  the  liberal 
and  cosmopolitan  principles  of  my  beloved  church. 

The  fundamental  spiritual  ideal  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  is  belief  in  the 
existence  of  one  true  God.  Now,  the  expression,  belief  in  the  existence  of 
God,  is  nothing  new  to  you.  In  a  way  you  all  believe  in  God,  but  to  us  of 
the  Brahmo-Somaj  that  belief  is  a  stern  reality;  it  is  not  a  logical  idea;  it 
is  nothing  arrived  at  after  an  intellectual  process.  It  must  be  our  aim  to 
feel  God,  to  realize  God  in  our  daily  spiritual  communion  with  him.  We 
must  be  able,  as  it  were,  to  feel  his  touch  —  to  feel  as  if  we  were  shaking 
hands  with  him.  This  deep,  vivid,  real  and  lasting  perception  of  the 
Supreme  Being  is  the  first  and  foremost  ideal  of  the  theistic  faith. 


NAGARKAR:    IDEALS   OF   THE    BRAHMO-SOMAJ.       122; 

You,  in  the  western  countries,  are  too  apt  to  forget  this  ideal.  The 
ceaseless  demand  on  your  time  and  energy,  the  constant  worry  and  hurry  of 
your  business  activity  and  the  artificial  conditions  of  your  western  civiliza- 
tion are  all  calculated  to  make  you  forgetful  of  the  personal  presence  of 
God.  You  are  too  apt  to  be  satisfied  with  a  mere  belief  —  perhaps,  at  best, 
a  national  belief  in  God.  The  eastern  does  not  live  on  such  a  belief,  and 
such  a  belief  can  never  form  the  life  of  a  life-giving  faith.  It  is  said  that 
the  way  to  an  Englishman's  heart  is  through  his  stomach ;  that  is,  if  you 
wish  to  reach  his  heart  you  must  do  so  through  the  medium  of  that  wonder- 
ful organ  called  the  stomach. 

Wherein  does  the  heart  of  a  Hindu  lie  ?  It  lies  in  his  sight.  He  is 
not  satisfied  unless  and  until  he  has  seen  God.  The  highest  dream  of  his 
spiritual  life  is  God-vision. 

The  second  spiritual  ideal  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  is  the  unity  of  truth. 
We  believe  that  truth  is  bom  in  time  but  not  in  a  place.  No  nation,  no 
people,  no  community  has  any  exclusive  monopoly  of  God's  truth.  It  is 
a  misnomer  to  speak  of  truth  as-  Christian  truth,  Hindu  truth  or  Mohamme- 
dan truth. 

Truth  is  the  body  of  God.  In  his  own  providence  he  sends  it  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  nation  or  a  people,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  that 
nation  or  that  people  should  pride  themselves  for  having  been  the  medium 
of  that  truth.  Thus,  we  must  always  be  ready  to  receive  the  Gospel  truth 
from  whatever  country  and  from  whatever  people  it  may  come  to  us.  We 
all  believe  in  the  principle  of  free  trade  or  unrestricted  exchange  of  goods. 
And  we  eagerly  hope  and  long  for  the  golden  day  when  people  of  every 
nation  and  of  every  clime  will  proclaim  the  principle  of  free  trade  in  spirit- 
ual matters  as  ardently  and  as  zealously  as  they  are  doing  in  secular  affairs 
or  in  industrial  matters. 

The  third  spiritual  ideal  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  is  the  harmony  of  pro- 
phets. We  believe  that  the  prophets  of  the  world — spiritual  teachers  such 
Vyas  and  Buddha,  Moses  and  Mohammed,  Jesus  and  Zoroaster,  all  form  a 
homogeneous  whole.  Each  has  to  teach  mankind  his  own  message.  Every 
prophet  was  sent  from  above  with  a  distinct  message,  and  it  is  the  duty  of 
us  who  live  in  these  advanced  times  to  put  these  messages  together  and 
thereby  harmonize  and  unify  the  distinctive  teachings  of  the  prophets  of  the 
world.  It  would  not  do  to  accept  the  one  and  reject  all  the  others,  or  to 
accept  some  and  reject  even  a  single  one.  The  general  truths  taught  by 
these  different  prophets  are  nearly  the  same  in  their  essence  ;  but  in  the 
midst  of  all  these  universal  truths  that  they  taught,  each  has  a  distinctive 
truth  to  teach,  and  it  should  be  our  earnest  purpose  to  find  out  and  under- 
stand this  particular  truth.  To  me  Vyas  teaches  how  to  understand  and 
apprehend  the  attributes  of  divinity.  The  Jewish  prophets  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament teach  the  idea  of  the  sovereignty  of  God ;  they  speak  of  God  as  a 
king,   a    monarch,    a    sovereign    who    rules  over  the  affairs  of  mankind  as 


1228  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

nearly  and  as  closely  as  an  ordinary  human  king.  Mohammed,  on  the 
other  hand,  most  emphatically  teaches  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  God.  He 
rebelled  against  the  trinitarian  doctrine  imported  into  the  religion  of  Christ 
through  Greek  and  Roman  influences.  The  monotheism  of  Mohammed 
is  hard  and  unyielding,  aggressive  and  almost  savage.  I  have  no  sympathy 
with  the  errors  or  erroneous  teachings  of  Mohammedanism,  or  of  any 
religion  for  that  matter.  In  spite  of  all  such  errors  Mohammed's  ideal  of 
the  unity  of  God  stands  supreme  and  unchallenged  in  his  teachings.    . 

Buddha,  the  great  teacher  of  morals  and  ethics,  teaches  in  most  sub- 
lime strains  the  doctrine  of  Nirvana,  or  self-denial  and  self-effacement. 
This  principle  of  .extreme  self-abnegation  means  nothing  more  than  the  sub- 
jugation and  conquest  of  our  carnal  self. 

So,  also,  Christ  Jesus  of  Nazareth  taught  a  sublime  truth  when  he  incul- 
cated the  noble  idea  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  He  taught  many  other 
truths,  but  the  Fatherhood  of  God  stands  supreme  above  them  all.  The 
brotherhood  of  m'an  is  a  mere  corollary,  or  a  conclusion,  deduced  from  the 
idea  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  Jesus  taught  this  truth  in  the  most 
emphatic  language,  and  therefore  that  is  the  special  message  that  he  has 
brought  to  fallen  humanity.  In  this  way,  by  means  of  an  honest  and  ear- 
nest study  of  the  lives  and  teachings  of  different  prophets  of  the  world,  we 
can  find  out  the  central  truth  of  each  faith.  Having  done  this  it  should  be 
our  highest  aim  to  harmonize  all  these  and  to  build  up  our  spiritual  nature 
on  them. 

In  the  fourth  place  we  believe  that  the  religion  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  is 
a  dispensation  of  this  age  ;  it  is  a  message  of  unity  and  harmony ;  of  uni- 
versal amity  and  unification,  proclaimed  from  above.  We  do  not  believe  in 
the  revelation  of  books  and  men,  of  histories  and  historical  records.  We 
believe  in  the  infallible  revelation  of  the  spirit — in  the  message  that  comes 
to  man,  by  the  touch  of  a  human  spirit  with  the  Supreme  Spirit.  And  can  we 
even  for  a  moment  ever  imagine  that  the  Spirit  of  God  has  ceased  to  work 
in  our  midst  ?  No,  we  cannot.  Even  to-day  God  communicates  his  will 
to  mankind  as  truly  and  as  really  as  he  did  in  the  days  of  Christ  or  Moses, 
Mohammed  or  Buddha. 

The  dispensations  of  the  world  are  not  isolated  units  of  truth,  but 
viewed  at  as  a  whole,  and  followed  out  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest  in 
their  historical  sequence,  they  form  a  continuous  chain,  and  each  dispensa- 
tion is  only  a  link  in  this  chain.  It  is  our  bounden  duty  to  read  the  mes- 
sage of  each  dispensation  in  the  light  that  comes  from  above,  and  not 
according  to  the  dead  letter  that  might  have  been  recorded  in  the  past. 
The  interpretation  of  letters  and  words,  of  books  and  chapters,  is  a  drag 
behind  in  the  workings  of  the  spirit.  Truly  hath  it  been  said  that  the  letter 
killeth.  Therefore,  brethren,  let  us  seek  the  guidance  of  the  spirit,  and 
interpret  the  message  of  the  Supreme  Spirit  by  the  help  of  his  Holy  Spirit. 

Thus  the  Brahmo-Somaj  seeks  to  Hinduize  Hinduism,  Mohammedan- 


NAGARKAR  :  IDEALS  OF  THE  BRAHMO-SOMAJ.        I  229 

ize  Mohammedanism,  and  Christianize  Christianity.  And  whatever  the 
champions  of  old  Christian  orthodoxy  may  say  to  the  contrary,  mere  dogma 
can  never  give  life  to  any  country  or  community.  We  are  ready  and  most 
willing  to  receive  the  truths  of  the  religion  of  Christ  as  truly  as  the  truths  of 
the  religions  of  other  prophets,  but  we  shall  receive  these  from  the  life  and 
teachings  of  Christ  himself,  and  not  through  the  medium  of  any  church  or 
the  so-called  missionary  of  Christ.  If  Christian  missionaries  have  in  them 
the  meekness  and  humility,  and  the  earnestness  of  purpose  that  Christ  lived 
in  his  own  life,  and  so  pathetically  exemplified  in  his  glorious  death  on  (he 
cross,  let  our  missionary  friends  show  it  in  their  lives. 

Mere  rhetoric  is  not  reason,  nor  is  abuse  an  argument,  unless  it  be  the 
argument  of  a  want  of  common  sense.  And  we  are  not  disposed  to  quarrel 
with  any  people  if  they  are  inclined  to  indulge  in  these  two  instruments 
generally  used  by  those  who  have  no  truth  on  their  side.  For  these  our  only 
feeling  is  a  feeling  of  pity — unqualified,  unmodified,  earnest  pity,  and  we 
are  ready  to  ask  God  to  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  say. 

The  first  ideal  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  is  the  ideal  of  the  Motherhood  of 
God.  I  do  not  possess  the  powers  nor  have  I  the  time  to  dwell  at  length  on 
this  most  sublime  ideal  of  the  Church  of  Indian  Theism.  The  world  has 
heard  o£  God  as  the  almighty  Creator  of  the  universe,  as  the  omnipotent 
Sovereign  that  rules  the  entire  creation,  as  the  Protector,  the  Saviour  and  the 
Judge  of  the  human  race ;  as  the  Supreme  Being,  vivifying  and  enlivening 
the  whole  of  the  sentient  and  insentient  nature. 

We  humbly  believe  that  the  world  has  yet  to  understand  and  realize,  as 
it  never  has  in  the  past,  the  tender  and  loving  relationship  that  exists 
between  mankind  and  their  supreme,  universal,  divine  Mother.  .  Oh,  what  a 
world  of  thought  and  feeling  is  centered  in  that  one  monosyllabic  word  ma, 
which  in  my  language  is  indicative  of  the  English  word  mother!  Words 
cannot  describe,  hearts  cannot  conceive  of  the  tender  and  self-sacrificing 
love  of  a  human  mother.  Of  all  human  relations  the  relation  of  mother  to 
her  children  is  the  most  sacred  and  elevating  relation.  And  yet  our  frail 
and  fickle  human  mother  is  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  Divine  Mother 
of  the  entire  humanity,  who  is  the  primal  source  of  all  love,  of  all  mercy 
and  all  purity. 

The  deeper  the  realization  of  the  Motherhood  of  God,  the  greater  will 
be  the  strength  and  intensity  of  our  ideas  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the 
sisterhood  of  woman.  Once  we  see  and  feel  that  God  is  our  Mother,  all 
the  intricate  problems  of  theology,  all  the  puzzling  quibbles  of  church 
government,  all  the  quarrels  and  wranglings  of  the  so-called  religious  world 
will  be  solved  and  settled.  We  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  family  hold  that  a 
vivid  realization  of  the  Motherhood  of  God  is  the  only  solution  of  the  intri- 
cate problems  and  differences  in  the  religious  world. 

May  the  Universal  Mother  grant  us  all  her  blessings  to  understand  and 
appreciate  her  sweet  relationship  to  the  vast  family  of  mankind.  Let  us 
approach  her  footstool  in  the  spirit  of  her  humble  and  obedient  children. 


A  WHITE  LIFE  FOR  TWO. 
By  Frances  E.  Willard,  President  of  the  World's  W.  C.T.  U. 

I  dare  affirm  that  the  reciprocal  attraction  of  two  natures,  out  of  a 
thousand  million,  for  each  other,  is  the  strongest  though  one  of  the  most 
unnoted  proofs  of  a  beneficent  Creator.  It  is  the  fairest,  sweetest  rose  of 
time,  whose  petals  and  whose  perfume  expand  so  far  that  we  are  all  inclosed 
and  sheltered  in  their  tenderness  and  beauty.  For,  folded  in  its  heart,  we 
find  the  germ  of  every  home ;  of  those  beatitudes,  fatherhood  and  mother- 
hood ;  the  brotherly  and  sisterly  affection,  the  passion  of  the  patriot,  the 
calm  and  steadfast  love  of  the  philanthropist.  For  the  faithfulness  of  two, 
each  to  the  other,  alone  makes  possible  the  true  Home,  the  pure  Church, 
the  righteous  Nation,  the  great,  kind  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

Marriage  is  not,  as  some  surface-thinkers  have  endeavored  to  make 
out,  an  episode  in  man's  life  and  an  event  in  woman's ;  it  is  no  unequal 
covenant ;  it  is  the  sum  of  earthly  weal  or  woe  to  him  or  her  who  shares  its 
mystic  sacrament. 

This  gentle  age,  into  which  we  have  happily  been  bom,  is  attuning  the 
Twain  whom  God  hath  made  for  such  great  destiny  to  higher  harmonies 
than  any  other  age  has  known,  by  a  reform  in  the  denaturalizing  methods 
of  a  civilization  largely  based  on  force,  by  which  the  boy  and  girl  have 
hitherto  been  sedulously  trained  apart.  They  are  now  being  set  side  by  side 
in  school,  in  church,  in  government,  even  as  God  sets  male  and  female 
every\vhere  side  by  side  throughout  his  realm  of  law,  and  has  declared  them 
one  throughout  his  realm  of  grace.  We  are,  then,  beginning  to  train  those 
with  each  other  who  were  formed  for  each  other,  and  the  English-speaking 
home,  with  its  Christian  method  of  a  two-fold  headship,  based  on  laws 
natural  and  divine,  is  steadily  rooting  out  all  that  remains  of  the  mediaeval, 
continental,  and  harem  philosophies  concerning  this  greatest  problem  of  all 
time.  The  true  relations  of  that  complex  being  whom  God  created  by  utter- 
ing the  mystic  thought  that  had  in  it  the  potency  of  Paradise:  "In  our 
own  image  let  tis  make  man,  and  let  them  have  dominion  over  all  the  earth," 
will  ere  long  be  ascertained  by  means  of  the  new  correlation  and  attuning, 
each  to  other,  of  a  more  complete  humanity  upon  the  Christ-like  basis  that 
^'' there  shall  be  no  more  curse.''''  The  temperance  reform  is  this  correlation's 
necessary  and  true  forerunner,  for  while  the  race-brain  is  bewildered  it  can- 
not be  thought  out.  The  labor  reform  is  another  part,  for  only  under 
cooperation  can  material  conditions  be  adjusted  to  a  non-combatant  state 
of  society;  and  every  yoke  lifted  from  the  laboring  man  lifts  one  still  heavier 
from  the  woman  at  his  side.     The   equal  suffrage    movement  is  another 

1 2  Jo 


MISS   FRANXF.S  K.  WH.LARD,  CHICAGO. 


"  FROM  THE  DAY  YOIT  ASKED  ME  TO  PARTICIPATE  IN  THE  PARLIAMENT  OK  RELIGIONS,  IT  HAS 
BEEN  THE  FAVORITE  WISH  OF  MV  HEART  TO  DO  SO.  IT  SEEVS  TO  ME  TO  BE  THE  CROWN  OF  THE 
world's  EXPOSITION." 


/ 


12}2  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

part,  for  a  government  organized  and  conducted  by  one  half  the  human 
unit,  a  government  of  the  minority,  by  the  minority,  for  the  minority,  must 
always  bear  unequally  upon  the  whole.  The  social  purity  movement  could 
only  come  after  its  heralds,  the  three  other  reforms  I  have  mentioned, 
were  well  under  way,  because  alcoholized  brains  would  not  tolerate  its 
expression ;  women  who  had  not  learned  to  work  would  lack  the  individu- 
ality and  intrepidity  required  to  organize  it,  and  women  perpetually  to  be 
disfranchised  could  not  hope  to  see  its  final  purposes  wrought  out  in  law. 
But  back  of  all  were  the  father  and  mother  of  all  reforms — Christianity  and 
education — to  blaze  the  way  for  all  these  later  comers. 

The  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  is  doing  no  work  more 
important  than  that  of  reconstructing  the  ideal  of  womanhood.  In  an  age 
of  force,  woman's  greatest  grace  was  to  cling ;  in  this  age  of  peace  she 
doesn't  cling  much,  but  is  every  bit  as  tender  and  as  sweet  as  if  sh6  did. 
She  has  strength  and  individuality,  a  gentle  seriousness;  there  is  more  of 
the  sisterly,  less  of  the  syren  —  more  of  the  duchess  and  less  of  the  doll. 
Woman  is  becoming  what  God  intended  her  to  be,  and  Christ's  Gospel 
necessitates  her  being,  the  companion  and  counselor,  not  the  incumbrance 
and  toy,  of  man. 

Happily  for  us,  every  other  genuine  reform  helps  to  push  forward  the 
white  car  of  social  purity.  The  personal  habits  of  men  and  women  must 
reach  the  same  high  level.  To-day  a  woman  knows  that  she  must  walk  the 
straight  line  of  a  white  life  or  men  will  look  upon  her  with  disdain.  A  man 
needs,  for  his  own  best  good,  to  find  that,  in  the  eyes  of  women,  just  the 
same  is  true  of  him  —  and  evermore,  be  it  remembered,  this  earnest  effort 
to  bring  in  the  day  of  "sweeter  manners,  purer  laws"  is  as  much  in  man's 
interest  as  our  own. 

Why  are  the  laws  so  shamelessly  unequal  now?  Why  do  they  bear  so 
heavily  upon  the  weaker,  making  the  punishment  for  stealing  away  a 
woman's  honor  no  greater  than  that  for  stealing  a  silk  gown?  Why  is  the  age 
of  protection  or  consent  but  ten  years  in  twenty  states  of  America,  and  in  one, 
only  seven  years?  Our  laws  and  social  customs  make  it  too  easy  for  men 
to  do  wrong.  They  are  not  sufficiently  protected  by  the  strong  hand  of 
penalty  from  themselves,  from  the  sins  that  do  most  easily  beset  them,  and 
from  the  mad  temptations  that  clutch  at  them  on  every  side.  The  World's 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  has  taken  up  this  sacred  cause  of 
protection  for  the  home,  and  we  shall  never  cease  our  efforts  until  women 
have  all  the  help  that  law  can  furnish  them  throughout  the  world.  We  ask 
for  heavier  penalties,  and  that  the  age  of  consent  be  raised  to  eighteen 
years;  we  ask  for  the  total  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic,  which  is  leagued 
with  every  crime  that  is  perpetrated  against  the  physically  weaker  sex,  and 
we  ask  for  the  ballot,  that  law  and  law-maker  may  be  directly  influenced  by 
our  instincts  of  self-protection  and  home  protection. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  we  are  not  working  for  ourselves  alone  in  this  great 


J 


VVILLARD:   A   WHITE    LIFE    FOR   TWO.  1 233 

cause  of  social  purity.  As  an  impartial  friend  to  the  whole  human  race  in 
both  its  fractions,  man  and  woman,  I,  for  one,  am  not  more  in  earnest  for 
this  great  advance  because  of  the  good  it  brings  to  the  gentler,  than  because 
of  the  blessing  it  prophesies  for  the  stronger  sex.  I  have  long  believed  that 
when  that  greatest  of  all  questions,  the  question  of  a  life  companionship, 
shall  be  decided  on  its  merits,  pure  and  simple,  then  will  come  the  first  fair 
chance  ever  enjoyed  by  young  manhood  for  the  building  up  of  genuine  char- 
acter and  conduct. 

Multiplied  forces  in  law  and  gospel  are  to-day  conspiring  for  the  deliv- 
erance of  our  young  men  from  the  snares  of  their  present  artificial  environ- 
ment and  exaggerated  estimate  of  their  own  value ;  but  the  elevation  of 
their  sisters  to  the  plane  of  perfect  financial  and  legal  independence,  from 
which  the  girls  can  dictate  the  equitable  terms.  "  You  must  be  as  pure  and 
true  as  you  require  me  to  be,  ere  I  give  you  my  hand,"  is  the  brightest 
hope  that  gleams  in  the  sky  of  modern  civilization  for  our  brothers ;  and 
the  greater  freedom  of  women  to  make  of  marriage  an  affair  of  the  heart 
and  not  of  the  purse,  is  the  supreme  result  of  Christianity,  up  to  this  hour. 

With  all  its  faults,  and  they  are  many,  I  believe  the  present  marriage 
system  to  be  the  greatest  triumph  of  Christianity,  and  that  it  has  created 
and  conserves  more  happy  homes  than  the  world  has  ever  before  known. 
Any  law  that  renders  less  binding  the  mutual,  life-long  loyalty  of  one  man 
and  woman  to  each  other,  which  is  the  central  idea  of  every  home,  is  an 
unmitigated  curse  to  that  home  and  to  humanity.  Around  this  union,  which 
alone  renders  possible  a  pure  society  and  a  permanent  state,  the  law  should 
build  its  utmost  safeguards,  and  upon  this  union  the  Gospel  should  pronounce 
its  most  sacred  benedictions.  But  while  I  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evi- 
dent, I  believe  that  a  constant  evolution  is  going  forward  in  the  home  as  in 
every  other  place,  and  that  we  may  have  but  dimly  dreamed  the  good  in 
store  for  those  whom  God  for  holiest  love  hath  made. 

My  theory  of  marriage  in  its  relation  to  society  would  give  this  postu- 
late:" Husband  and  wife  are  one,  and  that  one  is — husband  and  wife.  I 
believe  that  they  will  never  come  to  the  heights  of  purity,  of  power  and 
peace,  for  which  they  were  designed  in  heaven,  until  this  better  law  prevails. 
One  undivided  half  of  the  world  for  wife  and  husband  equally;  co-educa- 
tion to  mate  them  on  the  plane  of  mind;  equal  property  rights  to  make  her 
God's  own  free  woman,  not  coerced  into  marriage  for  the  sake  of  support, 
nor  a  bond-slave  after  she  is  married,  who  asks  her  master  for  the  price  of 
a  paper  of  pins,  and  gives  him  back  the  change. 

I  believe  in  uniform  national  marriage  laws  ;  in  divorce  for  one  cause 
onlv;  in  legal  separation  on  account  of  drunkenness  and  other  abomina- 
tions; but  I  would  guard  {for  the  children  s  sake)  the  marriage  tie  by  every 
guarantee  that  could  make  it,  at  the  top  of  society,  the  most  coveted  estate 
of  the  largest-natured  and  most  endowed,  rather  than  at  the  bottom,  the 
necessary  refuge   of  the    smallest-natured    and    most    dependent   women. 

78 


1234  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

Besides  all  this,  in  the  interest  of  men,  in  order  that  their  incentives  to  the 
best  life  might  be  raised  to  the  highest  power,  I  would  make  women  so 
independent  of  marriage  that  men  who,  by  bad  habits  and  niggardly  estate, 
whether  physical,  mental  or  moral,  were  least  adapted  to  help  build  a  race 
of  human  angels,  should  find  the  facility  with  which  they  now  enter  its 
hallowed  precincts  reduced  to  the  lowest  minimum.  Until  God's  laws 
are  better  understood  and  more  reverently  obeyed,  marriage  cannot  reach 
its  best.  The  present  abnormal  style  of  dress  among  women,  heavily 
mortgages  the  future  of  their  homes  and  more  heavily  discounts  that  of 
their  children.  Add  to  this  the  utter  recklessness  of  immortal  consequences 
that  characterizes  the  mutual  conduct  of  so  many  married  pairs,  and  only 
the  everlasting  tendency  toward  good  that  renders  certain  the  existence 
and  supremacy  of  a  goodness  that  is  infinite,  can  explain  so  much  health 
and  happiness  as  our  reeling  old  world  persists  in  holding  while  it  rolls 
onward  toward  some  far-off  perfection,  bathed  in  the  sunshine  of  God's 
Omnipotent  Love. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  GOD  IN  MAN.       " 
By  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton. 

As  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  ultimatum  of  religious  faith  it  may  be 
legitimate  to  ask,  What  will  the  next  step  be  ?  As  we  are  all  alike  inter- 
ested in  the  trend  of  religious  thought  no  one  should  feel  aggrieved  in 
hearing  his  creed  fairly  analyzed  or  in  listening  to  speculations  as  to  some- 
thing better  in  the  near  future.  As  I  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  I  think  the 
next  form  of  religion  will  be  the  "religion  of  humanity,"  in  which  men  and 
women  will  worship  what  they  see  of  the  divine  in  each  other  ;  the  virtues, 
the  beatitudes,  the  possibilities  ascribed  to  Deity,  reflected  in  mortal  beings. 

To  stimulate  our  reverence  for  the  Great  Spirit  of  life  that  set  all  things 
in  motion  and  holds  them  forever  in  their  places,  our  religious  teachers  point 
us  to  the  grandeur  of  nature  in  all  her  works. 

By  all  the  wonders  and  mysteries  that  surround  us  we  are  led  to  ques- 
tion the  source  of  what  we  see  and  to  judge  the  powers  and  possibilities  of 
the  Creator  by  the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  his  works.  Measuring  man  by 
the  same  standard,  we  find  that  all  the  sources  and  qualities  the  most  exalted 
mind  ascribes  to  his  ideal  God  are  reproduced  in  a  less  degree  in  the  noble 
men  and  women  who  have  glorified  the  race.  Judging  man  by  his  works, 
what  shall  we  say  to  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  of  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes,  Diana's  Temple  at  Ephesus,  the  Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus,  the 
Pyramids  of  Egypt,  the  Pharos  at  Alexandria,  the  Hanging  Gardens  at 
Babylon,  and  the  Olympian  Zeus  ?  True,  these  are  all  crumbling  to  dust, 
but  change  is  law,  too,  in  all  nature's  works. 


STANTON:   GOD    IN    MAN.  I  23 5 

Tlie  manifestation  of  man's  power  is  more  varied  and  wonderful  as  the 
ages  roll  on. 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  discoveries  and  inventions  bf  the  past 
lifty  years,  by  which  the  labors  of  the  world  have  been  lifted  from  the 
shouklers  of  men,  to  be  done  henceforth  by  the  tireless  machines? 

Man  has  manifested  wisdom,  too,  as  well  as  power.  In  fact,  what  car- 
dinal virtue  has  he  not  shown,  through  all  the  shifting  scenes  of  the  pass- 
ing centuries  ?  The  page  of  history  glows  with  the  great  deeds  of  noble 
men  and  women.  What  courage  and  heroism,  what  self-sacrifice  and 
sublime  faith  in  principle  have  they  not  shown  in  persecution  and  death, 
mid  the  horrors  of  war,  the  sorrows  of  exile^  and  the  weary  years  of  prison 
life  ?  What  could  sustain  mortal  man  in  this  awful  "  solitude  of  self"  but 
the  fact  that  the  great  moral  forces  of  the  universe  are  bound  up  in  his 
organization  ?  What  are  danger,  death,  exile  and  dungeon  walls  to  the 
great  spirit  of  life  incarnate  in  him  ? 

The  old  idea  of  mankind  as  "  totally  depraved,"  his  morality  "but 
filthy  rags,"  his  heart  "deceitful  above  all  things  and  desperately  wicked," 
his  aspirations  "but  idle  dreams  of  luxury  and  selfishness,"  are  so  many 
reflections  on  the  Creator,  who  is  said  to  be  perfect  and  to  have  made  man 
in  his  own  image.  The  new  religion  will  teach  the  dignity  of  human 
nature  and  its  infinite  possibilities  for  development.  It  will  teach  the  soli- 
darity of  the  race  that  all  must  rise  or  fall  as  one.  Its  creed  will  be  Justice, 
Liberty,  Equality  for  all  the  children  of  earth. 

The  Old  and  New  Testaments,  which  Christians  accept  as  their  rule  of 
life,  are  full  of  these  lessons  of  universal  benevolence.  "  If  you  love  not 
man  whom  you  have  seen,  how  can  you  love  God  whom  you  have  not 
seen  ?"  Jesus  said  to  his  disciples,  "  Whatsoever  you  have  done  unto  these, 
my  brethren,  ye  have  done  unto  me."  "When  I  was  hungry  ye  gave  me 
meat,  when  naked  ye  clothed  me,  when  in  prison  ye  ministered  unto  me." 
When  the  young  man  asked  what  he  should  do  to  be  saved,  Jesus  did  not 
tell  him  he  must  believe  certain  dogmas  and  creeds,  but  to  go  and  sell  all 
that  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor. 

The  prophets  and  apostles  alike  taught  a  religion  of  deeds  rather 
than  forms  and  ceremonies.  "Away  with  your  new  moons,  your  sabbaths 
and  your  appointed  feasts  ;  the  worship  God  asks  is  that  you  do  justice  and 
love  mercy."  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons."  "He  has  made  of  one 
blood  all  tlie  nations  of  the  earth."  When  the  pulpits  in  our  land  shall 
preach  from  these  texts  and  enforce  these  lessons,  the  religious  conscience 
of  the  people  will  take  new  form  of  expression,  and  those  who  in  very  truth 
accept  the  teachings  of  Jesus  will  make  it  their  first  duty  to  look  after  the 
lowest  stratum  of  humanity. 

To  build  a  substantial  house,  we  begin  with  the  cellar  and  lay  the 
foundations  strong  and  deep,  for  on  it  depends  the  safety  of  the  whole 
superstructure.     So  in  race  building,  for  noble  specimens  of  humanity,  for 


1236  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

peace  and  prosperity  in  their  conditions  we  must  begin  with  the  lowest 
stratum  of  society  and  see  that  the  masses  are  well  fed,  clothed,  sheltered, 
educated, -elevated  and  enfranchised.  Social  morality,  clean,  pleasant  enti- 
ronments,  must  precede  a  spiritual  religion  that  enables  man  to  understand 
the  mysteries  binding  him  to  the  seen  and  unseen  universe. 

This  radical  work  cannot  be  done  by  what  is  called  charity,  but  by 
teaching  sound  principles  of  domestic  economy  to  our  educated  classes, 
showing  that  by  law,  custom  and  false  theories  of  natural  rights,  they  are 
responsible  for  the  poverty,  ignorance  and  vice  of  the  masses.  Those  who 
train  the  religious  conscience  of  the  people  must  teach  the  lesson  that  all 
these  artificial  distinctions  in  society  must  be  obliterated  by  securing  equal 
conditions  and  opportunities  for  all  :  this  cannot  be  done  in  a  day,  but  this 
is  the  goal  for  which  we  must  strive.  The  first  step  to  this  end  is  to  educate 
the  people  into  the  idea  that  such  a  moral  revolution  is  possible. 

It  is  folly  to  talk  of  a  just  government  and  a  pure  religion  where  the 
state  and  the  church  alike  sustain  an  aristocracy  of  wealth  and  ease,  while 
those  who  do  the  hard  work  of  the  world  have  no  share  in  the  blessings  and 
riches  that  their  continued  labors  have  made  possible  for  others  to  enjoy. 
Is  it  just  that  the  many  should  ever  suffer  that  the  few  may  shine  ? 

"Equal  rights  for  all"  is  the  lesson  this  hour.  "That  cannot  be,"  says 
some  faithless  conservative:  "if  you  should  distribute  all  things  equally 
to-day  they  would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  few  to-morrow."  Not  if  the  relig- 
ious conscience  of  the  people  were^educated  to  believe  that  the  way  to  salva- 
tion was  not  in  creed  and  greed,  but  in  doing  justice  to  their  fellow  men. 
Not  if  altruism,  instead  of  egoism,  were  the  law  of  social  morals.  Not  if 
cooperation,  instead  of  competition,  were  the  rule  in  the  world  of  work.  Not 
if  legislation  were  ever  in  the  interest  of  the  many,  rather  than  the  few. 
Educate  the  rising  generation  into  these  broader  prinoiples  of  government, 
religion  and  social  life,  and  then  ignorance,  poverty  and  vice  will  disappear. 


CHRISTIANITY   AS   SEEN    BY  A  VOYAGE    AROUND 

THE  WORLD. 

By  Rev.  F.  E.  Clark,  D.D.,  President  of  the  United  Society  of 

Christian  Endeavor. 

In  order  that  it  may  be  known  exactly  what  countries  the  voyager  who 
has  been  asked  to  prepare  this  paper  has  actually  seen,  it  may  not  be  out  of 
place  to  say  that  he  sailed  from  San  Francisco  for  Australia  early  in  August, 
1892,  and  that,  after  making  a  zigzag  course  around  the  world  of  nearly 
40,000  miles,  he  reached  New  York  after  an  absence  of  nearly  eleven 
months  late  in  June  of  1893.  In  the  course  of  these  eleven  months  he  had  the 
most  delightful  privilege  of  seeing  something  of  Christian  work  and  activity 
in  Australia,  China,  Japan,  India,  Egypt,  Syria,  Turkey,  Greece,  Italy,  Spain, 
France  and  England.  He  visited  all  the  large  cities  which  were  accessible 
in  such  a  journey,  such  as  Melbourne  and  Sydney,  Adelaide  and  Ballarat 
and  Brisbane,  Canton,  Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai,  Tokio,  Kyoto,  Nagoya, 
Osaka,  Kobe,  Yokohama  and  Okyama,  Madura  and  Madras,  Calcutta, 
Lucknow,  Allahabad,  Poona,  Ahinednagar  and  Bombay,  Cairo  and  Alexan- 
dria, Jerusalem  and  Beirut,  Tarsus,  Adana,  Caesarea,  Angora,  Broussa  and 
Constantinople,  Athens,  Rome,  Venice  and  Genoa,  San  Sebastian  in  Spain, 
Paris  and  London,  Manchester  and  Birmingham,  Dublin,  Belfast  and  Liver- 
pool, besides  many  other  places  of  scarcely  inferior  importance.  Moreover, 
his  errand  was  a  distinctively  religious  one,  having  been  invited  to  attend 
conventions  or  gatherings  of  young  people  in  most  of  these  cities,  and  being 
under  the  auspices  and  guidance  of  devoted  Christian  workers  and  mission- 
aries in  every  land  that  his  feet  touched.  The  opinions  of  such  a  traveler 
may  be  superficial,  but  he,  at  least,  has  an  opportunity  for  a  comprehensive 
view,  and  must  be  a  dull  scholar  indeed  if  he  learns  nothing  of  the  problems 
which  he  came  to  study,  or  of  the  great  facts  of  Christianity  which  he  came 
to  view. 

One  impression  which  was  very  strongly  made  on  the  mind  of  this  voy- 
ager was  that  Christianity  is  an  exceedingly  real,  substantial  and  vital  thing 
in  every  part  of  the  world.  In  spite  of  the  insinuations  of  prejudiced 
"globe-trotters,"  who  will  not  allow  that  Christianity  has  made  even  a  rip- 
ple on  the  stagnant  pool  of  heathenism,  he  came  very  soon  to  know  that  the 
religion  of  Christ  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  among  the  yellow- 
skinned,  almond-eyed  people  of  the  East  as  well  as  among  the  Caucasians 
of  the  West. 

For  instance,  this  traveler  around  the  world  touched  at  the  Port  of  Apia 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1337 


1238  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

in  Samoa.  He  was  kindly  and  courteously  received  by  the  natives,  was 
shown  two  beautiful  Protestant  cliurches  of  cut  stone,  wiiich  were  built 
largely  by  the  efforts  of  the  native  converts,  was  assured  by  one  high  in 
political  authority  that  the  voice  of  prayer  and  praise  would  be  heard  that 
evening  at  family  devotions  in  almost  every  hut  on  the  island,  and  in  the 
matter  of  Sabbath  keeping,  so  far  as  the  native  population  of  Apia  was  con- 
cerned, the  little  town  was  another  Edinburgh  or  Toronto.  And  yet  not  far 
from  this  same  group  of  islands  there  still  live  savages  and  cannibals  where 
the  life  of  a  cast-away  would  not  be  guaranteed  for  five  minutes  even  as  an 
extra  risk  by  the  most  reckless  insurance  company  in  the  world,  and  where 
his  flesh  would  be  served  as  a  sweet  morsel  for  the  delectation  of  fortunate 
chiefs.  What  makes  the  difference  between  these  islands  ?  There  can  be 
but  one  answer,  and  that  is,  the  "  religion  of  Christ."  It  is  the  only  factor 
that  causes  Samoa  to  differ  from  New  Guinea. 

Another  impression  which  is  very  distinctly  made  upon  the  mind  of  a 
voyager  round  the  world  is  that  Christianity  is  absolutely  superior  in  its 
motive  power,  its  purifying  influence  and  its  uplifting  inspiration  frorn  any 
and  all  other  religions  with  which  it  comes  in  competition. 

The  greasy  bull  of  Madura. and  Tanjore  has  little  in  common  with  the 
Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world.  The  hopeless,  non- 
chalant, indifferent  tom-tom  beating  of  the  priests  of  Canton  has  no  point  of 
contact  with  the  worship  of  Him  who  must  be  worshiped  inspirit  and  truth. 
Even  the  religion  of  the  Buddhist  of  Japan,  which  has  more  of  life  and 
reality  in  it  than  the  religions  of  many  other  non-Christian  lands,  even  the 
devotion  which  leads  women  to  sacrifice  their  tresses,  that  they  may  be 
woven  into  cables  with  which  to  haul  the  beams  for  the  temples  of  their 
gods,  bear  little  resemblance  to  the  intelligent  faith  and  hope  and  charity 
which  constitute  the  strength  of  Christian  manhood  and  the  grace  of 
Christian  womanhood. 

Again,  a  traveler  around  the  world  is  impressed  by  the  large  part  which 
is  assigned  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  races  in  the  spread  of  the  principles  of 
Christianity.  Among  all  the  Christian  nations  of  the  world  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  must  take  the  lead  in  the  spread  of  the  faith  to  which  they 
have  given  their  allegiance.  Whatever  is  done  for  the  spread  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  during  the  next  century  at  least,  will  be  largely  accomplished  by  those 
who  speak  our  mother  tongue.  With  this  fact  I  was  profoundly  impressed 
during  my  own  journey.  In  regard  to  the  great  island  continent  of  Aus- 
tralia this  cannot  be  doubted.  Here  are  people  who  are  flesh  of  our  flesh 
and  bone  of  our  bone ;  here  flows  blood,  which  in  the  estimation  of  every 
American  is  thicker  than  water;  here  is  a  mighty  land  containing  as 
many  square  miles  as  the  United  States  of  America,  excluding  Alaska,  which 
is  settled  and  Christianized  by  the  Anglo-Saxons.  Along  the  shores  of  this 
interminable  island  for  ten  days  and  nights  I  sailed,  much  of  the  way  within 
the  Great  Barrier   reef   which,   for  more  than  a  thousand  miles,  stretches 


REV.  FRANCIS  E.  CLARK,  D.D.,  BOSTON. 


A  CBNTt.' 


CO  *  *  *  *  THE    VOVACER    WOULD    HAVE    POUND    CHRISTIANITY 

LIMITED  rRACTICALLY  TO  EUROPE  A.WD  AMERICA.       NOW  HE  SEES  A    VIGOROUS  AND    VIRILE  TVPE 
OFCHRISTIA.S  PIETY  IN  EVERY  GREAT  DIVISION  OF  THE  EARTH'S  SURPACK." 


1240  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    FIFTEENTH    DAV. 

along  the  shores  of  Australia.  Scarcely  for  an  hour  during  all  these  days 
did  we  lose  sight  of  these  endless  shores,  and  yet  the  huge  island  was  not 
half  circumnavigated  by  this  steamer.  On  all  these  coasts  the  Englishman 
has  full  sway;  the  dwindling  native  tribes  acknowledge  his  rule  even  when 
they  do  not  accept  his  God,  and  all  these  boundless  millions  of  square 
miles  of  hill  and  valley  and  wooded  slope  and  dreary  deserts,  which  may  yet 
be  reclaimed  and  made  to  blossom  as  the  rose,  is  a  part  of  the  vast  heritage 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

In  all  the  large  cities  of  this  land  which  has,  latest  of  all  the  continents, 
felt  the  touch  of  civilization  and  Christianity,  this  voyager  around  the  world 
found  great  gatherings  of  earnest  Christian  young  people  whose  one  purpose 
in  life  was  to  learn  their  Master's  ways  and  to  win  if  possible  their  great 
island  heritage  for  Christ.  Everywhere  he  found  unbounded  enthusiasm  for 
the  things  of  the  coming  kingdom,  and  a  sensible,  earnest,  unquenchable 
purpose  to  take  Australia  for  Christ.  With  the  essential  vigor,  naturalness 
and  reproductive  powers  of  this  Christianity  he  was  deeply  impressed,  and 
believes  that  the  nation  which  has  sent  out  a  John  G.  Paton,  and  which  so 
thoroughly  recognizes  her  responsibility  for  her  own  vast  hemisphere,  has  a 
very  large  part  to  play  in  the  evangelization  of  the  world. 

A  four-weeks  voyage  from  one  of  the'leading  ports  of  Australia  brings 
one  to  the  wonderful  land  of  Japan.  One  of  the  first  buildings  which  he  is 
likely  to  see  in  Yokohama  or  Kobe  is  a  commodious  Christian  church,  and 
the  first  Japanese  whom  he  may  meet  upon  the  street  it  is  not  unlikely  will 
be  an  earnest  and  devout  believer  in  the  same  Saviour  whom  the  voyager 
from  across  the  seas  has  learned  to  love  and  trust.  If  he  journeys  to'-the 
imperial  city  of  Tokyo  he  will  find  there  a  magnificent  university  established 
under  governmental  auspices  and  supported  by  government  funds.  But 
this  university  was  projected  and  started  by  a  Christian  missionary.  In 
the  sacred  city  of  Kyoto,  where  for  a  thousand  years  the  Mikado  lived,  is  a 
distinctively  Christian  university  scarcely  inferior  in  rank  to  the  Imperial 
University  itself.  This  great  school,  the  Doshisha,  founded  and  fostered  by 
its  first  president,  the  lamented  Neesima,  and  whose  present  president,  Mr. 
Kozaki,  honors  this  Parliament,  is  a  standing  monument  to  the  power  of 
Christianity  and  its  moulding  influence  in  the  Mikado's  empire.  In  fact,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  every  high  grade  school,  whether  a  distinctively 
Christian  school  or  under  the  control  of  the  government,  is  directly  the 
result  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  in  Japan.  U  is  not  fair  to  reckon 
the  influence  of  a  faith  by  any  process  of  arithmetic.  We  cannot  sum  up 
the  power  of  Christianity  in  Japan  by  counting  the  number  of  Protestant 
converts,  though  these  are  by  no  means  inconsiderable,  and  are  numbered 
by  tens  of  thousands.  Yet  now,  as  in  the  days  of  our  Lord,  in  Japan  as 
in  Palestine  and  in  .\merica,  Christianity  is  as  a  little  leaven  hid  in  three 
measures  of  meal.     One  of  these  days  will  the  whole  be  leavened. 

Only  three   or   four   days    by   steamer  from   the  smiling  coast  which 


CLARK:   CHRISTIANITY   IN   ALL   LANDS.  I24I 

embosoms  the  Inland  Sea  lies  the  great  nation  of  China,  so  strangely  sim- 
ilar to  and  yet  so  vastly  different  from  its  cousin  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Yellow  Sea.  In  Shanghai  the  traveler  finds  nearly,  if  not  quite,  a  hundred 
missionaries  of  different  boards  living  together  in  peace  and  concord,  and 
each  doing  their  best  to  win  some  portion  of  the  great  empire  for  Christ. 
Here  is  the  splendid  "plant"  of  the  China  Inland  Mission,  the  finest  mis- 
sion building  which  I  saw  in  any  part  of  the  world.  Here  is  the  vigorous 
work  of  the  American  Presbyterians  and  the  Southern  Methodists,  the  Bap- 
tists and  the  Adventists,  the  English  Independents  and.  the  Wesleyans.  Here 
one  will  meet  upon  the  streets  flaxen-haired  Saxons  in  Chinese  garb  and 
cap,  with  shaved  heads  and  long  blonde  queues  down  their  backs.  So  thor- 
oughly are  these  missionaries  of  the  cross  attempting  to  become  all  things 
to  all  men  if  by  any  means  they  may  win  some.  Such  scenes  the  traveler 
will  see  in  Canton  and  in  Peking,  in  Foochow  and  Nankin,  and  in  a  hun- 
dred other  places,  smaller  and  larger,  scattered  all  through  this  vast  human 
bee-hive  of  the  world,  called  the  Flowery  Kingdom. 

Then  as  he  hastens  on  to  India  he  still  finds  that  his  faith  is  known  and 
loved  and  respected.  From  the  southern  tip  of  the  great  triangular  penin- 
sula, where  Tuticorin  stretches  out  into  the  sea  to  the  snowy  height  of  Mt. 
Everest,  which  in  the  far  north  towers  up  above  all  the  mountains  in  the 
world,  the  voyager  will  find  his  faith  respected  and  his  Lord  loved  ;  not  by 
all  the  people,  to  be  sure,  but  by  elect  and  devout  souls  in  every  part  of  this 
greatest  appanage  of  the  British  crown.  Here  he  will  find  every  facility 
put  in  the  way  of  Christian  education  by  the  British  government,  which, 
dollar  for  dollar,  doubles  the  educational  appropriation  of  every  mis- 
sionary board  within  its  borders,  whose  students  pass  certain  government 
requirements. 

In  such  parts  of  India  as  the  Telugu  field,  where  the  Baptist  missionaries 
have  been  so  marvelously  blessed,  and  in  Northern  India,  where  the  same 
results  have  followed  the  labors  of  the  Methodist  board,  a  blessed  flood-tide 
of  Christian  influence  seems  to  be  sweeping  over  the  land.  The  "break"  in 
caste  distinctions  and  in  hereditary  animosity  to  Christianity,  for  which  the 
Christian  world  has  been  so  long  hoping  and  praying,  seems  to  have  already 
come.  The  restraining  dikes  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  seem  to  be  swept 
away,  or,  at  least,  if  not  wholly  gone,  the  streams  of  salvation  which  trickle 
through  them  show  that  the  crevasse  is  coming. 

In  only  one  nation  of  the  world  to-day  is  the  outlook  for  Christianity 
more  hopeless  than  it  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  and  that  is  the  nation 
which  is  cursed  by  the  reactionary  policy  of  the  timid  tyrant  who  reigns  in 
Constantinople.  Since  the  gradual  withdrawal  of  British  influence  from 
Turkey  the  subject  races  of  that  land  have  been  left  largely  unprotected,  and 
in  many  ways,  sometimes  slyly  and  sometimes  openly,  the  Sultan's  agents 
oppose  Christianity,  throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  education,  incite  riots  and 
mobs  to  burn  school-houses  and  churches,  and  in  every  way  are  seeking  to 


1242  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   FIFTEENTH    DAY. 

make  the  land  where  Christianity  first  had  its  birth  a  desert  of  Mohammedan 
superstition  and  bigotry.  The  petty  obstacles  which  are  thrown  in  the  way 
of  missionary  effort,  the  objections  to  Christian  literature  which  are  urged  by 
the  censor  of  the  press,  would  be  as  amusing  as  they  are  absurd  were  not  such 
serious  consequences  involved. 

But  God  still  reigns  in  heaven,  the  imprisoned  and  murdered  Christians 
call  to  him  for  vengeance,  the  awful  tyranny  and  the  petty  interference  of  the 
past  must  alike  come  to  an  end  in  the  better  days  that  are  coming,  and,  either 
by  some  justifiable  revolution  on  the  part  of  the  subject  races,  or  by  the 
interference  of  enlightened  Christian  nations,  who  would  not  delay  a  day 
longer  to  set  things  right  were  not  selfish  interest  involved,  will  bring  better 
days  and  brighter  prospects  even  to  the  land  of  the  Sultan.  There  is,  it  should 
be  said,  an  inherent  nobleness  and  strength  about  the  Turkish  character  itself 
(the  character  of  the  common  people  I  mean,  the  non-official  class)  which 
augurs  well  for  the  future  of  the  land  where  first  the  gospel  of  Christ  was 
preached. 

The  voyager  around  the  world  will  rejoice  in  all  that  is  good  in  the 
religion  of  the  Catholic  countries  of  Europe,  but  rejoices  still  more  in  their 
approximation  to  Protestant  ideas  and  in  the  light  which  is  shining  upon 
them  from  the  Reformation,  long  delayed  though  it  has  been,  in  such  move- 
ments as  that  of  the  Free  Italian  Church,  in  the  fruitful  missionary  work  of 
Bohemia,  in  the  extraordinary  McAlI  mission  work  of  France,  in  the  inter- 
esting American  School  for  Girls  at  San  Sebastian,  where,  in  this  anniver- 
sary year,  American  money  and  scholarship  is  beginning  to  repay  the  debt 
which  America  owes  to  Spain,  by  making  it  possible  for  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  the  ages  for  a  Spanish  girl  of  the  people  to  receive  a  worthy 
education. 

The  greatest  lack  in  modern  Protestant  Christianity,  as  seen  by  a 
traveler  around  the  world,  is  a  lack  of  unity  and  cooperation  on  the  part  of 
Protestant  Christians. 

The  most  pitiable  sight  which  I  saw  in  foreign  lands  was  that  of 
churches  which  had  been  gathered  out  of  heathenism  or  Mohammedism 
rent  in  twain  by  the  sectarian  jealousies  which  had  been  introduced  from  a 
so-called  Christian  land.  To  see,  as  is  occasionally  seen,  a  Christian  mis- 
sionary or  teacher  trying  to  build  up  a  church  not  from  the  foundation,  not 
out  of  the  ruins  of  heathenism,  but  by  building  on  another  man's  founda- 
tion, and  tearing  away  the  converts  from  the  truth  around  which  their 
minds  have  feebly  begun  to  twine,  in  order  that  some,  sect  or  ism  may  be 
built  up — this,  indeed,  is  disheartening  !  Thank  God  that  such  cases  are 
comparatively  rare. 


THE  SIXTEENTH  DA  Y. 


THE   ATTITUDE    OF   CHRISTIANITY   TOWARD 
OTHER  RELIGIONS. 

By  William  C.  Wilkinson. 

Observe  that  it  is  not  the  attitude  of  Christians,  but  the  attitude  of 
Christianity,  that  I  discuss.  And  it  is  not  the  attitude  of  Christianity  toward 
the  adherents  of  non-Christian  religions,  but  the  attitude  of  Christianity 
toward  those  religions  themselves. 

But  what  is  Christianity  ?  As  its  name  imports,  it  is  the  religion  of 
Christ.  Where  shall  we  look  to  find  the  religion  of  Christ  authoritatively 
described  ?  If  there  is  any  authoritative  description  of  Christianity  exist- 
ing, that  description  must  be  found  in  the  collection  of  writings  called  the 
Bible.  To  the  Bible  then  let  us  go  with  our  question.  What  is  the  attitude 
of  Christianity  toward  other  religions  ? 

Let  us  first  consider  what  the  New  Testament  report  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing and  of  his  apostles'  teachings  may  show  to  have  been  their  personal  atti- 
tude toward  religions  other  than  that  particular  religion  which  they  tiught. 

Perhaps  it  will  tend  to  clearness  if  we  try  to  enumerate  exhaustively 
the  possible  attitudes  which  might  be  held  by  a  religious  teacher  toward 
faiths  other  than  his  own.  First,  toward  such  other  faiths,  such  a  religious 
teacher  might  be  frankly  hostile  ;  second,  he  might  be  frankly  favorable  ; 
third,  he  might  be  partly  the  one  and  partly  the  other,  that  is,  liberally,  while 
critically,  eclectic ;  fourth,  he  might  be  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but 
neutral  or  indifferent ;  fifth,  he  might  be  quite  silent,  as  if  either  uninformed, 
or  purposely  abstinent  from  expression.  These  various  possibilities  respect 
the  conscious  and  express  attitude  of  the  religious  teacher  toward  religions 
other  than  his  own.  Besides  this  more  positive  attitude  openly  declared  on 
his  part,  there  would  be,  a  thing  not  less  important,  the  attitude  necessarily 
implied,  though,  not  explicitly  announced,  in  the  tone  and  in  the  terms  of 
his  teaching. 

It  might  at  first  blush  almost  appear  that,  as  to  Christ  himself,  his  own 
attitude  was  the  one  last  named,  that  of  determined,  absolute  silence  on  the 
subject.  It  would  not,  if  such  were  indeed  quite  the  case,  at  all  follow  that 
because  he  was  silent,  he  was  therefore  indifferent.  We  should  simply  be 
remitted  to  examining  the  necessary  implications,  bearing  on  the  point,  of 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

"43 


1244         PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

his  doctrine,  if  such  implications  there  were,  before  we  could  rightly  settle 
the  question  of  what  his  attitude  was.  But  the  fact  is  that  Jesus,  once  at 
least,  let  his  attitude  toward  a  religion  not  his  own  remarkably  appear. 

No  instance  of  closer  parallel  and  approach  between  religion  and  relig- 
ion ever  perhaps  occurred  than  occurred  between  the  religion  of  the  Jews 
and  the  religion  of  the  Samaritans.  The  two  religions  had  the  same  God, 
Jehovah,  the  same  supreme  law-giver,  Moses,  and,  with  certain  variations  of 
text,  the  same  body  of  authoritative  legislation,  the  Pentateuch.  Yet  Jesus, 
and  that  in  the  very  act  of  setting  forth  what  might  be  called  absolute  relig- 
ion (in  other  words,  religion  destitute  of  every  adventitious  feature),  definitely 
and  aggressively  asserted  the  truth  of  particular  Jewish  religious  claim,  in 
contrast  to  Samaritan  claim,  treated  on  the  contrary  as  inadmissible  and 
false,  adding,  ''  For  salvation  is  of  [from]  the  Jews."  These  added  words  are 
remarkable  words.  In  the  context  surrounding  and  commenting  them,  they 
can,  I  submit,  be  fairly  interpreted  in  no  other  way  than  as  meaning  that 
the  Jews  alone  of  all  peoples  had  the  true  religion,  the  one  only  religion  that 
could  save.  No  doubt  in  using  those  words  Jesus  had  reference  to  himself 
as  born  a  Jew,  and  as  being  himself  the  exclusive  personal  bringer  of  the 
salvation  spoken  of.  This  consideration  identifies  Judaism  with  Christian- 
ity, in  the  only  sense  of  such  identification  important  as  bearing  on  the  sub- 
ject of  present  discussion. 

Consider,  it  is  the  Author  himself  of  Christianity  that  speaks.  He 
speaks  in  such  a  manner  as,  on  the  one  hand,  virtually  to  identify  Judaism 
with  Christianity  in  the  chief  essential  respect,  that  of  constituting  a  religion 
able  to  save,  while  on  the  other  hand,  in  that  same  chief  essential  respect, 
distinguishing  Judaism  from  Samaritanism — still  more  therefore  from  every 
system  of  religious  doctrine  besides — by  ascribing  to  Judaism — Judaism  of 
course  conceived  as  Christo-centric,  the  chrysalis  of  Christianity — by  ascrib- 
ing to  Judaism  so  conceived,  exclusively  the  power  to  afford  salvation.  The 
author  of  Christianity,  then,  in  those  words  of  his,  substantially  adopts 
Judaism — not  perhaps  in  all  the  incidental  features  of  the  system,  but  at 
least  in  that  feature  of  it  which  must  be  considered  to  be,  theoretically  as 
well  as  practically,  more  important  than  any  other,  namely,  its  claim  to  be 
quite  alone  in  effective  offer  of  salvation  to  mankind.  If  Judaism  was 
narrow  and  exclusive  in  this  respect,  no  less  narrow  and  exclusive  in 
the  same  respect  was  Christianity.  Observe,  it  is  of  Judaism,  the  sys- 
tem, not  of  the  Jews,  the  professors  of  that  system,  that,  in  thus  attribut- 
ing narrowness  equally  to  Christianity  and  to  it,  I  now  speak.  The 
system  of  Judaism  is  contained  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  To 
those  documents  then  we  may  go  with  the  same  confidence  as  to  the  New 
Testament  itself,  in  order  to  learn  what  the  attitude  is  of  Christianity  toward 
alien  religions.  Of  all  religions  whatsoever,  it  may  be  said  comprehen- 
sively that  their  ostensible  object,  their  principal  pretension,  is  one  and  the 
same,  namely,  to  be  a  means  of  salvation  to  men.   As  to  all  religions  except 


KKv.  DAVID  J.  1!i;uki:ll. 

MKS.  I,.  K.  DICKINSON. 
KKV.  M.  [..  CDKUtJN. 


r,ISIl<il>  JF.NNF.K. 

MRS.  JUI.I A.  \V.\RD  IIDWI'.. 

lU-.KAN'l    M.  KIRKIVHJIAN. 


1246  PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY 

Judaism,  Jesus  teaches  that  the  pretension  is  false  ;  he  declares  that  human 
salvation  is  of  (from)  the  Jews,  and  the  force  of  the  language  is  such  as  to 
carry  the  rigorous  inference  that  he  meant  from  the  Jews  alone.  This  atti- 
tude of  his  is  of  course  an  attitude  of  frank  and  uncompromising  hostility  to 
every  religion  other  than  his  own,  that  is,  other  than  Christianity. 

But  now  having,  at  least  in  part,  settled  this  point,  let  us  make  a  needed 
distinction.  It  does  not  follow  that  because,  according  to  Christ,  the  non- 
Christian  religions  are  false  in  their  principal  claim,  the  claim  of  Irustworth- 
ily  offering  salvation  to  men,  they  ar^herefore,  according  to  him,  false  also 
in  every  particular  of  their  teachin^oOn  the  contrary,  if,  for  example,  we  find 
Buddhism  inculcating  truthfulness  /s  a  universal  obligation  upon  men,  why, 
evidently  the  fact  that  Buddhism  is,  according  to  Christ,  a  fallacious  offer 
of  human  salvation,  does  not  make  false  its  exhortations  against  lying.  ^ 
Such  exhortations  are,  in  the  abstract,  just  as  valid  in  Buddhism  as  they  arey 
in  Christianity.  Truth  is  truth,  wherever  it  is  found.  And  undoubtedly, 
the  ethnic  religions,  most  of  them,  if  not  all,  would  be  found  to  contain 
recognitions  of  important  ethical  truth.  It  would  be  the  purest  bigotry  to 
deny  this.  .    . 

But  Christianity,  in  its  Old  Testament  form,  came  into  close  contact 
with  a  considerable  number  of  the  various  dominant  religions  of  the  ancient 
world.  To  say  that  its  attitude  toward  all  these  was  hostile,  implacably 
hostile,  is  to  understate  the  fact.  The  fact  is,  that  the  one  unifying  principle 
that  reduces  to  order  and  evolution  the  history  recorded  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, is  the  principle  that  it  was  a  history  divinely  directed  to  the  efface- 
ment  in  the  Jewish  mind  of  every  vestige  of  faith  in  any  religion  save  the 
Jewish,  that  is,  substantially,  essentially,  the  Christian  religion.  It  would  be 
easy,  if  time  allowed,  to  show,  by  calm,  colorless  portrayal  of  what  these 
various  religions  essentially  were  in  their  ethical  teaching,  and  in  their  ethi- 
cal tendency — in  their  accomplished  ethical  effect  no  less— that  Christianity 
must  necessarily,  that  religion  being  ethically  what,  as  exhibited  in  its 
canonical  documents,  it  confessedly  is — must  necessarily,  I  say,  bemg  such, 
take  an  attitude  of  utterly  implacable,  of  remorselessly  mortal,  hostility  to 
those  religions,  the  living  religions  and  the  dead,  one  and  all  alike. 

This,  however,  relates  to  the  Old  Testament  form  of  Christianity.  Did 
not  the  New  Testament  form  introduce  a  different  spirit;  or  at  least  adopt 
a  different  method,  a  method  of  more  toleration,  of  more  liberal  willingness 
to  discriminate  and  to  recognize  the  good  and  the  true  that  was  to  be  found 
diffused  in  the  midst  of  the  false  and  the  bad  ? 

We  have  already  sought  to  draw  out  the  necessary  implication  bearing 
on  this  inquiry  contained  in  those  famous  words  of  Christ  to  the  woman  of 
Samaria.  We  have  found  that  implication  to  be  an  exclusive  claim  for 
Christianity  (Christianity  then  still  subsisting  in  the  form  of  Judaism,  there- 
fore much  more  for  Christianity  in  its  later,  its  fulfilled,  its  final  form) — an 
exclusive  claim,  1  say,  for  Christianity  to  be  the  trustworthy  offerer  of  salva- 


WILKINSON:   CLAIMS   OF   CHRISTIANITY'.  I247 

tion  to  mankind^VVith  his  pregnant  choice  of  words,  Jesus,  that  weary  Syrian 
noon,  touched,  in  his  easy,  simple,  infallible  way,  upon  a  thing  that  is  funda- 
mental, central,  in  religion,  any  religion,  all  religion,  namely,  its  undertak- 
ing to  ■fa^.^yVVhatever  religion  fallaciously  offers  to  save,  is,  unless  I  have 
misunderstood  him,  accordmg  to  Jesus  a  false  religion.  However  much 
trutii  a  given  religion  may  incidentally  involve,  if  its  essential  offer  is  a 
fallacious  offer,  then,  by  this  rule,  it  is  false  as  a  whole — since  its  whole 
value  IS  fairly  measured  by  its  value  in  that,  its  essential  part.  The  only 
religion  that  can  be  accounted  true,  is  the  religion  that  can  trustworthily  I 
offer  to  save.  That  religion  is,  according  to  Jesus,  the  religion  that  springs 
out  from  among  the  Jews,  which  religion,  whether  or  not  it  be  also  Judaism, 
is  of  course  at  any  rate  Christianity. 

But  we  are  far,  very  far,  from  being  limited  to  that  one  instance  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  when  we  seek  to  know  his  mind  on  the  important  subject 
which  we  are  considering.  The  hostile  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  any  and 
every  offer  other  than  his  own  to  save,  is  to  be  recognized  in  many  supremely 
self-asserting,  universally-exclusive  sayings  of  his,  such  as  these  :  "  No  man 
Cometh  unto  the  Father  (that  is,  no  man  is  saved)  but  by  me;"  "I  am  the 
bread  of  life  ; "  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me,  and  drink  ;  "  "  I 
am  the  light  of  the  world  ; "  "  I  am  the  door  of  the  sheep.  All  that  came 
before  me  are  thieves  and  robbers;"  "I  am  the  door;  by  me,  if  any  man 
enter  in,  he  shall  be  saved." 

Olympianism — if  I  may  use  such  a  word  to  describe  a  certain  otherwise 
nondescript  polytheistic  idolatry — Olympianism,  Greek  and  Roman,  and 
Gr.^co-Roman,  Olympianism  subsisting  unmixed,  or  variously  mixed  with 
elements  imported  from  the  religions  of  the  East,  presented  the  principal 
historic  contact  for  Christianity  with  alien  religious  faiths.  What  attitude 
did  Christianity  assume  toward  Olympianism  ? 

On  Mars  Hill,  in  Athens,  the  Apostle  Paul  delivered  a  discourse  which 
is  sometimes  regarded  as  answering  this  question,  and  answering  it  in  a 
sense  more  or  less  favorable  to  polytheism.  This  view  of  that  memorable 
discourse  seems  to  me  not  tenable.  Indeed,  the  resort  to  that  utterance  of 
Paul's  is  one  not,  as  I  think,  proper  to  be  made  in  quest  of  his  sentiments 
on  the  subject  now  under  discussion.  What  he  said  on  Mars  Hill  should  be 
studied  as  an  illustration  of  his  method  in  approach  to  men  involved  in 
error,  rather  than  as  a  revelation  of  his  inmost  thought  and  feeling  in  regard 
to  that  particular  error  in  which  he  found  his  Athenian  auditors  involved. 
Paul  disclosed  himself  truly  as  far  as  he  went,  but  he  did  not  disclose  him- 
self fully  that  day.  He  sought  a  hearing,  and  he  partly  succeeded  in 
finding  it.  It  is  probable  that  he  would  wholly  have  failed  had  he  spoken 
out  to  the  Areopagites  in  the  manner  in  which  he  spoke  out  to  Christian  dis- 
ciples. It  is  to  his  outspoken  declarations  of  opinion  and  feeling  that  we 
should  go  to  learn  his  true  attitude  toward  Olympianism.  We  there  find 
him  saying,  without  reserve,  without  bated  breath  :  "  Wherefore,  my  beloved, 


1248  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

flee  from  idolatry.  .  •  .  The  things  which  the  Gentiles  sacrifice  they 
sacrifice  to  devils  and  not  to  God  ;  and  I  would  not  that  ye  should  have 
communion  with  devils.  Ye  cannot  drink  the  cup  of  the  Lord  and  the  cup 
of  devils ;  ye  cannot  partake  of  the  table  of  the  Lord  and  of  the  table  of 
devils.  Or  do  we  provoke  the  Lord  to  jealousy  ?  are  we  stronger  than  he  ?  " 
1  have  thus  quoted  from  Paul's  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians.  That  word 
"jealousy"  is  a  key-word  here.  It  is  the  self-same  Old  Testament  word, 
and  the  word,  as  Paul  resumes  it,  is  full,  almost  to  bursting,  with  the  authentic 
Old  Testament  spirit.  God  is  a  jealous  God ;  that  is  to  say,  the  Hebrew 
God,  the  Christian  God,  is  jealous  of  sole  prerogative  ;  he  will  share  it  with 
none. 

An  expression  of  this  jealousy — jealousy  accompanied,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, in  the  particular  case  about  to  be  referred  to,  with  heavy,  with  dam- 
ning, inculpation  of  persons  as  well  as  things — occurs  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Paul's  epistle  to  the  Romans.  Speaking  of  the  adherents  generally  of  the 
Gentile  religions,  he  uses  this  language  :  "Professing  themselves  to  be  wise, 
they  became  fools,  and  changed  the  glory  of  the  incorruptible  God  for  the 
likeness  of  an  image  of  corruptible  man,  and  of  birds,  and  four-footed  beasts, 
and  creeping  things."  "  Man,"  "bird,"  "beast,"  "reptile," — these  four  specifi- 
cations in  their  ladder  of  descent  seem  to  indicate  every  different  form  of 
Gentile  religion  with  which  Christianity,  ancient  or  modern,  came  into  historic 
contact.  The  consequences  penally  visited  by  the  offended  jealous  God  of 
Hebrew  and  of  Christian,  for  such  degradation  of  the  innate  worshiping 
instinct,  such  profanation  of  the  idea,  once  pure  in  human  hearts,  of  God  the 
incorruptible,  are  described  by  Paul  in  words  whose  mordant,  flagrant,  caustic, 
branding  power  has  made  them  famous  and  familiar:  "Wherefore  God  gave 
them  up  in  the  lusts  of  their  hearts  unto  uncleanness,  that  their  bodies 
should  be  dishonored  among  themselves  ;  for  that  they  exchanged  the  truth 
of  God  for  a  lie,  and  worshiped  and  served  the  creature  rather  than  the 
Creator,  who  is  blessed  forever.     Amen."  - 

It  is  much  if  a  religion,  such  as  the  Bible  thus  teaches  Christianity  to  be, 
leaves  us  any  chance  at  all  for  entertaining  hope  concerning  those  remain- 
ing to  the  last  involved  in  the  prevalence  of  false  religion  surrounding  them. 
But  chance  there  seems  indeed  to  be  of  hope  justified  by  Christianity,  for 
some  among  these  unfortunate  children  of  men.  Peter,  the  strajtened  Peter, 
the  one  apostle  perhaps  most  inclined  to  be  unalterably  Jewish,  he  it  was 
who,  having  been  thereto  specially  instructed,  said  :  "Of  a  truth  I  perceive 
that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  ;  but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth 
him,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is  acceptable  to  him."  To  fear  God,  first, 
and  then  also  to  work  righteousness — these  are  the  traits  characterizing  ever 
and  everywhere  the  man  acceptable  to  God.  But  evidently  to  fear  God  is 
not,  in  the  idea  of  Christianity,  to  worship  another  than  he.  It  will  accord- 
ingly be  in  degree  as  a  man  escapes  the  ethnic  religion  dominant  about  him, 
and  rises  from  it — not  by  means  of  it,  but  in  spite  of  it — into  the  transcend- 


WILKINSON:   CLAIMS   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  1 249 

ing  element  of  the  true  divine  worship,  that  that  man  will  be  acceptable  to 
God — in  other  words,  in  degree  as  he  ceases  to  misdirect,  and  begins  to 
direct  aright,  the  indestructible  Godward  instinct  in  him — that  indestructible 
Godward  instmct  which  it  is,  and  not  the  depraved  indulgence  of  it,  that 
Paul  on  Mars  Hill  recognized  in  the  form  of  appeal  that  he  adopted  to  the 
idolatrous  Athenians. 

Of  any  ethnic  religion,  therefore,  can  it  be  said  that  it  is  a  true  religion, 
only  not  perfect  ?  Christianity  says.  No.  Christianity  speaks  words  of 
undefined,  unlimited  hope  concerning  those,  some  of  those,  who  shall  never 
have  heard  of  Christ.  These  words  Christians  of  course  will  hold  and  cher- 
ish according  to  their  inestimable  value.  But  let  us  not  mistake  them  as 
intended  to  bear  any  relation  whatever  to  the  erring  religions  of  mankind. 
Those  religions  the  Bible  nowhere  represents  as  pathetic  and  partly  success- 
ful, gropings  after  God.  They  are  one  and  all  represented  as  gropings 
downward,  not  gropings  upward.  According  to  Christianity  they  hinder, 
they  do  not  help.  Their  adherents'  hold  on  them  is  like  the  blind  grasp- 
ing of  drowning  men  on  roots  or  rocks  that  only  tend  to  keep  them  to  the 
bottom  of  the  river.  The  (ruth  that  is  in  the  false  religion  may  help ;  but 
it  will  be  the  truth,  not  the  false  religion.  According  to  Christianity,  the 
false  religion  exerts  all  its  force  to  choke  and  to  kill  the  truth  that  is  in  it. 
Hence  the  historic  degeneration  represented  in  the  first  chapter  of  Romans 
as  affecting  false  religions  in  general.  If  they  were  upward  Teachings  they 
would  grow  better  and  better.  If,  as  Paul  teaches,  they  in  fact  grow  worse 
and  worse,  it  must  be  because  they  are  downward  Teachings.  The  inde- 
structible instinct  to  worship,  that  is  in  itself  a  saving  power.  Carefully 
guarded,  carefully  cultivated,  it  may  even  save.  But  the  worshiping 
instinct,  misused,  or  disused,  that  is,  depraved  to  idolatry,  or  extinguished 
in  atheism,  "  held  down,"  as  Paul  graphically  expresses  it,  is  in  swift  pro- 
cess of  becoming  an  irresistible  destroying  power.  The  light  that  is  in  the 
soul  turns  swiftly  into  darkness.  The  instinct  to  worship  lifts  Godward. 
The  misuse  of  that  instinct,  its  abuse  in  idolatry,  its  disuse  in  atheism,  is 
evil,  only  evil,  and  that  continually.  Men  need  to  be  sa.ved/ro/n  false  relig- 
ion ;  they  are  in  no  way  of  being  saved  l>y  false  religion.  Such,  at  least,  is 
the  teaching  of  Christianity. 

The  attitude,  therefore,  of  Christianity  towards  religions  other  than 
itself  is  an  attitude  of  universal,  absolute,  eternal,  unappeasable  hostility; 
while  toward  all  men  everywhere,  the  adherents  of  false  religions  by  no 
means  excepted,  its  attitude  is  an  attitude  of  grace,  mercy,  peace,  for  who- 
soever will.  How  many  may  be  found  that  will,  is  a  problem  which  Chris- 
tianity leaves  unsolved.  Most  welcome  hints  and  suggestions,  however,  it 
affords,  encouraging  Christians  joyfully  and  gratefully  to  entertain,  on 
behalf  of  the  erring,  that  relieving  and  sympathetic  sentiment  which  the 
poet  has  taught  us  to  call  "  the  larger  hope." 


79 


WHAT  IS.  RELIGION? 
By    Mrs.    Julia  Ward    Howe. 

I  only  hope  you  may  be  able  not  only  to  listen,  but  also  to  hear  me. 
Your  charity  must  multiply  my  small  voice  and  do  some  such  miracle  as  was 
done  when  the  loaves  and  fishes  fed  the  multitude  in  the  ancient  time  which 
has  just  been  spoken  of.  I  have  been  listening  to  what  our  much  honored 
friend  (Prof.  Wilkinson)  has  said,  and  yet,  before  I  say  anything  on  my  own 
account,  I  want  to  take  the  word  Christianity  back  to  Christ  himself,  back 
to  that  mighty  heart  whose  pulse  seems  to  throb  through  the  world  to-day, 
that  endless  fountain  of  charity  out  of  which  I  believe  has  come  all  true 
progress  and  all  civilization  that  deserves  the  name.  As  a  woman  I  do  not 
wish  to  dwell  upon  any  trait  of  exclusiveness  in  the  letter  which  belongs  to 
a  time  when  such  exclusiveness  perhaps  could  not  be  helped,  and  which 
may  have  been  put  in  where  it  was  not  expressed.  I  go  back  to  that  great 
Spirit  which  contemplated  a  sacrifice  for  the  whole  of  humanity.  That  sac- 
rifice is  not  one  of  exclusion,  but  of  an  infinite  and  endless  and  joyous 
inclusion.     And  I  thank  God  for  it. 

I  have  turned  my  back  to-day  upon  the  great  show  in  Jackson  Park  in 
order  to  see  a  greater  spectacle  here.  The  daring  voyage  of  Columbus 
across  an  unknown  sea  we  all  remember  with  deep  gratitude.  All  that  we 
have  done  and  all  that  we  are  now  doing  are  not  too  much  to  do  honor  to 
the  loyalty  and  courage  of  that  one  inspired  man.  But  the  voyage  of  so 
many  valorous  souls  into  the  unknown  infinite  of  thought,  into  the  deep 
questions  of  the  soul  between  men  and  God — Oh,  what  a  voyage  is  that !  O, 
what  a  sea  to  sail !  And  I  thought,  coming  to  this  Parliament  of  Religions, 
we  shall  have  found  a  port  at  last ;  after  many  wanderings  we  shall  have 
come  to  the  one  great  harbor  where  all  the  fleets  can  ride,  where  all  the 
banners  can  be  displayed. 

It  has  been  extremely  edifying  to  hear  of  the  good  theories  of  duty  and 
morality  and  piety  which  the  various  religions  advocate.  I  will  put  them 
all  on  one  basis.  Christian  and  Jewish  and  ethnic,  which  they  all  promul- 
gate to  mankind.  But  what  I  think  we  want  now  to  do  is  to  inquire  why 
the  practice  of  all  nations,  our  own  as  well  as  any  other,  is  so  much  at  vari- 
ance with  these  noble  precepts?  These  great  founders  of  religion  have 
made  the  true  sacrifice.  They  have  taken  a  noble  human  life,  full  of  every 
human  longing  and  passion  and  power  and  aspiration,  and  they  have  taken 
it  all  to  try  and  find  out  something  about  this  question  of  what  God  meant 
man  to  be  and  does  mean  him  to  be.  But  while  they  have  made  this  great 
sacrifice,  how  is  it  with  the  multitude  of  us?     Are  we  making   any  sacrifice 

1250 


HOWE:   WHAT    IS    RELIGION.  I  25  I 

at  all?  We  think  it  was  very  well  that  those  heroic  spirits  should  study, 
should  agonize  and  bleed  for  us.     But  what  do  we  do? 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  very  important  that  from  this  Parliament  should 
go  forth  a  fundamental  agreement  as  to  what  is  religion  and  as  to  what 
is  not  religion.  I  need  not  stand  here  to  repeat  any  definition  of  what 
religion  is.  I  think  you  will  all  say  that  it  is  aspiration,  the  pursuit  of  the 
divine  in  the  human  ;  the  sacrifice  of  everything  to  duty  for  the  sake  of  God 
and  of  humanity  and  of  our  own  individual  dignity.  What  is  it  that  passes 
for  religion?  In  some  countries  magic  passes  for  religion,  and  that  is  one 
thing  I  wish,  in  view  particularly  of  the  ethnic  faiths,  could  be  made  very 
prominent —  that  religion  is  not  magic.  I  am  very  sure  that  in  many  coun- 
tries it  is  supposed  to  be  so.  You  do  something  that  will  bring  you  good  luck. 
It  is  for  the  interests  of  the  priesthood  to  cherish  that  idea.  Of  course  the 
idea  of  advantage  in  this  life  and  in  another  life  is  very  strong,  and  rightly 
very  strong  in  all  human  breasts.  Therefore,  it  is  for  the  advantage  of  the 
priesthoods  to  make  it  to  be  supposed  that  they  have  in  their  possession 
certain  tricks,  certain  charms,  which  will  give  you  either  some  particular 
prosperity  in  this  world  or  possibly  the  privilege  of  immortal  happiness. 
Now,  this  is  not  religion.  This  is  most  mischievous  irreligion,  and  I  think 
this  Parliament  should  say,  once  for  all,  that  the  name  of  God  and  the  names 
of  his  saints  are  not  things  to  conjure  with. 

I  think  nothing  is  religion  which  puts  one  individual  absolutely  above 
others,  and  surely  nothing  is  religion  which  puts  one  sex  above  another. 
Religion  is  primarily  our  relation  to  the  Supreme,  to  God  himself.  It  is 
for  him  to  judge  ;  it  is  for  him  to  say  where  we  belong,  who  is  highest  and 
who  is  not ;  of  that  we  know  nothing.  And  any  religion  which  will  sacri- 
fice a  certain  set  of  human  beings  for  the  enjoyment  or  aggrandizement  or 
advantage  of  another  is  no  religion.  It  is  a  thing  which  may  be  allowed, 
but  it  is  against  true  religion.  Any  religion  which  sacrifices  women  to  the 
brutality  of  men  is  no  religion. 

From  this  Parliament  let  some  valorous,  new,  strong,  and  courageous 
influence  go  forth,  and  let  us  have  here  an  agreement  of  all  faiths  for  one 
good  end,  for  one  good  thing  — really  for  the  glory  of  God,  really  for 
the  sake  of  humanity  from  all  that  is  low  and  animal  and  unworthy  and 
undivine. 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  OTHER 

RELIGIONS. 

By  Rev.  James  S.  Dennis,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Christianity  speaks  in  the  name  of  God.  To  him  it  owes  its  existence, 
and  the  deep  secret  of  its  dignity  and  power  is  that  it  reveals  him.  It  would 
be  effrontery  for  it  to  speak  simply  upon  its  own  responsibility,  or  even  in 
the  name  of  reason.  It  has  no  philosophy  of  evolution  to  propound.  It  has 
a  message  from  God  to  deliver.  It  is  not  itself  a  philosophy  ;  it  is  a  religion. 
It  is  not  earth-bom;  it  is  God-wrought.  It  comes  not  from  man,  but  from 
God,  and  is  intensely  alive  with  his  power,  alert  with  his  love,  benign  v/ith 
his  goodness,  radiant  with  his  light,  charged  with  his  truth,  sent  with  his 
message,  inspired  with  his  energy,  regnant  with  his  wisdom,  instinct  with  the 
gift  of  spiritual  healing  and  mighty  with  supreme  authority.  It  has  amission 
among  men  whenever  or  wherever  it  finds  them  which  is  as  sublime  as  crea- 
tion, as  marvelous  as  spiritual  existence,  and  as  full  of  mysterious  meaning  as 
eternity.  It  finds  its  focus  and  as  well  its  radiating  center  in  the  personality 
of  Jesus  Christ,  its  great  Revealer  and  Teacher,  to  whom  before  his  advent 
all  the  fingers  of  light  pointed,  and  from  whom,  since  his  incarnation,  all  the 
brightness  of  the  day  has  shone.  It  has  a  further  and  supplemental  historic 
basis  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  give  through 
inspired  writers  chosen  and  commissioned  by  him.  Its  message  is  much 
more  than  Judaism  ;  it  is  infinitely  more  than  the  revelation  of  nature  ;  it  is 
even  more  than  the  best  teachings  of  all  other  religions  combined,  for  what- 
ever is  good  and  true  in  other  religious  systems  is  found  in  full  and  authori- 
tative form  in  Christianity.  It  has  wrought  in  love,  with  the  touch  of  regen- 
eration, with  the  inspiration  of  prophetic  vision,  in  the  mastery  of  spiritual 
control,  and  by  the  transforming  power  of  the  divine  indwelling,  until  its 
own  best  evidence  is  what  it  has  done  to  uplift  and  purify  wherever  it  has 
been  welcomed  among  men. 

I  say  welcomed,  for  Christianity  must  be  received  in  order  to  accomplish 
its  mission.  It  is  addressed  to  the  reason  and  the  heart  of  man,  but  does  no 
violence  to  liberty.  Its  limitations  are  not  in  its  own  nature,  but  in  the  free- 
dom which  God  has  planted  in  man.  It  is  not  to  be  judged,  therefore,  by 
what  it  has  achieved  in  the  world,  except  as  the  world  has  voluntarily 
received  it.  The  sins  of  Christian  nations  cannot  be  rightly  charged  to 
Christianity,  for  it  does  not  sanction  but  forbids  them. 

We  are  asked  now  to  consider  the  message  of  Christianity  to  other 
religions.     If  it  has  a  message  to  a  sinful  world,  it  must  also  have  a  message 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1353 


Ki;V.  JAMKS  S.  DENNIS,  D.l).,  NF.W  YORK. 

"  THIS  IS  THR  MKSSACili  WIIICK  CIIKISTIANITY  SIGNALS  TO  OTIIKR  KKI-IGIONS  AS  IT  MKETS  THEM 
to-day:  FAIHKKHOOO,  BKOTHEKHOOD,  REDEMPTION,  INXAKNATION,  ATONEMENT,  ClIAKACTEK, 
SEKVICE,  FELLOWSllir.    " 


1254  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

to  other  religions  which  are  seeking  to  minister  to  the  same  fallen  race  and 
to  accomplish  in  their  own  way  and  by  diverse  methods  the  very  mission 
God  has  designed  should  be  Christianity's  privilege  and  high  function  to 
discharge. 

Let  us  seek  now  to  catch  the  spirit  of  that  message  and  to  indicate  in 
brief  outline  its  purport.  We  must  be  content  simply  to  give  the  message; 
the  limits  of  this  paper  forbid  any  attempt  to  vindicate  it,  or  to  demonstrate 
its  historic  integrity,  its  heavenly  wisdom  and  its  excellent  glory. 

Its  spirit  is  full  of  simple  sincerity,  exalted  dignity  and  i-weet  unselfish- 
ness. It  aims  to  impart  a  blessing,  rather  than  to  chaljenge  a  cnmparis9n. 
It  is  not  so  anxious  to  vindicate  itself  as  to  confer  its  benefits.  It  is  not  so 
solicitous  to  secure  supreme  honor  for  itself  as  to  win  its  way  to  the  heart. 
It  does  not  seek  to  taunt,  or  disparage,  or  humiliate  a  rival,  but  rather  to 
subdue  by  love,  attract  by  its  own  excellence,  and  supplant  by  virtue  of  its 
own  incomparable  superiority.  It  is  a  tax  upon  faith  which  is  often  pain- 
fully severe  to  note  the  apparent  lack  of  energy  and  dash  and  resistless 
force  in  the  seemingly  slow  advances  of  our  holy  religion.  Doubtless  God 
has  his  reasons,  but  in  the  meanwhile  we  cannot  but  recognize  in  Chris- 
tianity a  spirit  of  mysterious  reserve,  of  marvelous  patience,  of  subdued 
undertone,  of  purposeful  restraint.  It  does  not  "cry,  n6r  lift  up,  nor  cause 
its  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  street."  Centuries  come  and  go  and  Christianity 
touches  only  portions  of  the  earth,  but  wherever  it  touches  it  transfigures. 
It  seems  to  despise  material  adjuncts,  and  count  only  those  victories  worth 
having  which  are  won  through  direct  spiritual  contact  with  the  individual 
soul.  Its  relation  to  other  religions  has  been  characterized  by  singular 
reserve,  and  its  progress  has  been  marked  by  an  unostentatious  dignity, 
which  is  in  harmony  with  the  majestic  attitude  of  God  its  author,  to  all  false 
gods  who  have  claimed  divine  honors  and  sought  to  usurp  the  place  which 
was  his  alone. 

Christianity  is  said  to  be  intolerant.  I  do  not  think  the  word  is  well 
chosen  ;Mt  would  be  more  true  to  say  that  Christianity  is  uncompromising; 
and  it  is  uncompromising  because  it  is  true.  It  is  as  absurd  to  complain  of 
the  uncompromising  nature  of  Christianity  as  it  is  to  speak  contemptuously 
of  the  inflexible  character  of  natural  law.yoChristianity  at  the  same  time 
that  it  is  uncompromising,  is  tolerant  of' the  convictions  of  others  in  a 
kindly  and  generous  spirit,  and  if  true  to  itself  it  would  be  the  last  religion 
in  the  world  to  stifle  liberty  of  conscience,  or  deny  all  proper  freedom  of 
speech.  Its  tolerance  should  ever  be  marked  by  gentleness,  patience  and 
courtesy;  its  exclusiveness  should  be  characterized  by  dignity,  magnani- 
mity and  charity.  It  is  the  steel  hand  of  truth  encased  in  the  velvet  glove 
of  love. 

It  speaks  then  to  other  religions  with  unqualified  frankness  and  plain- 
ness based  upon  its  incontrovertible  claim  to  a  hearing ;  it  has  nothing  to 
conceal,  but    rather   invites    to    inquiry    and    investigation;    it    recognizes 


DENNIS:    MESSAGE   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  I  25  5 

promptly  and  cordially  whatever  is  worthy  of  respect  in  other  religious 
systems  ;  it  acknowledges  the  undoubted  sincerity  of  personal  conviction 
and  the  intense  and  pathetic  earnestness  of  moral  struggle  in  the  case  of 
many  serious  souls  who,  like  the  Athenians  of  old,  "worship  in  ignorance;" 
it  warns  and  persuades  and  commands  as  is  its  right ;  it  speaks  as  Paul  did 
in  the  presence  of  cultured  heathenism  on  Mars  Hill,  of  that  appointed  day 
in  which  the  world  must  be  judged  and  of  "that  man"  by  whom  it  is  to  be 
judged.  It  speaks  with  the  consciousness  of  that  simple,  natural,  incom- 
parable, measureless  supremacy  which  quickly  disarms  rivalry,  and  in. the 
end  challenges  the  admiration  and  compels  the  submission  of  hearts  free 
from  malice  and  guile. 

This  being  the  spirit  of  the  message  let  us  inquire  as  to  its  purport. 
There  is  one  immensely  preponderating  element  here  which  pervades  the 
whole  content  of  the  message — it  is  love  for  man.  Christianity  is  full  of  it. 
This  is  its  supreme  meaning  to  the  world — not  that  love  eclipses  or  shadows 
every  other  attribute  in  God's  character,  but  that  it  glorifies  and  more  per- 
fectly reveals  and  interprets  the  nature  of  God  and  the  history  of  his  deal- 
ings with  man.  The  object  of  this  love  must  be  carefully  noted — it  is  man- 
kind—the race  considered  as  individuals  or  as  a  whole.  Christianity 
unfolds  a  message  to  other  religions  which  emphasizes  this  heavenly  prin- 
ciple. It  reveals  therein  the  sao^et  of  its  power  and  the  unique  wonder  of 
its  whole  redemptive  system,  jf  Never  man  spake  like  this  man,"  was  said 
of  Christ.  Never  religion  spalte  like  this  religion,  may  be  said  of  Christian- 
ity. The  Christian  system  is  conceived  in  love  ;  it  is  wrought  out  by  love  ; 
it  brings  the  provision  of  love  to  fallen  man  ;  it  administers  its  marvelous 
functions  in  love ;  it  introduces  man  into  an  atmosphere  of  love  ;  it  gives 
him  the  inspiration,  the  idy,  the  fruition  of  love  ;  it  leads  at  last  into  the 
realm  of  eternal  love.  X/hile  accomplishing  this  end,  at  the  same  time  it 
convicts  of  sin,  it  meltS /nto  humility,  it  quickens  gratitude,  it  purifies  and 
sanctifies  the  heart,  it  glorifies  the  character,  it  inspires  to  obedience,  it 
implants  the  instincts  of  service,  it  introduces  a  regenerating  agent  into 
social  life,  it  teaches  unselfishness  as  the  great  lesson  of  heaven  to  earth, 
and  it  proposes  love  as  itself  the  supreme  remedy  for  the  woes  and  wrongs 
of  the  world.  It  has  also  its  message  of  warning  and  judgment,  which 
must  not  be  ignored.  It  speaks  in  the  name  of  justice,  holiness,  and  eter- 
nal sovereignty  of  the  final  issue  of  that  folly  which  rejects  its  proposals 
and  appeals,  and  defies  its  authority. 

Let  us  look  at  this  message  more  in  detail.  In  presenting  it  under 
present  auspices  our  purpose  is  not  so  distinctively  controversial  as  declara- 
tive. We  do  not  seek  to  challenge  or  rebuke,  much  less  to  denounce  and 
condemn  other  religions,  but  rather  to  unfold  in  calm  statement  the  essen- 
tial features  of  the  message  which  Christianity  is  charged  to  deliver.  We 
who  love  and  revere  Christianity  believe  that  it  declares  the  whole  counsel 
of  God,  and  we  are  content  to  rest  our  case  upon  the  simple  statement  of 


1256         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

its  historic  facts,  its  spiritual  teachings,  and  its  unrivaled  ministry  to  the 
world.  Christianity  is  its  own  best  evidence  :  its  very  presence  is  full  of 
power ;  its  spiritual  contribution  to  the  thought  of  the  world  is  its  supreme 
credential ;  its  exemplification  in  the  life  of  its  Founder,  and,  to  a  less  cori- 
spicuous  degree,  of  all  who  are  truly  in  His  likeness,  is  its  unanswerable 
demonstration. 

I  have  sought  to  give  the  essential  outlines  of  this  immortal  message  of 
Christianity  by  grouping  its  leading  characteristics  in  a  series  of  code  words, 
which,  when  presented  in  combination,  give  the  distinctive  signal  of  the 
Christian  religion,  which  has  waved  aloft  in  sunshine  and  storm  during  all 
the  centuries  since  the  New  Testament  Scriptures  were  given  to  man. 

The  initial  word  which  we  place  in  this  signal  code  of  Christianity  is 
Fatherhood.  This  may  have  a  strange  sound  to  some  ears,  but  to  the  Chris- 
tian it  is  full  of  sweetness  and  dignity.  It  simply  means  that  the  creative 
act  of  God,  so  far  as  our  human  family  is  concerned,  was  done  in  the  spirit 
of  fatherly  love  and  goodness.  He  created  us  in  his  likeness,  and  to 
express  this  idea  of  spiritual  resemblance  and  tender  relationship  the  sym- 
bolical term  of  fatherhood  is  used.  When  Christ  taught  us  to  pray  "  Our 
Father,"  in  the  spirit  not  only  of  natural  but  of  gracious  Sonship,  he  gave 
us  a  lesson  which  transcends  human  philosophy  and  has  in  it  so  much  of  the 
height  and  depth  of  divine  feeling  that  human  reason  has  hardly  dared  to 
receive,  much  less  to  originate,  the  conception. 

A  second  word  which  is  representative  in  the  Christian  message  is 
Brotherhood.  This  exists  in  two  senses — there  is  the  universal  brotherhood 
of  man  to  man,  as  children  of  one  Father  in  whose  likeness  the  whole  fam- 
ily is  created,  and  the  spiritual  brotherhood  of  union  in  Christ.  We  are  all 
brother  men,  would  that  we  were  also  all  brother  Christians.  Here  again  the 
suggestion  is  love  as  the  rule  and  sign  of  human  as  well  as  Christian  fellow- 
ship. The  world  has  drifted  far  away  from  this  ideal  of  brotherhood  ;  it  has 
been  repudiated  in  some  quarters  even  in  the  name  of  religion,  and  it  seems 
clear  that  it  will  never  be  fully  recognized  and  exemplified  except  as  the 
spirit  of  Christ  assumes  its  sway  over  the  hearts  of  men. 

The  next  code  word  of  Christianity  is  Kedeinption.  We  use  it  here  in 
the  sense  of  a  purpose  on  God's  part  to  deliver  man  from  sin,  and  to  make 
a  universal  provision  for  that  end,  which  if  rightly  used  insures  the  result. 
I  need  not  remind  you  that  this  purpose  is  conceived  in  love.  God  as 
Redeemer  has  taken  a  gracious  attitude  towards  man  from  the  beginnings  of 
history,  and  he  is  "not  far  from  every  one"  in  the  immanence  and  omni- 
presence of  his  love.  Redemption  is  a  world-embracing  term ;  it  is  not 
limited  to  any  age  or  class.  Its  potentiality  is  world-wide ;  its  efficiency  is 
unrestrained,  except  as  man  himself  limits  it;  its  application  is  determined 
by  the  sovereign  wisdom  of  God,  its  author,  who  deals  with  each  individual 
as  a  possible  candidate  for  redemption,  and  decides  his  destiny  in  accord- 
ance with  his  spiritual   attitude  towards  Christ.     Where  Christ  is  unknown 


DENNIS:   MESSAGE   OK   CHRLSTIANITV.  1 257 

God  still  exercises  his  sovereignty,  although  he  has  been  pleased  to  maintain 
a  significant  reserve  as  to  the  possibility,  extent,  and  spiritual  tests  of 
redemption  where  trust  is  based  upon  God's  mercy  in  general,  rather  than 
upon  his  mercy  as  specially  revealed  in  Christ.  We  know  from  his  Word 
that  Christ's  sacrifice  is  infinite. 

Another  cardinal  idea  in  the  Christian  system  is  Incarnation — God 
clothing  himself  in  human  form  and  coming  into  living  touch  with  mankind. 
This  he  did  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  It  is  a  mighty  mystery,  and 
Christianity  would  never  dare  assert  it  except  as  God  has  taught  her  its  truth. 

We  are  brought  now  to  another  fundamental  truth  in  Christian  teach 
ing — the  mysterious  doctrine  of  Aloneme'X.  Sin  is  a  fact  which  is  indis- 
putable. It  is  universally  recognized  and  acknowledged.  It  is  its  own 
evidence.  It  is,  moreover,  a  barrier  between  man  and  his  God.  The  divine 
holiness,  and  sin  with  its  loathsomeness,  its  rebellion,  its  horrid  degrada- 
tion and  its  hopeless  ruin,  cannot  coalesce  in  any  system  of  moral  govern- 
ment. God  cannot  tolerate  sin  or  temporize  with  it,  or  make  a  place  for  it 
in  his  presence.  He  cannot  parley  with  it ;  he  must  punish  it.  He  cannot 
treat  with  it ;  he  must  try  it  at  the  bar.  He  cannot  overlook  it ;  he  must 
overcome  it.  He  cannot  give  it  a  moral  status  ;  he  must  visit  it  with  the 
condemnation  it  deserves.  Atonement  is  God's  marvelous  method  of  vindi- 
cating once  for  all  before  the  universe  hfs  eternal  attitude  towards  sin,  by 
the  voluntary  self-assumption  in  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  of  its  penalty.  This 
he  does  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  came  as  God  incarnate  upon  this 
sublime  mission.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  Gospel. 'it  throbs  with  mysterious 
love  ;  it  pulsates  with  ineffable  throes  of  divine  feeling  ;  it  bears  a  vital 
relation  to  the  whole  scheme  of  government ;  it  is  in  its  hidden  activities 
beyond  the  scrutiny  of  human  reason  ;  but  it  sends  the  life  blood  coursing 
through  history,  and  it  gives  to  Christianity  its  superb  vitality  and  its 
undying  vigor.  It  is  because  Christianity  eliminates  sin  from  the  problem 
that  its  solution  is  complete  and  final. 

We  pass  now  to  another  word  of  vital  import — it  is  Character.  God's 
own  attitude  to  the  sinner  being  settled  and  the  problems  of  moral  govern- 
ment solved,  the  next  matter  which  presents  itself  is  the  personality  of  the 
individual  man.  Christianity  regenerates,  uplifts,  transforms,  and  eventu- 
ally transfigures  the  personal  character.  It  is  a  transcendent  school  of 
incomparable  ethics. 

In  vital  connection  with  character  is  a  word  of  magnetic  impulse  and 
unique  glory  which  gives  to  Christianity  a  sublime  practical  power  in  his- 
tory. It  is  Service.  Here  is  a  forceful  element  in  the  double  influence  of 
Christianity  over  the  inner  life  and  the  outward  ministry  of  its  followers. 
Christ,  its  founder,  glorified  service  and  lifted  it  in  his  own  experience  to  the 
dignity  of  sacrifice.  In  the  light  of  Christ's  example  service  becomes  an 
honor,  a  privilege,  and  a  moral  triumph  ;  it  is  consummated  and  crowned  in 
sacrifice. 


1258  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

One  other  word  completes  the  code.  It  is  Fellowship,  of  which  the 
spirit  of  God  is  the  blessed  medium.  It  is  a  word  which  breathes  the 
sweetest  hope,  suggests  the  choicest  privilege,  and  sounds  the  highest  des- 
tiny of  the  Christian. 

This,  then,  is  the  message  which  Christianity  signals  to  other  religions 
as  it  greets  them  to-day :  Fatherhood,  brotherhood,  redemption,  incarna- 
tion, atonement,  character,  service,  fellowship. 

It  remains  to  be. said  that  Christianity  through  the  individual  seeks  to 
reach  society.  Its  aim  is  first  the  man,  then  men.  It  is  pledged  to  do  for 
the  race  what  it  does  for  the  individual  man. 


THE  MISSION  OF  PROTESTANTISM  IN  TURKEY. 
By  the  Rev.  Mardiros  Ignados. 

Protestantism  has  had  great  and  palpable  results  among  the  Armenian 
Christians,  who  are  considered  leaders  among  the  Asiatics,  and  who  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era  accepted  Christianity,  both  individually  and 
also  as  a  nation,  and  they  have  to  this  day  kept  Christianity  in  the  National 
Church.  Seeing  these  facts,  missionaries  of  the  American  Board  began  to 
preach  among  them  acceptably,  and  to  establish  evangelical  churches,  so 
that  among  the  40,000  Protestants  of  Turkey  30,000  are  Armenians,  as  well 
as  three-fourths  of  the  evangelical  Protestant  churches. 

Protestantism  is  an  incentive  to  mental  development  and  ideas  of  lib- 
erty. Therefore  its  results  are  generally  seen,  first,  upon  mental  education. 
It  is  so  among  the  peoples  in  Turkey.  The  Christians  in  Turkey,  and 
especially  the  Armenians,  began  to  think  and  speak  freely  and  boldly  upon 
religious  subjects.  They  knew  that  to  do  this  properly  they  must  have 
learning  about  all  important  subjects.  Therefore  those  who  are  working 
among  them  paid  great  attention  to  the  work  of  satisfying  their  minds.  The 
result  is  apparent  in  the  common  schools,  in  the  education  of  girls,  and 
colleges  and  theological  seminaries  which  are  to  be  found  in  Turkey. 

Three-quarters  of  a  century  ago  there  were  only  a  few  places,  even  in 
the  larger  cities  of  Turkey,  which  could  be  called  schools.  Half  a  century 
ago  such  schools  were  established  even  in  the  smallest  cities.  Since  a 
quarter  of  a  century  schools  were  opened  even  in  villages,  where  the  chil- 
dren of  Protestants  are  proportionately  more  numerous. 

It  was  the  result  of  these  schools  that  adults  in  general  began  to  read 
and  the  young  to  go  to  school  ;  new  text-books  were  introduced,  new  sys- 
tems of  education  and  new  methods  of  administration. 

Protestant  missions  have  rendered  great  services  for  higher' education. 
About   sixty  years   ago  there  was  need  for  a  large  number  of   Protestant 


I260  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

preachers.  So  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Cyrus  Hamlin,  a  high  school  was 
opened  for  young  men  where  lessons  were  given  on  scientific  and  religious 
subjects.  This  institution  excited  the  emulation  of  Roman  Catholic  mission- 
aries and  other  Christian  communities,  who  also  established  high  schools  in 
the  larger  cities.  The  government  also  became  conscious  of  the  necessity 
of  such  a  higher  education,  and  established  institutions  for  young  men  where 
languages,  science  and  arts  are  taught.  In  this  way,  every  city  now  has  its 
high  school,  and  even  college  ;  the  Protestant  institutions  almost  everywhere 
being  the  first  and  most  important. 

The  missionaries  began  to  work  for  the  people.  They  learned  their 
modem  languages  and  translated  the  Bible  into  them.  As  a  result  of  this 
modem  Armenian  began  to  be  used  in  our  religious  services.  The  Protest- 
ant people  began  to  use  in  family  worship  and  public  prayers  the  modern 
language.  Preachers  began  to  write  in  the  colloquial  language  letters  to 
their  people.  The  missionaries  started  a  periodical  publication  called 
Treasury  of  Useful  Information,  which,  by  its  excellent  modern  Armenian, 
became  an  example  for  other  publications.  Modern*  Armenian  became  a 
literary  language,  was. developed  and  enriched  rapidly  so  that  even  those  of 
the  nation  who  love  the  ancient  language  were  compelled  to  use  the  modern 
in  all  things  except  the  services  of  the  church. 

Thus  the  common  people  found  many  useful  publications  which  they 
could  understand,  and  began  to  acquire  the  habit  of  reading.  Children  con- 
tinued their  studies  when  they  left  school.  Many  engaged  in  the  work  of 
writing  and  translating  novels  and  other  books.  It  became  the  duty  of  the 
missionaries  to  give  to  these  people  religious  and  moral  truths  through  their 
publications;  Books  were  published  on  scientific,  historical  and  popular 
subjects.  The  educated  people  began  to  study  the  scriptures  with  reverence 
and  found  them  published  by  the  Bible  societies  in  the  twenty  languages  used 
in  Turkey.  The  American  Bible  Society  has  begun  to  do  a  work  which 
merits  specially  the  gratitude  of  the  Armenian  people,  namely,  publication 
of  the  Bible  in  the  ancient  Armenian  language,  which  is  used  in  the  National 
Church. 

The  people  of  Turkey  are  generally  conservative,  especially  in  ecclesi- 
astical and  religious  matters.  But  Protestantism  proved  mightier  than  ritual- 
ism, especially  among  the  Armenian  Christians.  Among  them,  ceremonies 
and  rites  that  were  considered  sacred  were  either  abandoned  or  kept  with  a 
new  meaning.  For  example,  the  lenten  fast  was  abandoned  and  other  fasts 
moderated.  They  do  not  now  go  on  pilgrimages  to  obtain  salvation.  They 
do  not  worship  the  pictures  of  saints  and  sacred  things,  but  they  use  them  as 
things  of  excellent  value.  Such  reformations  are  preparations  for  greater 
internal  reformation. 

The  morality  of  the  Christian  communities  has  been  elevated.  In  the 
presence  of  corrupting  influences  even  the  youth  are  well  behaved  and 
modest,  more  than  the  men  of  a  few  generations  ago.     Through  the  Gospel 


BONET-MAURY:    RELIGION    IN   FRANCE.  I  26 1 

and  the  labors  of  those  who  advocate  abstinence  and  simplicity,  many  young 
men  voluntarily  abandon  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks  and  even  smoking. 
Our  young  women,  too,  do  not  favor  following  the  fashions  as  much  as  they 
would  naturally  under  the  circumstances.  Truthfulness,  honesty  and  faith- 
fulness in  business  are  more  respected,  especially  among  Christians,  than 
they  were  a  century  ago.  The  spirit  of  charity  also  has  taken  root  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Christian  people.  They  give  ten  times  more  than  those  who 
preceded  them,  not  only  for  churches  and  schools,  but  also  to  establish  insti- 
tutions for  the  poor,  orphanages  and  hospitals,  and  to  help  those  stricken  by 
famine  or  poverty  or  suffering  from  disasters. 

The  last  great  and  direct  fruit  of  Protestantism  has  been  reformation  in 
the  heart  or  the  salvation  of  the  soul.  By  the  leadership  of  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries and  the  efforts  of  native  ministers  in  half  a  century  there  have  been 
established  in  Turkey  more  than  150  evangelical  Protestant  churches,  with 
more  than  15,000  living  members,  and  we  have  the  sure  hope  that  God  will 
raise  from  among  these  evangelists  full  of  spirit  and  fearless  reformers.  By 
their  efforts,  with  the  preparations  so  far  made,  there  will  come  such  relig- 
ious reformation  among  the  Armenians,  Greeks,  Bulgarians  and  Kopt 
churches  as  has  been  in  the  past  in  Germany  and  in  England.  Then  the 
Oriental  Church  will  be  strengthened  with  a  new  life  and  youthful  spirit,  and 
will  join  hands  with  her  western  sister  church.  Thus  will  shine  with  a  glo- 
rious light  the  one  universal  Catholic  Church,  to  which  will  come  also  the 
non-Christian  nation  to  form  one  flock  under  one  shepherd. 


THE  LEADING  POWERS  SHAPING  RELIGION 

IN  FRANCE. 

By  Rev.  G.  Bonet-Maury,  of  Paris. 

There  are  in  my  country  three  leading  powers  which  are  shaping  the 
future  religion  of  France:  Roman  Catholicism,  Protestantism  and  Philos- 
ophy, 

I  will  say  very  little  of  the  first  one,  not  only  because  I  am  a  Protest- 
ant, but  also  because  this  power  is  weakening,  little  by  little,  in  the  theo- 
logical and  religious  field.  The  greater  part  of  the  Roman  Catholic  people 
are  nominally  Catholic,  by  chance  of  birth  only.  They  don't  believe  in  the 
dogmas  of  the  old  church  nor  use  its  sacraments  except  in  some  extreme 
cases.  Most  of  the  bishops  care  little  for  preaching,  overloaded  as  they  are 
by  the  management  of  things  temporal. 

This  capital  oftice  of  the  pulpit  is  generally  performed  by  members  of 
various  monastic  orders ;  Jesuits  who  are  exerting  great  social  influence  by 
the  confessional  and  by  educational  institutions ;  Capuchins,  or  disciples  of 


1262  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH   DAY. 

St.  Francis,  whose  oratory  is  more  popular,  and  Dominicans,  among 
whom  were  found  some  of  our  most  enlightened  scholars,  viz.,  the  late 
Lacordaire  and  Father  Didon,  who  is  still  living  and  is  principal  of  the 
important  college  of  Albert  le  Grand,  near  Paris. 

However,  among  French  Roman  Catholics  the  leading  power  belongs 
now  to  some  godly  and  highly  gifted  laymen,  viz.,  M.  Chesnelong,  presi- 
dent of  the  Roman  Catholic  congresses  ;  Comte  Albert  de  Mun,  fonnerly 
an  officer  in  the  army  and  now  lay  preacher,  who  originated  the  clubs  for 
working  people  and  is  helping  in  many  charities ;  Comte  Melchior  de 
Vogue,  one  of  our  most  brilliant  writers,  who  was  just  now  elected  as  a 
deputy  to  the  house  of  representatives.  He  is  a  leading  connoisseur  in 
Russian  literature,  and  is  most  beloved  by  the  students  of  our  Paris  Univer- 
sity.   He  was  one  of  the  primfe  movers  of  our  neo-Christian  revival. 

Of  French  Protestantism  I  will  say  but  few  words,  not  because  we  are 
a  small  minority  in  our  country.  Indeed,  the  value  of  a  church  is  not  to  be 
measured  by  the  number  of  its  faithful,  but  by  the  fervor,  morality  and 
truthfulness  of  their  ideals ;  since  there  were  religions  on  earth  there  were 
minorities  which  have  led  the  religious  world.  No  !  I  should  have  too 
much  to  say  of  the  works  of  Protestantism  in  my  country.  But  go  to  the 
Manufactures  Building  at  the  World's  Fair,  in  the  liberal  arts  section  of 
economical  science,  ask  for  the  golden  book  of  French  Protestantism  and 
you  will  find  therein  full  information  on  the  charities,  associations  for  mutual 
help  and  spiritual  work  of  our  people.  Thus  I  hope  you  will  ascertain  that 
French  Protestants  have  not  degenerated  from  their  glorious  forefathers,  the 
Huguenots. 

Second,  the  concentration  in  our  capital  by  the  side  of  our  Protestant 
faculty  of  the  foremost  leaders  of  ^e  undenominational  party.  When  peo- 
ple saw  Albert  Reville  and  J.  Fouque  lecturing  at  the  College  de  France  ; 
A.  Viguie  and  Waddington,  Jalabert  and  Planchon  teaching  in  our  Paris 
University  ;  Rabier,  the  philosopher,  acting  as  general  director  of  our  sec- 
ondary public  education  ;  F.  Buisson,  F.  Pecant  and  J.  Steeg  organizing  our 
primary  schools  and  training  colleges  (mostly  according  to  the  American 
plan  of  education),  they  understood  that  there  was  in  liberal  Protestantism 
a  pregnant  seed  of  scientitic  improvement,  of  ethical  and  educational  pro- 
gress :  they  ascertained  this  truth — that  there  is  a  logical  connection 
between  nonconfessionalist  Protestantism  and  self-government. 

Third,  however,  the  fact  which,  perhaps,  has  had  the  largest  share  in 
the  magic  spell  exercised  by  modern  Protestantism  on  public  opinion,  is  the 
unconcealed  sympathy  shown  for  us  by  many  of  our  celebrated  writers.  It 
will  be  sufficient  to  quote  the  names  of  Michelet  and  Quinet,  Charles  de 
Remusat  and  Prevost-Paradol,  Henri  Martin  and  Eugene  Pelletan,  Ernest 
Renan  and  Henri  Taine.  Those  leaders  of  French  history,  philosophy  and 
criticism  not  only  bestowed  the  greatest  encomiums  on  Protestantism  and  vin- 
dicated, in  some  cases  of  intolerance,  the  rights  of  our  church,  but  some  mar- 


BONET-MAURY:    RELIGION    IN    FRANCE.  1 263 

ried  Protestant  ladies  got  for  their  children  the  benefit  of  biblical  instruction. 
Even  the  late  Prevost-Paradol,  in  his  preface  to  the  new  edition  of  Samuel 
Vincent's  "Views  on  Protestantism"  (1859),  prophesied  the  final  victory  of 
Calvinistic  Christianity  over  Roman  Catholicism. 

Whatever  else  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  Christianity  will  have  to  take 
into  account  philosophy,  viz.,  the  free  religious  thought.  There  are  in  France 
four  or  five  great  schools  of  philosophy — the  positivist  school,  originated 
by  August  Comte  and  Littre,  which  has  gained  ground  among  the  medical 
men,  the  scientists  and  working  classes,  with  Pierre  Lafitte  for  its  leader; 
the  empiric  school,  of  which  T.  H.  Ribaut  is  the  representative  man;  the 
spiritualist  school,  originated  by  Victor  Cousin,  and  now  represented  by  G. 
Simon,  P.  Janet,  Lachelier;  the  critical  school,  originated  by  Charles 
Renouvier  and  represented  by  Pillon,  editor  of  the  Critique  Philosophique, 
and  the  idealistic  school,  independent  of  official  creed  and  of  which  Ernest 
Renan  and  J.  Darmestetter  are  representative  men. 

Of  these  different  schools  the  first  two  care  nothing  for  religion.  The 
two  following  only  give  marks  of  respect  and  sympathy  to  Christianity;  but 
the  last  took  the  deepest  interest  in  and  exercised  the  greatest  influence  on 
religious  thought  in  France.  Therefore,  I  would  like  to  give  you  some  more 
detail  on  the  last  school,  and  especially  on  its  late  leader,  Ernest  Renan.  I 
would  not  stand  for  every  word  of  Renan's  books.  I  am  of  opinion  that  he 
has  failed  in  interpreting  Christ's  ethical  character,  and  that  he  has  pub- 
lished in  late  years  too  many  things  which  were  rather  the  offspring  of  his 
fancy  or  of  familiar  chat  than  the  results  of  mature  reHection.  However, 
on  the  whole  he  was  a  most  learned  and  respectable  man,  loving  and  tender 
brother,  good  husband,  excellent  father. 

He  was  a  religious  thinker  and  procured  a  Christian  teaching  for  all 
his  children.  He  was  a  faithful  friend  and  benevolent  to  every  suffering 
soul,  but  he  could  not  agree  to  any  Christian  creed.  He  had  sacrificed  his 
livelihood  and  even  a  brilliant  career  in  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  for 
reasons  of  sincerity,  and  having  rejected  the  pope's  authority  he  was  not 
willing  to  submit  to  any  other, 

God  does  not  reveal  himself  through  wonders  ;  he  reveals  himself 
through  the  heart.  Therefore  in  Renan's  eyes  the  groundwork  of  religion 
IS  the  ethical  sense. 

For  this  ethical  basis  Renan  was  indebted  to  his  Christian  mother  and 
sister  and  the  religious  training  of  his  childhood  at  the  Roman  Catholic 
seminaries  of  Treguier  and  Sulpice.  If  the  first  part  of  Renan's  faith  was 
positive,  the  second  was  a  negative.  He  did  not  admit  the  supernatural 
belief  in  wonders.  His  reason  was  that  such  belief  is  incompatible  with  the 
general  laws  of  the  material  world  so  far  as  they  are  known  to  modern 
science.  He  did  not  reject  the  supernatural  in  se,  but  he  said  that  none  of 
the  so-called  miracles  were  proved  by  satisfactory  testimonies. 

Now,  as  to  Kenan's  opinion  about  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  and   the 


1264  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

outlook  of  Christianity,  here  are  his  words  in  the  last  chapter  of  his  "  Life 
of  Christ "  :  "  The  perfect  idealism  of  Christ  is  the  highest  rule  of  the 
unselfish  and  virtuous  life.  He  has  created  the  heavenly  home  of  all  pure 
souls."  "  We  ought  thus  to  place  Jesus  at  the  highest  top  of  human  great- 
ness." "  The  sublime  person  we  may  call  divine,  not  in  the  sense  that  he 
has  absorbed  every  divine  life  but  that  he  brought  mankind  the  nearest  to 
the  divine  ideal In  him  was  condensed  every  good  and  noble  ele- 
ment of  our  nature.  Nobody  has  ever,  as  much  as  he  did,  sacrificed  the 
meanness  of  self-love  to  the  good  of  mankind.  Unreservedly  devoted  to 
his  faith,  he  has  trampled  on  all  joys  of  the  home,  on  all  worldly  cares,  and 
by  his  heroic  will  Jesus  has  conquered  for  us  heaven." 

At  last  here  is  Renan's  opinion  of  the  outlook  of  Christianity:  "There 
are  in  Christiarvity,  as  it  results  from  the  preaching  and  the  ethical  type  of  its 
Founder,  the  seeds  of  every  improvement  of  mankind.  Except  the  scientific 
spirit,  which  Jesus  could  not  have,  nothing  is  lacking  for  his  religion  to  be 
the  pure  kingdom  of  God.  He  cannot  be  surpassed.  His  worship  will 
unceasingly  grow  young  again.  His  life  will  bring  into  the  most  beautiful 
eyes  tears  which  will  never  dry  up  ;  his  sufferings  will  move  the  best  hearts ; 
all  centuries  will  proclaim  that  among  the  sons  of  men  none  was  born  greater 
than  Jesus."  Such  was  Renan's  testimony  to  Christ  and  to  Christianity.  Well, 
that  is  the  man  who  has  been  treated  as  an  atheist,  as  a  destroyer  of  all 
religion  and  as  an  enemy  of  Christ. 

Let  us  see  what  are  the  outlooks  of  religion  in  France.  I  do  not  boast 
of  being  a  prophet,  but  so  far  as  I  am  acquainted  with  the  inmost  aspirations 
of  my  country  I  dare  assert  these  three  points  : 

France  will  remain  a  Christian  nation,  the  land  of  St.  Louis  and  Jeanne 
d'Arc,  of  Calvin  and  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  Thus  the  twentieth  century  will 
not,  as  was  frequently  foretold,  see  the  decay  of  the  religion  of  Christ ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  will  see  the  end  of  every  temporal  religion,  of  every  church 
founded  on  social  or  political  authority  and  wanting  an  ethical  basis  or  free- 
dom of  conscience. 


PRIMITIVE  AND  PROSPECTIVE  RELIGIOUS  UNION 
OF  THE  HUMAN  FAMILY. 

By  Rev.  A.  Gmeiner. 

I.  As  there  was  originally  but  one  human  family,  so  there  was  but  one  ' 
primitive  religion.  When  did  man  first  receive  this  religion  ?  At  the  very 
instant  when  the  Creator  breathed  into  him  the  immortal  soul,  the  germ  of 
religion  was  implanted  in  his  inmost  nature.  The  great  naturalist,  A.  de 
Quatrefages,  declares  on  this  point:  "The  result  of  my  investigation  is 
exactly  the  opposite  of  that  at  which  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  M.  Saint  Hilaire 
have  arrived.  Obliged,  in  my  course  of  instruction,  to  review  all  human 
races,  I  have  sought  atheism  in  the  lowest  as  well  as  in  the  highest.  We 
nowhere  meet  with  atheism  except  in  an  erratic  condition.  In  every  place, 
and  at  all  times,  the  mass  of  populations  have  escaped  it ;  we  nowhere  find 
either  a  great  human  race,  or  even  a  division  however  unimportant  of  that 
race,  professing  atheism.  I  have  proceeded  and  formed  my  conclusions — 
exclusively  as  a  naturalist,  whose  chief  aim  is  to  seek  for  and  state /ar/j." 

We  reject  the  unfounded  assumption  that  the  religious  faculty  of  man 
has  been  gradually  evolved  from  some  animal  faculties,  but  maintain  that  like 
reason  itself  of  which  it  is  the  complement,  it  was  a  primitive  gift  of  his 
Creator.  Besides  we  have  reason  to  believe,  not  only  on  the  authoVity  of  the 
inspired  books,  but  also  from  reliable  historical  data,  that  the  primitiye  human 
family  were  not  only  endowed  with  the  religious  faculty,  but  that  they  had 
also  received  particular  revelations  from  their  Creator,  the  acquisition  of  which 
transcended  the  abilities  of  their  merely  natural  faculties. 

II.  How  was  this  primitive  religious  union  of  the  human  family  lost? 
With  the  gradual  numerical  increase  of  mankind,  it  became  necessary  that 
tribe  after  tribe  separate  itself  to  an  independent  existence.  The  conception 
of  God  became  gradually  obscured  or  distorted  by  the  gradually  changing 
general  mental  conceptions  of  these  various  tribes.  To  the  same  God,  often 
different  names  were  given,  and  gradually  the  different  names  were  considered 
to  denote  different  gods.  God  was  often  honored  under  different  symbols. 
With  this  fundamental  belief  in  God,  also,  other  religious  beliefs,  for  instance, 
concerning  prayer,  sacrifice,  or  the  state  of  immortality,  were  gradually 
changed  and  vitiated.  Yet  in  the  midst  of  the  chaos  of  polytheism  and  idolatry, 
the  precious  germs  of  religion,  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  invisible  superior 
beings,  their  active  interest  in  the  affairs  of  men,  the  voice  of  conscience 
admonishing  to  do  right  and  to  shun  wrong  and  the  conviction  of  immor- 
tality still  remained  indestructible  in  every  human  soul.  We  may  pity  and 
deplore   many  improper  manifestations  of  these  religious  sentiments,  but 

80  1265 


1266  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

the  sentiments  themselves  we  must  profoundly  respect  as  a  gift  of  God  even 
in  the  lowest  savage  or  fetich-worshiper. 

III.  But  God's  fatherly  hand  is  already  leading  his  once  separated 
children  together.  A  unification  of  the  human  family  is  going  on,  the 
rapidity  and  extent  of  which,  even  a  hundred  years  ago,  no  mortal  would 
have  dreamed  of.  Yet  one  great  achievement  remains  to  be  accomplished, 
namely,  to  crown  the  work  of  the  unification  of  the  human  family  with  the 
heaven-given  blessings  of  religious  unity. 

The  one  universal  religion,  to  fulfill  its  mission,  must  be  endowed  with 
the  following  characteristics : 

1.  It  must  be  true,  that  is,  in  full  harmony  with  itself  and  the  entire 
universe,  the  Creator  and  all  his  works. 

2.  It  must  welcome  and  tend  to  assimilate  as  coming  from  God,  all 
^hat  is  really  true,  good  and  beautiful,  wherever  found ;  in  nature,  in  art,  in 
science,  in  philosophy;  and  in  human  culture,  civilization  and  progress. 

3.  It  must  satisfy  all  the  nobler,  higher  aspirations  implanted  by  God  in 
the  soul  of  man. 

4.  It  must  be  provided  with  such  credentials  as  will  satisfy  intelligent 
men  that  it  is  indeed  the  one  true  religion  of  God. 

What  can  and  should  we  all  do  toward  promoting  religious  union 
among  ourselves?  Keeping  in  mind  that  the  one  true  religion  must  be  God- 
given,  as  frail  human  reason  has  proved  itself  throughout  human  history  as 
utterly  incompetent  to  produce  any  religion  which  can  satisfy  mankind,  we 
must  seek  devoutly  and  earnestly  for  the  religion  which  alone  has  all  the 
characteristics  which  the  one  true  religion  of  mankind  must  have.  With 
the  gradual  disappearance  of  the  mists  and  clouds  of  prejudices,  ignorances 
and  antipathies,  there  will  be  always  more  clearly  seen  the  heavenly,  majes- 
tic outlines  of  that  house  of  God,  prepared  on  the  top  of  the  mountains  for 
all  to  see,  into  which,  as  Isaias  foretold,  "all  nations  shall  flow,"  and  count- 
less many  on  entering  will  be  surprised  how  it  was  possible  that  they  had 
no  sooner  recognized  this  true  home  for  all  under  God,  in  which  they  so 
often  professed  to  believe  when  they  reverently  called  it  by  its  Providen- 
tially given  and  preserved  name,  known  all  over  the  world — "The  Holy 
Catholic  Church." 


RKV.  DR.  ASSADOURIAN. 
BISHOP  DANIEL  PAYNE. 
REV.  W.  C.  ROBERTS. 


DR.  PAUL  CARL'S. 

CELIA  PARKER  WOOLLEY. 

DR.  K.  KOHLER. 


THE  WORLD'S  RELIGIOUS  DEBT  TO  AMERICA. 
By  Celia  p.  Wooluey,  of  Geneva,  Illinois. 

The  world's  religious  debt  to  America  is  defined  in  one  word,  Oppor- 
tunity. The  liberty  men  had  known  only  as  a  distant  ideal  had  now  reached 
the  stage  of  practical  experiment. 

It  is  true  if  we  try  to  estimate  this  debt  in  less  abstract  terms  we  shall 
find  we  have  made  a  special  contribution  of  no  mean  degree  in  both  men 
and  ideas.  We  have  had  our  theologians  of  national  and  world-wide  fame, 
men.  of  the  highest  learning  their  age  afforded,  of  consecrated  lives  and 
broad  understanding.  But  each  of  these  stands  for  a  fresh  and  stronger 
utterance  of  a  principle  or  method  of  thought  already  well  understood, 
rather  than  for  any  original  discovery.  The  discovery  of  America  did  not 
so  much  mark  the  era  of  higher  discoveries  in  the  realm  of  ideas  as  it  pro- 
vided a  chance  for  the  application  of  these  ideas.  The  conditions  were 
new,  the  experiment  of  self-government  was  new,  under  which  all  the  lesser 
experiments  in  religious  faith  and  practice  were  carried  on ;  but  the  thing  to 
be  tried,  the  ideal  to  be  tested,  that  was  well  understood.  They  knew  what 
they  wanted,  those  stanch  and  daring  ancestors'of  ours.  "  As  the  pilgrims 
landed,"  says  Bancroft,  "their  institutions  were  already  perfected.  Demo- 
cratic liberty  and  Christian  worship  at  once  existed  in  America." 

It  would  be  hard  to  say  when  or  where  the  gift  of  liberty  was  first 
bestowed  on  man.  Prof.  John  Fiske,  in  his  Discovery  of  America,  shows 
how  after  repeated  experiments  and  failures,  each  leading  to  the  final  tri- 
umph, no  one  standing  for  that  triumph  alone,  this  discovery  was,  in  his 
own  words,  "not  a  single  event  but  a  gradual  process."  Still  more  are  the 
moral  achievements  of  mankind  "gradual  processes,"  not  "single  events." 
To  say  therefore  that  America's  contribution  to  the  race  lies  less  in  knowl- 
edge of  the  principle  of  liberty  than  in  the  opportunity  to  test  and  apply  this 
principle,  is  to  say  enough.  Whatever  the  religious  consciousness  of  man 
had  gained  in  belief  or  conviction  was  ours  to  begin  with.  This  adult  stage 
of  thought  in  which  our  national  life  began  deprived  us  of  many  of  those 
poetic  and  picturesque  elements  which  belong  to  earlier  forms  of  thought. 
The  faith  of  the  new  world,  being  Protestant,  aggressively  and  dogmatically 
Protestant  at  times,  felt  itself  obliged  to  dispense  with  the  large  body  of 
stored  and  storied  literature  gathered  by  mother  church,  and  thus  impover- 
ished itself  in  the  effective  presentation  of  the  truths  it  held  so  dear.  It  has 
been  well  said  that  the  Puritan  ideal  was  allied  to  the  Israelitish ;  in  both 
we  find  the  same  stern  insistence  on  practical  righteousness  as  a  funda- 
mental requiicment  of  the  religious  life.     Personal  integrity,  this  was  the 

1368 


HUME:   CHRISTIAN    AND    HINDL'   THOUGHT.         1 269 

rout  ot  the  Puritan  ideal  in  public  and  private  life,  one  which  this  nation 
must  continue  to  observe  if  it  would  prosper,  which  will  prove  its  sure  loss 
and  destruction  to  ignore. 

Hand  in  hand  the  two  ideals  of  heavenly  birth,  freedom  and  goodness, 
have  led  the  steps  of  man  down  the  tortuous  path  of  theological  experiment 
and  trial  out  under  the  blue  open  of  a  pure  and  natural  religion.  Where 
except  under  republican  rule  can  the  experiment  so  well  be  tried  of  a  personal 
religion,  based  on  no  authority  but  that  of  the  truth,  finding  its  sanction  in 
the  human  heart,  demonstrating  itself  in  deeds  of  practical  helpfulness  and 
good  will  ?  If  the  world's  religious  debt  to  America  lies  in  this  thought  of 
opportunity  or  religion  applied,  it  is  a  debt  the  future  will  disclose  more 
than  the  past  has  disclosed  it.  If  ours  is  the  opportunity,  ours  is  still  more 
the  obligation.  Privilege  does  not  go  without  responsibility ;  where  much 
is  bestowed  much  is  required. 


THE     CONTACT     OF     CHRISTIAN     AND     HINDU 

THOUGHT:  POINTS  OF  LIKENESS  AND 

OF    CONTRAST. 

By  Rev.  Robert  A.  Hume,  of  New  Haven,  Conn. 

When  Christian  and  Hindu  thought  first  came  into  contact  in  India, 
neither  understood  each  other.  This  was  for  two  reasons  :  one  outward, 
the  other  inward.  The  outward  reason  was  this:  The  Christian  saw  Hin- 
duism at  its  worst.  Polytheism,  idolatry,  a  mythology  explained  by  the 
Hindus  themselves  as  teaching  puerilities  and  sensualities  in  its  many  dei- 
ties, caste  rampant,  ignorance  widespread  and  profound — these  are  what 
the  Christian  first  saw  and  supposed  to  be  all  of  Hinduism. 

The  outward  reason  why  the  Hindu  at  first  contact  with  Christianity 
failed  to  understand  it  was  this  :  Speaking  generally,  every  child  of  Hindu 
{)arents  is  of  course  a  Hindu  in  religion,  whatever  his  inmost  thoughts  or 
his  conduct.  Thii__Hindus  had  never  conceived  of  such  an  anomaly  as  an 
un-Hhidu  ciiild  of  Hindu  parents.  NIucli  less  had  they  conceived  of  an 
unchristian  man  from  a  country  where  Christianity  was  the  religion.  See- 
ing the  early  comers  from  the  West  killing  the  cow,  eating  beef,  drinking 
wine,  sometimes  impure,  sometimes  bullying  the  mild  Indian,  the  Hindu 
ea.sily  supposed  that  these  men  from  a  country  where  Christianity  was  the 
religion,  were  Christians.  In  consequence  they  despised  what  they  sup- 
posed was  the  Christian  religion.  They  did  not  know  that  in  truth  it  was 
the  lack  of  Christianity  which  they  were  despising.  Even  in  truly  Christian 
men  they  saw  things  which  seemed  to  them  unlovely.  .\s  at  first  explained, 
the  Christian  had  formed  an  opinion  of  Hinduism  that  it  was  wholly  and 


12/0  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

fearfully  evil.  Therefore,  when  he  spoke  severely  of  all  Hinduism  and 
undertook  to  supplant  it  by  Christianity,  this  was  resented  by  the  Hindu. 
When  any  one  says  that  another  man's  religion  is  imperfect  or  insufTicient, 
and  tries  to  convert  him,  for  this  very  reason  the  followers  of  the  second 
man's  religion  all  think  the  worse  of  the  first  man,  and  of  his  religion  too. 
Moreover,  Christianity  was  to  the  Hindu  the  religion  of  the  conquerors  of 
his  country.  For  this  ow/zi/ar^  reason,  at.  the  first  contact  of  Christian  and 
Hindu  thought  neither  understood  the  other. 

But  there  was  an  additional,  an  inward  reason  why  they  did  not  under- 
stand each  other.  It  was  the  very  diverse  nature  of  the  Hindu  and  the 
western  mind.  The  Hindu  mind  is  supremely  introspective.  It  is  an 
ever  active  mind  which  has  thought  about  most  things  in  "the  three 
worlds,"  heaven,  earth,  and  the  nether  world.  But  it  has  seen  them  through 
the  eye  turned  inwardly,  and  has  therefore  seen  everything  through  intro- 
version. The  faculities  of  imagination  and  of  abstract  thought,  the  faculties 
which  depend  least  on  external  tests  of  validity,  are  the  strongest  of  the 
mental  powers  of  the  Hindu.  The  Hindu  mind  cares  little  for  any  facts, 
except  inward,  ideal  ones.  When  other  facts  conflict  with  such  conceptions 
the  Hindu  disposes  of  them  by  calling  them  illusions. 

A  second  characteristic  of  the  Hindu  mind  is  its  intense  longing  for 
comprehensiveness.  "  There  is  but  one  and  no  second,"  is  the  most  car- 
dinal doctrine  of  philosophical  Hinduism.  So  controlling  is  the  Hindu's 
longing  for  unity  that  he  places  contradictory  things  side  by  side  and 
serenely  calls  them  alike  or  the  same. 

In  marked  contrast  the  western  mind  is  practical  and  logical.  First  and 
foremost  it  cares  for  external  and  historical  facts.  It  needs  lo  aiUivate  the 
imagination.  It  naturally  dwells  on  individuality  and  differences  which  it 
knows.  It  has  to  work  for  comprehension  and  unity.  Above  all  it  recog- 
nizes that  it  should  act  as  it  thinks  and  believes.  How  then,  could  a  mind 
which  first  and  foremost  is  practical,  logical,  and  executive,  understand  and 
repeat  a  mind  which  cares  nothing  for  external  facts  or  for  consistency  ; 
which  does  not  think  that  it  may  act,  nor  act  as  it  thinks  ? 

But  in  the  providence  of  God,  the  Father  of  both  Christian  and  Hindu, 
these  two  diverse  minds  came  into  contact.    Let  us  briefly  trace  the  result. 

Apart  from  disgust  at  the  unchristian  conduct  of  some  men  from 
Christendom,  when  the  Hindu  thinker  first  looked  at  Christian  thought,  he 
viewed  with  lofty  contempt  its  pretensions  and  proposals. 

What !  a  religion  whose  great  Teacher  lived  on  earth  only  eighteen  cen- 
turies ago  offering  itself  for  the  allegiance  of  Hindus  whose  religion  was 
hoary  with  countless  cycles,  or  rather  was  without  beginning  or  end  !  How 
inferior  seemed  a  Bible  written  by  inspired  men  to  religious  books  believed 
to  have  issued  without  human  instrumentality  direct  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Infinite!  When  the  Christian  spoke  of  inconsistencies  between  the  words 
and  deeds  of  Hindu  deities  and  of  immoralities  ascribed  to  such  in  their 


HUME:    CHRISTIAN    AND    HINDU   THOUGHT.       12/1 

own  popular  religious  books,  the  Hindu  calmly  replied  that  the  gods,  being 
a  superior  race,  are  not  to  be  judged  by  human  standards.  The  gods  could 
do  immoral  things  which  they  forbid  to  men  without  forfeiting  the  respect 
or  reverence  of  men.  When  the  Christian  said  that  idols  were  unworthy 
representations  of  God,  and  that  instead  of  helping  men  to  know  the  great 
Spirit  they  mislead  men  as  to  his  true  nature  and  character,  the  Hindu 
replied  that  since  God  is  everywhere,  he  is  in  the  idol,  and  that  "Where 
there  is  faith  there  is  God." 

Similarly  in  its  first  contact  with  Hinduism  the  western  mind  saw  only 
that  which  awakened  contempt  and  pity.  The  Christian  naturally  supposed 
the  popular  Hinduism  which  he  saw  to  be  the  whole  of  Hinduism,  a  system 
of  many  gods,  of  idols,  of  puerile  and  sometimes  immoral  mythologies,  of 
mechanical  and  endless  rites,  of  thorough-going  caste,  and  often  cruel  caste. 
The  Christian  reported  what  he  saw,  and  many  Christians  felt  pity.  In 
accordance  with  the  genius  of  western  mind  to  act  as  it  thinks,  and  under 
the  inspiration  of  Christian  motive.  Christians  began  efforts  to  give  Christian 
thought  and  life  to  India. 

Longer  and  fuller  contact  between  Christian  and  Hindu  thought  has 
caused  a  modification  of  first  impressions.  The  Hindu  has  been  more  and 
more  impressed  by  the  unexpected  power  of  Christian  thought  and  life.  It 
has  been  to  him  passing  strange  that  any  Hindu  of  good  caste  should  relin- 
quish the  ancient  religion  of  his  fathers  for  this  new  and  foreign  faith,  and 
thereby  suffer  the  dreadful  pains  of  becoming  an  outcast  from  all  he  had 
held  dear  on  earth.  But  the  thing  was  happening.  Moreover,  the  despised 
lower  classes  were  in  considerable  numbers  embracing  the  new  faith  and 
being  benefited  intellectually,  socially  and  morally.  Then  the  Hindu 
characteristically  said,  "  After  all,  this  is  what  our  scriptures  foretold,  that 
during  the  age  of  disorder  and  decay,  in  the  revolution  of  the  mighty  wheel 
of  fate,  the  religion  of  the  Greeks  and  western  peoples  should  supplant 
Hinduism."  And  so  the  Hindu  has  characteristically  offered  a  place  in  his 
pantheon  for  Jesus  Christ.  Other  Hindus,  taking  a  step  farther,  say  that 
essentially  Christianity  and  Hinduism  do  not  differ.  Others,  taking 
another  step,  say  that  Christianity  is  largely  borrowed  from  Hinduism,  and 
Christ  is  none  other  than  Krishna,  the  Christ  story  was  the  Krishna  story 
borrowed  and  modified  in  the  West.  There  is  no  historical  evidence  for 
this.  But  it  seems  comprehensive  and  ideal.  On  this  ground  alone  the 
Hindu  could  easily  believe  it. 

But  the  contact  of  India  with  the  West  for  half  a  century  has  been 
giving  the  subtle,  intros-pective  Hindu  mind  a  roundness  and  a  soundness 
which  the  cycle  had  not  secured.  The  Hindu  mind  has  begun  to  look  on 
the  outward,  as  well  as  the  inward,  and  to  understand  that  the  soul  of  man 
cannot  live  by  abstract  thought  alone. 

With  a  growing  historic  sense  and  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  neces- 
sity  for   weighing   all  facts,   some    Hindus   have  seen    that   the   spiritual 


12/2         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

enrichment  of  the  West  has  come  from  Jesus  Christ,  and  they  have  asked 
whether  India  needs  him  too.  The  universality  and  spirituality  of  His 
teachings,  the  majesty  of  his  life  and  character,  and,  above  all,  his  match- 
less power  to  communicate  his  own  life  to  men,  have  attracted  the  attention 
and  have  begun  to  command  the  homage  of  both  the  head  and  heart  of 
India,  ranging  at  every  point  from  honoring  him  as  a  great  religious  teacher 
to  loving  trust  in  him  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  the  Saviour  of  mankind. 
No  longer  is  there  anywhere  in  India  contempt  for  Christ  and  his  Christian- 
ity. The  real  question  is  how  far  is  he  to  modify  Hinduism.  Probably  the 
majority  of  the  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  Hindus  still  know  Chris- 
tianity only  as  the  religion  of  their  rulers,  and  fancy  it  means  beef-eating, 
wine-drinking,  looking  down  on  the  people  of  the  land,  and  calling  on 
Christ  as  they  call  on  Krishna.  The  better  informed  classes  are  perplexed 
by  the  many  sects  of  Christendom.  The  educated  classes  are  repelled  by 
some  unattractive  and  unchristian  ways  of  presenting  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity.  The  educated  Hindu  now  believes  in  the  scientific  spirit  of 
the  West.  When  he  reads  that  religious,  as  well  as  secular,  papers  and 
books  in  the  West  sometimes  represent  science  and  Christianity  as  in  con- 
flict, he  supposes  that  Christianity  maybe  unscientific.  Dissatisfied  with  the 
mechanical  and  unethical  teachings  of  popular  Hinduism,  he  is  repelled 
from  Christianity  by  mechanical  and  unethical  statements  about  Christ's 
relations  to  men,  about  retribution,  about  the  Bible  and  about  the  relations 
of  Christianity  to  the  ethnic  religions  which  he  hears  from  some  Christians. 
But  many  Hindus  who  do  not  take  the  Christian  name  are  reverencing  Jesus 
Christ  and  looking  to  him  for  help.     The  greatest  of  modern  Hindus,  who 

I  died  about  eleven  years  ago,  but  never  took  the  Christian  name,  said  to  me  : 
"The  object  of  my  life  is  to  lead  my  countrymen  to  Christ."  /7 

^  Turning  now  to  the  effect  on  Christian  thought  of  thi^  latter  contact 

with  Hindu  thought  we  find  a  better  understanding,  first  of  the  history  of 
Hinduism  and  next  of  even  modern  Hinduism.  Nothing  is  known  truly 
unless  it  is  known  historically.  Fifty  years  ago  neither  Hindu  nor  Christian 
could  give  a  comprehensive  and  rational  account  of  the  history  of  Hindu- 
ism. For  more  than  half  a  century  western  thought  has  been  studying  by 
the  scientific  method  the  origin  and  growth  of  religious  ideas  and  practices 
in  India.  As  a  result  it  is  possible  now  to  understand  how  fetichism,  anim- 
ism, nature  worship,  hero  worship,  spiritual  worship  and  idolatry,  monothe- 
ism, polytheism,  atheism  and  pantlieism  are  all  a  part  of  what  is  included 
under  the  general  name  of  Hinduism  :  how  idolatry  and  caste  and  the 
superstitions  of  modern  Hinduism  had  their  roots  in  better  things. 

In  view  of  this,  well  informed  Christians  are  taking,  from  one  stand- 
point, a  more  encouraging  conception  of  what  God,  the  universal  heavenly 
Father,  has  been  doing  for  his  Hindu  children.  Yet  no  less  has  become 
their  conviction  that  the  truths  of  Hinduism  need  to  find  their  complement- 
ary truths  in  Christ,  and  also  find  their  fullest  development  in  him.     Above 


V, 


-     r.        — 


X 


X 


1274  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

all,  India  needs  the  power  which  Christ  gives  to  enable  men  to  live  by  the 
truth  which  they  may  apprehend. 

Historical  study  has  shown  both  Christians  and  Hindus  that  there  are 
points  of  real  agreement  between  their  religions.  Yet  sometimes  both 
Christians  and  Hindus  have,  without  any  adequate  basis,  read  into  Hindu- 
ism not  a  little  of  Christian  thought. 

I  mention  now  points  of  likeness  between  Christian  and  Hindu  thought. 
But  first  I  draw  careful  attention  to  the  important  qualification,  which  I 
will  soon  explain  more  fully,  that  the  likeness  is  often  more  largely  verbal 
than  essential. 

Both  Christian  and  Hindu  thought  recognize  an  Infinite  Being  with 
whom  is  bound  up  man's  rational  and  spiritual  life.  Both  magnify  the 
indwelling  of  this  Infinite  Being  in  every  part  of  the  universe.  Both  teach 
that  this  great  Being  is  ever  revealing  itself :  that  the  universe  is  a  unit,  and 
that  all  things  come  under  the  universal  laws  of  the  Infinite  :  that  to  men  the 
Infinite  especially  reveals  itself  as  "  Word,"  because  the  word  is  the  chief 
human  expression  of  thought :  that  man  is  the  highest  element  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  the  nearest  allied  to  the  Infinite  :  that  in  his  present  state  man  is 
not  only  in  an  imperfect  condition,  he  is  in  an  evil  plight :  that  the  invisible 
and  spiritual  is  man's  ultimate  goal  :  therefore,  that  the  soul  has  rightful 
authority  over  the  senses  :  that  present  evil  is  transient :  that  spiritual  gains 
are  to  be  won  only  through  suffering :  that  the  Infinite  has  become  incarnate 
to  aid  men  to  attain  to  the  higher  good  :  that  the  higher  good  is  to  be  gained 
through  obedience  to  divine  conditions,  hence  obedience  is  the  foot  of  the 
soul :  that  faith,  seeing  the  invisible,  the  true  behind  the  apparent,  is  the  eye 
of  the  soul :  yet  that  a  love,  which  is  beyond  the  thought  of  constraining 
law,  is  higher  than  simple  obedience,  hence  love  is  the  wing  of  the  soul : 
that  moral  penalty  is  inevitable,  yet  that  there  are  remedial  energies  in  the 
universe :  that  prayer,  as  intercourse  of  man  with  God,  is  helpful :  that  after 
this  world  there  is  a  future  for  the  soul :  that  the  Infinite  has  revealed  his  will 
to  man  through  scriptures  which  they  should  study  and  follow.  In  the  sacred 
books  of  both  religions  there  are  found  some  statements  of  ethics  not  very 
unlike. 

While  in  a  spirit  of  sympathy  I  have  tried  to  show  that  both  Christian 
and  Hindu  thought  have  points  of  likeness  on  these  great  truths,  candor 
requires  me  now  to  make  a  very  important  explanation  and  qualification  in 
regard  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  likeness.  In  very  truth  it  is  often  a 
verbal  correspondence,  more  than  essential  likeness  ;  sometimes  it  is  real, 
but  unconscious  agreement,  due  on  the  one  hand  to  illogical  disregard  of 
Hindu  philosophy,  and  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  teaching  of  the  Heavenly 
P'ather,  who  through  his  Eternal  Word  enlighteneth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world. 

The  points  of  likeness  between  Christian  and  Hindu  thought  are  often 
verbal,  rather  than    real,  because   the  dominating  philosophy  of  India  is, 


HUME:   CHRISTIAN    AND    HINDU   THOUGHT         1 275 

what  for  lack  of  a  better  term,  we  may  call  pure  pantheism,  with  all  its 
accompanying  doctiines  of  illusion,  fatalism  and  transmigration.  To  the 
flindu  there  is  in  the  universe  but  one — call  it  being,  call  it  essence,  call  it 
thing — there  is  but  one,  the  Pan,  the  All,  the  Universal  It,  Brahma.  No  man, 
no  thing  is  so  separated  from  it  as  to  have  been  created  by  it.  There  never 
has  been  creation,  only  emanation  from  the  Universal  It.  It  is  ignorance  to 
say  that  there  is  a  God.  There  is  no  essential  difference  between  man  and 
a  stone.  When  man  can  lose  consciousness  of  personality  and  say,  "Aham 
Brahma,"  ;'.  e.,  "  I  am  the  Universal  It,"  then  he  has  attained  true  wisdom 
and  his  true  goal ;  he  passes  from  conscious  existence  into  the  Universal  It. 

By  the  contact  of  Christian  and  Hindu  thought  each  will  help  the  other. 
By  seeing  all  the  truth  that  there  is  in  Hinduism  Christians  will  better 
appreciate  the  ceaseless,  loving  activity  of  God  in  all  time  for  all  men,  and 
hence  better  appreciate  his  Fatherhood.  The  Hindu's  recognition  of  the 
immanence  of  God  in  every  part  of  his  universe  will  quicken  the  present 
movement  of  western  thought  to  rtcognize  everywhere  a  present  and  a 
living  God.  The  Hindu's  longing  for  unity  will  help  the  western  mind  not 
only  to  admit  in  theory,  but  more  to  appreciate  that,  since  there  is  Jjut  one 
Infinite  Father,  his  universe  must  be  a  unit ;  that  from  the  beginning  for- 
evermore  there  has  been  and  will  be  one  plan  and  one  purpose  from  the 
least  atom  to  the  highest  intelligence.  From  the  testimony  of  Hindu 
thought  Christians  will  more  appreciate  the  superiority  of  the  spiritual  and 
invisible  over  the  material  and  seen,  of  the  eternal  over  the  evanescent. 

It  would  be  merely  sentimental  and  superficial  to  think  that  Christian 
thought  had  not  something  fundamental  for  the  enrichment  of  Hindu 
thought  and  life.  It  is  true  historically  and  scientifically  in  the  experience 
of  every  man  of  the  race  that  all  our  knowledge  begins  with  the  material 
and  partial,  and  only  by  development  grows  into  the  spiritual  and  universal. 
The  Chnstian  statement  of  this  historical,  philosophical  truth  is  in  Christ's 
words :  "  No  man  knoweth  the  Father  but  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son 
shall  reveal  him,"  i.  e.,  the  unknown  is  to  be  explained  and  understood  by 
the  known,  God  by  man,  God  as  Father  can  only  be  understood  by  the  filial 
relation.  According  to  Jesus  Christ  neither  Oriental  nor  Occidental  can  truly 
know  God  as  Father,  except  by  the  help  of  him  who  was  the  Son  of  God 
and  the  Son  of  Man. 

Therefore  by  its  contact  with  Christian  thought,  Hindu  thought  and  life 
will  be  preeminently  enriched,  first  by  that  supreme  revelation  of  God  and  of 
man  which  Christ  gives  ;  then  by  that  harmony  between  God  and  man  which 
Christ  secures;  and  then  by  the  power  of  the  Christian  motive.  What 
knowledge  of  God  comes  through  Christ!  God  is  spirit ;  immanent  in  all 
the  universe,  in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being ;  transcendent, 
for  we  are  not  he,  but  he  is  our  Father.  God  is  love.  What  a  knowledge  of 
man  conies  from  Jesus  Christ !  He  is  man,  ideal  man,  "  the  first-born  among 
many  brethren,"  like  him  we  all  may  become,  like  him  the  lowest  Pariah  in 


1276  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

India  may  become.  Then  the  power  of  Christian  motive,  how  omnipotent ! 
It  was  the  Christian  motive  which  led  the  once  proud  Pharisee  Paul  to  say, 
"  I  am  debtor,  I  am  debtor  both  to  Jew  and  to  Greek,  both  to  bond  and  to 
free."  And  that  has  been  the  quenchless  fountain,  the  matchless  power 
in  all  Christianity.  A  knowledge  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man  is  the  head  of  Christianity.  The  Christian  motive  is  the  heart 
ot  Christianity,  or  more  truly,  it  is  the  life  of  the  risen,  ever-living  Christ 
working  now  through  his  members  and  through  them  imparting  his  life  to 
others. 

In  all  my  study  and  experience  in  India,  the  land  of  my  birth  and  life- 
work,  I  have  nof  found  in  Hindu  thought  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit:  the  spirit  of  God,  whose  supreme  title  is  "The  Holy,"  whose  special 
function  is  to  make  men  holy,  who  makes  both  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men 
his  temple  that  he  may  apply  to  them  the  things  of  Christ  and  make  them 
holy.  Christian  thought  will  enrich  Hindu  thought  and  life  with  this  truth. 
Christianity  is  giving  to  India  a  weekly  day  of  rest  and  worship.  Christian 
thought  will  give  to  India's  life  all  that  wonderful  power  of  organization  for 
the  quickening  of  the  spiritual  life  and  for  arousing  and  directing  religious 
activity  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Christian  church.  Hinduism  has  no 
church,  no  social  public  worship,  no  missionary  activity. 


A  VOICE  FROM  THE  YOUNG  MEN  OF  THE  ORIENT. 

By  Herant  M.  Kiretchjian,  of  Constantinople. 

Brethren  from  the  Sun-Rising  of  all  Lands, — I  stand  here  to 
represent  the  young  men  of  the  Orient,  in  particular  from  the  land  of  the 
pyramids  to  the  ice-fields  of  Siberia,  and  in  general  from  the  shores  of  the 
/Egean  to  the  waters  of  Japan.  But  on  this  wonderful  platform  of  the  Par- 
liament of  Religions,  where  I  find  myself  with  the  sons  of  the  Orient  facing 
the  American  public,  my  first  thought  is  to  tell  you  that  you  have  unwittingly 
called  together  a  council  of  your  creditors.  We  have  not  come  to  wind  up 
your  affairs,  but  to  unwind  your  hearts.  Turn  to  your  books  and  see  if  our 
claim  is  nol  right.  We  have  given  you  science,  philosophy,  theology,  music 
and  poetry,  and  have  made  history  for  you  at  tremendous  expense.  And 
moreover,  out  of  the  light  that  shone  upon  our  lands  from  heaven,  there  have 
gone  forth  those  who  shall  forever  be  your  cloud  of  witnesses  and  your  inspir- 
ation—saints, apostles,  prophets,  martyrs.  And  with  that  rich  capital  you 
have  amassed  a  stupendous  fortune,  so  that  your  assets  hide  away  from  your 
eyes  your  liabilities.  We  do  not  want  to  share  your  wealth,  but  it  is  right 
that  we  should  have  our  dividend,  and  as  usual,  it  is  a  young  man  who  pre- 
sents the  vouchers. 


KIRETCHJIAN:  A  VOICE  FROM  THE  ORIENT.        I  277 

You  cannot  pay  this  dividend  with  money.  Your  gold  you  want  your- 
self. Your  silver  has  fallen  from  grace.  We  want  you  to  give  us  a  rich  divi- 
dend in  the  full  sympathy  of  your  hearts.  There  is  a  new  race  of  men  that 
have  risen  up  out  of  all  the  great  past  whose  influence  will  undoubtedly  be 
a  most  important  factor  in  the  work  of  humanity  in  the  coming  century. 
They  are  the  result  of  all  the  past,  coming  iu  contact  with  the  new  life  of  the 
present — I  mean  the  young  men  of  the  Orient ;  they  who  are  preparing  to 
take  possession  of  the  earth  with  their  brothers  of  the  great  West.  Constanti- 
nople stands  to-day  as  the  typical  city  of  the  East,  as  influenced  by  the  civi- 
lization of  the  West.  In  view  of  this  fact,  it  seems  to  me  that  no  voice  coming 
to  this  Parliament  of  Religions  with  its  plea  for  an  impartial  hearing  could 
be  any  more  worthy  of  your  most  indulgent  hearing  and  impartial  considera- 
tion than  that  of  the  voice  of  the  young  men  of  the  Orient,  coming  through 
the  City  of  Constantinople,  the  most  religious  city  of  the  world.  Saturated 
with  the  religions  of  the  ages,  overwhelmed  by  the  philosophy  of  modern 
days,  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  young  men  of  the  Orient  have  had  a  develop- 
ment that  is  not  only  characteristic  of  the  Orient,  but  is  having  its  sequel  in 
all  the  West. 

Young  men  of  all  the  nationalities  I  have  mentioned,  who  for  the  past 
thirty  years  have  received  their  education  in  the  universities  of  Paris, 
Heidelberg,  Berlin,  and  other  cities  of  Europe,  as  well  as  the  Imperial 
Lyceum  of  Constantinople,  have  been,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  pas- 
sively or  aggressively,  weaving  the  fabric  of  their  religion,  so  that  to  the 
thousand  young  men,  for  whom  their  voice  is  an  oracle,  it  has  come  like  a 
boon  and  enlisted  their  heart  and  mind. 

They  find  their  brothers  in  largQ  numbers  in  all  the  cities  of  the  Orient 
where  European  civilization  has  found  the  least  entrance,  and  there  is 
scarcely  any  city  that  will  not  have  felt  their  influence  before  the  end  of  the 
century.  Their  religion  is  the  newest  of  all  religions,  and  I  should  not 
have  brought  it  upon  this  platform  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  it  is  one  of 
most  potent  influences  acting  in  the  Orient  and  with  which  we  religious 
young  men  of  the  East  have  to  cope  efficiently  if  we  are  to  have  the  least 
influence  with  the  people  of  our  respective  lands. 

For  remember,  these  are  men  of  intelligence,  men  of  excellent  parts, 
men  who  with  all  the  young  men  of  the  Orient  have  proved  that  in  all  arts 
and  science,  in  t/he  marts  of  the  civilized  world,  in  the  armies  of  the  nations 
and  at  the  right  hand  of  kings  they  are  the  equal  of  any  race  of  men. 

They  say  :  "  We  have  nothing  against  you,  but  really,  as  to  all  relig- 
ions, we  must  say  that  you  have  done  the  greatest  possible  harm  to  humanity 
by  raising  men  against  men  and  nation  against  nation." 

So  we  do  not  want  any  of  your  "  isms  "  nor  any  other  system  or  doctrine. 
We  are  not  materialists,  socialists,  rationalists  or  pessimists,  and  we  are  not 
idealists.  Our  religion  is  the  first  that  was,  and  it  is  also  the  newest  of  the 
new — we  are  gentlemen. 


1278  PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SIXTEENTH  DAY. 

There  is  another  class  of  young  men  in  the  Orient  who  call  themselves 
the  religious  young  men,  and  who  hold  to  the  ancient  faith  of  their  fathers. 

Allow  me  to  claim  for  these  young  men,  also,  honesty  of  purpose,  intel- 
ligence of  mind,  as  well  as  a  firm  persuasion.  For  them,  also,  I  come  to 
speak  to  you,  and  in  speaking  for  them  I  speak  also  for  myself.  You  will 
naturally  see  that  we  have  to  be  from  earliest  days  in  contact  with  the  new 
religion  ;  so  let  me  call  it  for  convenience.  We  have  to  be  in  colleges  and 
universities  with  these  same  young  men. 

First,  all  the  young  men  of  the  Orient,  who  have  the  deepest  religious 
convictions,  stand  for  the  dignity  of  man.  For  us  it  is  a  libel  on  humanity, 
and  an  impeachment  of  the  God  who  created  man  to  say  that  man  is  not 
sufficient  within  himself,  and  that  he  needs  a  religion  to  come  and  make 
him  perfect.  It  is  libeling  humanity  to  look  upon  this  or  that  family  of 
man  and  to  say  that  they  show  conceptions  of  goodness  and  truth  and  high 
ideals  and  a  life  above  simple  animal  desires,  because  they  have"  had  relig- 
ious teaching  by  this  or  that  man  or  a  revelation  from  heaven.  We  believe 
that  if  man  is  man  he  has  it  all  in  himself,  just  as  he  has  all  his  bodily 
capacities. 

Nor  do  we  accept  the  unwarranted  conclusions  of  science.  We  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  monkeys.  If  they  want  to  speak  to  us  they  will 
have  to  come  up  to  us.  There  is  a  western  spirit  of  creating  difficulties 
which  we  cannot  understand.  One  of  my  first  experiences  in  the  United 
States  was  taking  part  in  a  meeting  of  young  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  the 
City  of  Philadelphia.  The  subject  of  the  evening  was  whether  animals  had 
souls,  and  the  cat  came  out  prominently.  Very  serious  and  erudite  papers 
were  read.  But  the  conclusion  was,  that  not  knowing  just  what  a  cat  is 
and  what  a  soul  is,  they  could  not  decide  the  matter. 

So  far  we  come  with  the  young  men  of  the  gentlemen  class,  hand  to 
hand,  upon  the  common  of  humanity.  But  here  is  a  corner  where  we  part 
'  and  take  widely  diverging  paths.  We  cry,  "  Let  us  alone,  and  we  will 
expand  and  rise  up  to  the  height  of  our  destiny  ;"  and.  behold,  we  find  an 
invisible  power  that  will  not  let  us  alone.  We  find  that  we  can  do  almost 
everything  in  the  ways  of  science  and  art.  But  when  it  comes  to  following 
our  conception  of  that  which  is  high  and  noble,  that  which  is  right  and 
necessary  for  our  development,  that  we  are  wanting  in  strength  and  power 
to  advance  toward  it.  But  the  fact  for  us  is  as  real  as  that  of  the  dignity 
of  man.  That  there  is  a  power  which  diverts  man  and  woman  from  the 
path  of  rectitude  and  honor,  in  which  they  know  they  must  walk. 

So,  briefly,  I  say  to  any  one  here  who  is  preparing  to  boil  down  his 
creed,  put  this  in  it  before  you  reach  the  boiling  point :  "And  I  believe  in 
the  devil,  the  arch-enemy  of  God,  the  accuser  of  God  to  man."  One  devil 
for  the  whole  universe?  We  care  not.  A  legion  of  demons  besieging  each 
soul?  It  matters  not  to  us.  We  know  this;  that  there  is  a  power  outside 
of  man  which  draws  him  aside  mightily.  And  there  is  no  power  on  earth 
that  can  resist  it. 


KISHIMOTO:    RELIGION   IN   JAPAN.  1 279 

And  so,  here  comes  our  religion.  If  you  have  a  religion  to  bring  to 
the  young  men  of  the  Orient,  it  must  come  with  a  power  that  will  balance, 
yea,  counterbalance  the  power  of  evil  in  the  world.  Then  will  man  be  free 
to  grow  up  and  be  that  whkh  God  intended  he  should  be.  We  want  God. 
We  want  the  spirit  of  God.  And  the  religion  that  comes  to  us  in  any  name 
or  form,  must  bring  that  or  else,  for  us,  it  is  no  religion.  And  we  believe  in 
God,  not  the  God  of  protoplasms,  that  hides  between  molecules  of  matter, 
but  God  whose  children  we  are. 

So  we  place  as  the  third  item  of  our  philosophy  and  protest  the  dignity 
of  God.  Is  chivalry  dead  ?  Has  all  conception  of  a  high  and  noble  life  of 
sterling  integrity,  departed  from  the  hearts  of  men  that  we  cannot  aspire  to 
knighthood  and  princeship  in  the"  courts  of  our  God  ?  We  know  we  are  his 
children,  for  we  are  doing  his  work  and  thinking  his  thoughts.  What  we 
want  to  do  is  to  be  like  him. 

And  here  comes  the  preacher  from  ancient  days,  and  the  modern  church 
and  tells  us  of  One  who  did  overcome  the  world.  And  that  He  came  down 
from  above.  We  need  not  to  be  told  that  He  came  from  above,  for  no  man 
born  of  woman  did  any  such  thing.  But  we  are  persuaded  that  by  the 
means  of  His  grace  and  the  path  which  He  shows  us  to  walk  in,  the  spirit  of 
God  does  come  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and  that  I  can  feel  it  in  my  heart 
fighting  with  me  against  sin  and  strengthening  my  heart  to  hold  resolutely  to 
that  which  I  know  to  be  right  by  the  divine  in  me.  We  do  not  know  whether 
the  Spirit  of  God  proceedeth  from  the  Father  or  from  the  Son,  but  we  know 
that  it  proceedeth  into  the  heart  of  man  and  that  sufficeth  unto  us. 


FUTURE  OF  RELIGION  IN  JAPAN. 
•     By  Nobuta  Kishimoto,  of  Okayama,  Japan. 

Japan  at  present  is  the  battlefield  between  religion  and  no  religion,  and 
also  between  Christianity  and  other  systems  of  religion. 

The  prevailing  attitude  of  our  educated  classes  toward  any  system  of- 
religion  is  one  of  indifference,  if  not  strong  antagonism.  Among  them 
the  agnosticism  of  Spencer,  the  materialism  of  Comte,  and  the  pessimism 
of  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann  are  most  influential.  To  them  God  is 
either  the  product  of  our  own  imagination,  or,  at  most,  is  unknowable: 
religion  is  nothing  but  superstition;  the  universe  is  a  chance-work  and  has 
no  end  or  meaning;  men  are  nothing  but  lower  animals  in  disguise,  without 
the  image  of  God  in  them,  and  without  a  bright  future  before  them.  The 
religions  of  Japan  have  to  contend  with  these  no-God  and  no-religion  doc- 
trines. Atheism,  pessimism  and  agnosticism  are  common  enemies  of  all  the 
religions.  If  Christianity  has  to  face  these  enemies,  Shintoism  and  Bud- 
dhism also  have  to  face  the  same. 


I280  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

What  is  the  prospect  of  this  battle  ?  Can  the  people  of  Japan  be  sat- 
isfied with  these  no-God  and  no-religion  doctrines  ?  Surely  not.  Atheism, 
pessimism,  and  agnosticism  are  essentially  negative  and  destructive.  Man 
is  naturally  optimistic  and  feels  the  impulse  of  tiie  possibility  of  infinite 
development.  He  must,  have  something  positive  to  make  him  grow,  and  he 
cannot  be  satisfied  by  anything  short  of  the  Infinite.  Thus  there  is  not 
much  doubt  as  to  the  ultimate  triumph  of  religion  over  no-religion  in  Japan, 
as  well  as  elsewhere.  It  is,  the  law  of  the  struggle  for  existence  that  the 
fittest  shall  survive,  and  the  fittest  in  this  case  is  religion. 

.  Suppose  Japan  wants  some  religion.  What  will  be  this  religion  ? 
There  comes  the  warfare  between  Christianity  and  the  old  religions.  Shin- 
toism,  the  oldest  religion  of  Japan,  represents  three  things  in  one — totem 
worship,  nature  worship  and.  ancestor  worship.  It  is  an  ethnological  relig- 
ion and  as  such  has  no  originator,  no  system  of  creeds  and  no  code  of 
morals.  It  teaches  that  men  are  the  descendants  of  the  gods ;  that  is,  the 
divinity  of  humanity.  Again,  it  teaches  that  as  the  universe  came  from  the 
gods,  it  is  full  of  the  divine  essence,  that  is,  the  doctrine  of  the  divine 
immanence.  - 

Confucianism  is  the  next  oldest  system  in  Japan.  It  came  from  China. 
In  its  natiye  country  it  developed  into  a  great  system.  But  in  Japan  the  case 
is  different.  Here  it  has  never  developed  into  a  religious  system.  It  was 
simply  accepted  as  a  system  of  social  and  family  morals.  It  had  and  still 
has  a  stronghold  among  the  higher  and  well  educated  classes. 

Buddhism  is  the  third  religion  in  Japan.  It  came  from  India  through 
China  and  Corea,  and  now  is  the  most  popular  religion  in  Japan.  At 
present  there  are  at  least  ten  different  sects  which  all  go  by  the  name  of 
Buddhism,  but  which  are  often  quite  different  from  one  another.  Some 
sects  are  atheistic  and  others  are  almost  theistic.  Some  are  strict  and 
others  are  liberal.  Some  are  scholarly  and  others  are  popular.  Some  are 
pessimistic  in  their  principles  and  teach  annihilation  to  be  the  ultimate  end 
of  human  existence.  Others  are  optimistic  and  teach  a  happy  life  in  a 
future  existence,  if  not  in  the  present  world.  But  all  unite  at  least  in  the 
one  thing,  viz.,  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  "One  reaps  what  he  sows,"  is 
the  universal  teaching  of  Japanese  Buddhism,  although  the  application  of 
the  law  may  be  different  in  different  sects. 

The  last  and  newest  religion  in  Japan  is  Christianity.  We  have  three 
forms  of  Christianity — Roman  Catholic,  Greek  Catholic  and  Protestant;  the 
whole  Christian  population  being  about  100,000.  Of  these  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  is  the  strongest  in  membership;  then  comes  the  Protestant, 
and  finally  the  Greek  Catholic.  The  Protestant  Christianity  is  already  rep- 
resented by  thirty-one  different  sects  and  denominations.  In  the  struggle 
for  existence  between  these  old  religions  in  Japan  and  Christianity,  which 
will  be  more  likely  to  survive? 

In  Japan  these  three  different  systems  of  religion  and  morality  are  not 


RK\'.  J.  r.  \()Koi. 
KKV.  V.  \iAisi;v.\.\i.\. 
l>K.  i:kNsl-  i-ai;i;k. 

Si 


K.\i;i;i  i;.  drackman'. 

r.AKSIIMI    NARAIN. 

I'KDl'.  li>N  k.\i)  \n\  OKKI.1,1. 


1282  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

only  living  together  on  friendly  terms  with  one  another  but,  in  fact,  they  are 
blended  together  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  One  and  the  same  Japanese 
is  both  a  Shintoist,  a  Confucianist  and  Buddhist.  This  must  be  strange  to 
you,  but  it  is  a  fact.  Our  religion  maybe  likened  to  a  triangle.  One  angle 
is  Shintoism,  another  is  Confucianism,  and  a  third  angle  is  Buddhism,  all  of 
which  make  pp  the  religion  pf  the  ordinary  Japanese.  Shintoism  furnishes 
the  object  of  objects,  Confucianism  offers  the  rules  of  life,  while  Buddhism 
supplies  the  way  of  salvation;  so  you  see  we  Japanese  are  eclectic  in  every- 
thing, even  iu  religion.  Now  Christianity  comes  to  the  Japanese  and  claims 
their  exclusive  faith  in  it.  The  God  of  Christianity  is  the  jealous  God. 
Here  begins  the  battle  between  the  newcomer  and  the  old  religions  of  Japan. 

Which  will  survive  in  this  struggle  for  existence?  I  will  simply  express 
my  own  thoughts  concerning  the  probable  result. 

There  are  two  ways  of  comparing  the  value  of  different  religions — ■ 
namely,  practical  and  theoretical.  In  either  of  these  ways  one  can  pick  up 
the  defects  and  shortcomings  of  different  religions  and  make  them  the 
standard  of  comparison.  But  this  seems  to  be  a  very  poor  method.  The 
better  way  is  by  placing  side  by  side  the  best  and  most  worthy  teachings  of 
different  systems  and  then  decide  which  is  the  best. 

In  my  mind  there  is  no  doubt  that  Christianity  will  survive  and  become 
the  future  religion  of  the  land.  My  reasons  for  this  are  numerous,  but  I 
must  be  brief.  In  the  first  place,  Christianity  claims  to  be,  and  is,  the  uni- 
versal religion.  It  teaches  one  God,  who  is  the  Father  of  all  mankind ;  but 
it  is  so  pliable  that  it  can  adapt  itself  to  any  environment,  and  then  it  can 
transform  and  assimilate  the  environment  to  itself. 

In  the  second  place,  Christianity  is  inclusive.  It  is  a  living  organism,  a 
seed  or  germ  which  is  capable  of  growth  and  development,  and  which  will 
leaven  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  In  growing  it  draws  and  can  draw  its 
nutritious  elements  from  any  sources.  It  survives  the  struggle  for  existence 
and  feeds  and  grows  on  the  flesh  of  the  fallen. 

In. the  third  place,  Christianity  teaches  that  man  was  created  in  the 
image  of  God.  The  human  is  divine  and  the  divine  is  human.  Here  lies 
the  merit  of  Christianity,  in  uplifting  all  human  beings  to  their  proper 
position. 

In  the  fourth  place,  Christianity  teaches  love  to  God  and  love  to  men 
as  its  fundamental  teaching.  The  golden  rule  is  the  glory  of  Christianity, 
not  because  it  was  originated  by  Christ — this  rule  was  also  taught  by  Buddha 
and  Lao-tse  many  centuries  before — but  because  Christ  properly  emphasized 
it  by  his  words  and  life. 

In  the  fifth  place,  Christianity  requires  every  man  to  be  perfect,  as  the 
Father  in  heaven  is  perfect.  Here  lies  the  basis  for  the  hope  of  man's 
infinite  development. 

In  brief  these  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  make  me  think  that  sooner 
or  later  Christianity  will,  as  it  ought,  become  the  future  religion  of   Japan. 


YOKOI:   WHAT    IS    CHRISTIANITY.  1 283 

If  Christianity  should  triumph.which  form  of  Christianity  will  become  the 
religion  of  Japan,  Catholic  Christianity  or  Protestant  Christianity  ?  We  do 
not  want  either.  We  want  the  Christianity  of  the  Bible,  nay,  the  Christianity 
of  Christ.  We  do  not  want  the  Christianity  of  England  nor  theChristiarv- 
ity  of  America ;  we  want  the  Christianity  of  Japan.  On  the  whole  it  is 
better  to  have  different  sects  and  denominations  than  to  have  lifeless 
monotony.  The  Christian  Church  should  observe  the  famous  saying  of 
St.  Vincent :  "In  essentials,  unity;  in  non-essentials,  liberty ;  in  all  things 
charity." 

We  Japanese  want  the  Christianity  of  the  Christ.  We  want  the  truth 
of  Christianity,  nay,  we  want  the  truth  pure  and  simple.  We  want  the 
spirit  of  the  Bible  and  not  its  letter.  We  hope  for  the  union  of  all  Chris- 
tians, at  least  in  spirit  if  not  in  form.  But  we  Japanese  Christians  are 
hoping  more,  we  are  ambitious  to  present  to  the  world  one  new  and  unique 
interpretation  of  Christianity  as  it  is  presented  in  the  Bible,  which  knows  no 
sectarian  controversy  and  which  knows  no  heresy  hunting.  Indeed,  the 
time  is  coming  and  ought  to  come  when  God  shall  be  worshiped,  not  by 
rites  and  ceremonies,  but  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 


CHRISTIANITY— WHAT  IS  IT  ?     A  QUESTION  IN 

THE  FAR   EAST. 

By  Rev.  J.  T.  YoKOi. 

The  student  from  the  non-Christian  East  ventures  to  discuss  this  ques- 
tion for  two  reasons ;  first,  because  Christianity,  as  it  is  actively  at  work  in 
the  East,  is  a  variety  of  sects,  each  claiming  to  have  the  fundamental  truth, 
and,  second,  because  the  earliest  and  deepest  motive  which  led  the  East  to 
believe  in  Christianity  was  the  sublimity  of  the  Christian  ideal  of  life  as 
seen  in  the  simple  sayings  of  Jesus,  and  in  the  noble  lives  of  a  few  conse- 
crated teachers.  Was  the  first  impression  the  true  one,  or  are  the  later 
voices  of  the  sects  to  be  the  guides  ?  Hence,  the  question  forces  itself  on 
the  East  for  an  independent  answer.     What  is  Christianity  ?     We  reply : 

I.  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  its  Founder.  His  life  and  teachings 
are  to  be  the  norm  and  the  criteria  for  all  ages  to  come.  The  Epistles  of 
Paul,  which  form  so  large  a  portion  of  the  New  Testament,  contain  many 
priceless  pages  of  religious  and  ethical  instructions,  which  are  besides  filled 
with  the  exalted  and  inspiring  faith  in  Christ  which  conquered  the  world. 
But  as  to  those  other  portions  in  them  which  relate  to  theological  and  phil- 
osophical expositions,  we  can  not  regard  them  as  constituting  the  absolute 
representation  of  Christianity,     They  are  useful  chieHy  in  showing  us  the 


1284  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

way  in  which  Christianity  was  applied  to  the  need  of  the  first  age.  Whither 
then  shall  we  turn  ?  Unquestionably  to  the  Gospels,  especially  to  the  Syn- 
optics. Incomplete  as  these  records  are,  when  considered  as  accurate  biog- 
raphies of  Jesus,  yet  no  unprejudiced  critic  will  deny  that  in  their  pages  we 
have  the  earliest  impressions  of  the  life  of  Jesus  and  the  chief  sayings  which 
fell  from  his  lips. 

II.  One  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  us  on  reading  the  Gospels  is  the 
absence  of  accidental  and  unessential  elements  from  the  ethico-religious 
teachings  of  Jesus.  As  we  go  through  his  ethical  and  religious  teachings, 
they  gave  us  the  sense  of  joy  and  gratitude  uninterrupted.  His  acts  are  of 
universal  significance.  In  his  life  and  teachings  we  have  all  the  essential 
elements  of  ethico-religious  life  and  no  more. 

The  teachings  of  Christ  seem  to  us  capable  of  being  classed  under  a 
few  simple  heads.  Perhaps  there  are  no  better  headings  than  the  famous 
trinity  of  Paul — Faith,  Hope  and  Love.  Faith  in  the  righteous  government 
of  the  world;  Hope  in  the  future  of  humanity;  and  Love  to  God  in  man. 

Now,  compared  with  this  conception  of  Christianity,  what  resemblance 
is  there  in  its  common  representation  put  forth  by  the  authorities  in  the 
churches  ?  Both  orthodoxy  and  liberalism,  bothsupematuralism  and  ration- 
alism, both  high  churchism  and  low  churchism,  how  different  are  all  these 
from  what  was  preached  on  the  hill-tops  and  lake  shores  of  Galilee  eighteen 
centuries  ago ! 

The  Christian  thought  to-day  is  divided  into  three  great  camps.  In  the 
first  place  there  are  the  two  old  camps  of  supernaturalism  and  of  rational- 
ism. There  is  another  class  of  persons,  occupying  the  third  camp,  who  stand 
midway  between  the  two — those  treading  the  via  media — who  look  right  and 
left  so  that  they  may  steer  clear  of  the  threatening  rocks  on  either  side. 
Hence  they  are  open  to  attack  from  both  sides.  Thus  these  three  classes  of 
theologies  keep  up  discussion  and  fight,  and  no  one  can  predict  when  peace 
shall  be  restored.  They  will  probably  go  on  fighting  and  keep  up  their 
separation  to  the  end  of  time,  unless  the  churches  of  Christ  learn  "a  more 
excellent  way,"  the  way  of  escape  from  their  Babel  of  theological  discussion. 
This  way  of  escape  will  be  reached,  it  seems  to  us,  when  they  come  to 
understand  fully  the  essential  nature  of  Christianity,  not  as  dogmas,  but  as 
the  ethico-religious  life  in  each  individual  soul  and  in  humanity  at  large. 
Such  a  time  shall  certainly  come,  and  it  is,  we  trust,  not  very  far  off,  when 
all  our  religious  efforts  will  be  concentrated  in  living  again  the  life  and 
working  anew  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  so  that  the  reign  of  dogmas  shall  be 
forever  at  an  end.  The  orthodoxy  of  dogmas  shall  give  place  to  the  ortho- 
doxy of  life  and  work. 


ARBITRATION  INSTEAD  OF  WAR. 
By  Shaku  Soyen. 

I  am  a  Buddhist,  but  please  do  not  be  so  narrow-minded  as  to  refuse 
my  opinion  on  account  of  its  expression  on  the  tongue  of  one  who  belongs 
to  a  different  nation,  different  creed  and  different  civilization. 

Our  Buddha,  who  taught  that  all  people  entering  into  Buddhism  are 
entirely  equal,  in  the  same  way  as  all  rivers  flowmg  into  the  sea  become 
alike,  preached  this  plan  in  the  wide  kingdom  of  India  just  three  thousand 
years  ago.  Not  only  Buddha  alone,  but  Jesus  Christ,  as  well  as  Confucius, 
taught  about  universal  love  and  fraternity.  We  also  acknowledge  the  glory 
of  universal  brotherhood.  Then  let  us,  the  true  followers  of  Buddha,  the 
true  followers  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  true  followers  of  Confucius  and  the  fol- 
lowers of  truth,  unite  ourselves  for  the  sake  of  helping  the  helpless  and 
living  glorious  lives  of  brotherhood  under  the  control  of  truth.  Let  us  hope 
that  we  shall  succeed  in  discountenancing  those  obstinate  people  who  dared 
to  compare  this  Parliament  with  Niagara  Falls,  saying,  "Broad,  but  fruit- 
less." 

International  law  has  been  very  successful  in  protecting  the  nations 
from  each  other  and  has  done  a  great  deal  toward  arbitration  instead  of 
war.  But  can  we  not  hope  that  this  system  shall  be  carried  out  on  a  more 
and  more  enlarged  scale,  so  that  the  world  will  be  blessed  with  the  everlast- 
ing glorious  bright  sunshine  of  peace  and  love  instead  of  the  gloomy, 
cloudy  weather  of  bloodshed,  battles  and  wars? 

We  are  not  born  to  fight  one  against  another.  We  are  born  to  enlighten 
our  wisdom  and  cultivate  our  virtues  according  to  the  guidance  of  truth. 
And,  happily,  we  see  the  movement  toward  the  abolition  of  war  and  the 
establishment  of  a  peace-making  society.  But  how  will  our  hope  be  realized.' 
Simply  by  the  help  of  the  religion  of  truth.  The  religion  of  truth  is  the 
fountain  of  benevolence  and  mercy. 

We  must  not  make  any  distinction  between  race  and  race,  between 
civilization  and  civilization,  between  creed  and  creed,  and  faith  and  faith. 
Vou  must  not  say  "Go  away,"  because  we  are  not  Christians.  You  must  not 
say  "Go  away,"  because  we  are  yellow  people.  All  beings  on  the  universe 
are  in  the  bosom  of  truth.  We  are  all  sisters  and  brothers;  we  are  sons 
and  daughters  of  truth,  and  let  us  understand  one  another  much  better 
and  be  true  sons  and  daughters  of  truth.     Truth  be  praised ! 

Copyiight,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


Z385 


SYNTHETIC  RELIGION. 
By  Kinza  Riuge  M.  Hirai. 

Having  the  honor  to  be  here  with  this  great  Congress  of  Religions,  I 
consider  it  my  duty  to  endeavor  to  discuss  some  few  important  points  which 
are  apparently  contradictory  in  different  beliefs,  so  that  they  can  be  synthe- 
tized  and  fraternized.  .If  the  central  truth  common  to  all  religions  be  dis- 
closed, we  can  accomplish  our  aim. 

Religion  is  a  priori  belief  in  an  unknown  entity,  and  no  human  being  or 
lower  animal  can  evade  or  resist  this  belief.  Knowledge  by  reasoning  is  the 
process  of  deriving  conclusions  from  premises.  If  we  trace  back  our  prem- 
ises to  anterior  premises,  and  try  to  reach  the  source  of  them,  we  come  to  the 
incomprehensible.  Shall  we  then  reject  the  first  premises  of  our  belief 
because  they  are  inexplicable  ?  No.  We  are  forced  to  believe  them.  We 
believe  something  which  we  do  not  know.  This  is  what  I  call  a  priori 
belief  in  an  unknown  entity. 

Some  will  argue  that  truth  is  a  creation  of  God.  But  this  proposition  is 
self-contradictory  on  its  face.  The  existence  of  God  must  have  been  a  truth 
before  he  created  anything.     Who  created  this  truth  before  the  creation  ? 

It  may  be  protested  that  as  God  is  absolute,  infinite,  omnipotent,  he  can 
create  by  methods  beyond  our  human  intellect.  But  these  attributes  are 
incompatible  and  nullify  the  existence  of  God.  Creation  implies  relativity, 
and  if  God  is  creator  he  loses  the  attribute  of  absoluteness. 

Here  is  another  contradiction,  not  on  the  part  of  God,  but  on  our  side. 
Unless  the  human  mind  is  unlimited  and  omnipotent,  we  cannot  prove  the 
divine  infiniteness.  Here  comes  in  our  definition  of  religion — a  priori 
belief  of  an  unknown  entity.  Let  us  go  a  step  further  and  decide  whether 
belief  in  the  gods  of  pantheism  and  idol-worship  are  in  another  predic- 
ament. If  God  has  a  personal  or  animal  form,  or  is  a  material  idol,  he  is 
presumed  to  have  a  wonderful  power  unknown  to  the  believers. 

Thus  the  features  of  the  above  three  faiths  are  very  dissimilar  on  their 
exterior,  yet  internally  their  followers  believe  in  the  unknown  entity;  where 
is  the  difference  among  them  ?  Here  will  be  established  a  perfect  union 
between  atheism  and  theism ;  for  I  cannot  consider  that  truth  was  created 
by  God,  or  that  God  is  a  different  thing  from  truth  ;  and  I  can  see  but  one 
entity — truth — the  connecting  link  of  cause  and  effect,  the  essence  of  phe- 
nomena. If  this  is  the  same  thing  with  God,  the  terms  atheism  and  theism 
mean  the  same  thing,  or  both  are  misnomers  at  the  same  time.  All  beings 
of  the  human  and  animal  kingdom  have,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1986 


A 


2 


1288  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

a  priori  belief  of  an  unknown  One  ;  that  is,  they  are  all  believers  of  relig- 
ion. All  the  religions  in  the  world  are  synthetized  into  one  religion,  or 
"  Entitism,"  which  has  been  the  inherent  spirit  in  Japan,  and  is  called 
Saton,  or  Hotoke,  in  Japanese.  The  apparent  contradictions  among  them 
are  only  the  different  descriptions  of  the  same  thing  seen  from  different 
situations,  and  different  views  to  be  observed  in  the  way  to  the  same  termi- 
nation. 


POINTS    OF    RESEMBLANCE      AND      DIFFERENCE 
BETWEEN    BUDDHISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

By  H.  Dharmapala. 

Max  MiilJer  says:  "When  a  religion  has  ceased  to  produce  cham- 
pions, prophets  and  martyrs,  it  has  ceased  to  live  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  and  the  decisive  battle  for  the  dominion  of  the  world  would  have  to  be 
fought  out  among  the  three  missionary  religions  which  are  alive  —  Bud- 
dhism, Mohammedanism  and  Christianity."  Sir  William  W.  Hunter,  in  his 
"  Indian  Empire,"  says :  "The  secret  of  Buddha's  success  was  that  he  brought 
spiritual  deliverance  to  the  people.  He  preached  that  salvation  was  equally 
open  to  all  men  and  that  it  must  be  earned,  not  by  propitiating  imaginary 
deities  but  by  our  own  conduct.  His  doctrines  thus  cut  away  the  religious 
basis  of  caste,  denied  the  efficiency  of  the  sacrificial  ritual,  and  assailed  the 
supremacy  of  the  Brahmans  as  the  mediators  between  God  and  man."  Buddha 
taught  that  sin,  sorrow  and  deliverance,  the  state  of  man  in  this  life,  in  all 
previous  and  in  all  future  lives,  are  the  inevitable  results  of  his  own  acts. 
He  thus  applies  the  inexorable  law  of  cause  and  effect  to  the  soul.  What  a 
man  sows  he  must  reap. 

As  no  evil  remains  without  punishment  and  no  good  deed  without  reward, 
it  follows  that  neither  priest  nor  God  can  prevent  each  act  beaiing  its  own 
consequences. 

By  this  great  law  of  Karma  Buddha  explained  the  inequalities  and 
apparent  injustice  of  man's  estate  in  this  world  as  the  consequence  of 
acts  in  the  past,  while  Christianity  compensates  those  inequalities  by 
rewards  in  the  future.  A  system  in  which  our  whole  well-being,  past, 
present,  and  to  come,  depends  on  ourselves,  theoretically,  leaves  little  room 
for  the  interference,  or  even  existence,  of  a  personal  God.  But  the  atheism 
of  Buddha  was  a  philosophical  tenet,  which,  so  far  from  weakening  the 
functions  of  right  and  wrong,  gave  them  new  strength  from  the  doctrine  of 
Karma,  or  the  metempsychosis  of  character.  To  free  ourselves  from  the 
thraklom  of  desire  and  from  the  fetters  of  selfishness  was  to  attain  to  the 
state  of  the  perfect  disciple  in  this  life  and  to  the  everlasting  rest  after 
death. 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


DllAKMAFALA:  15UDD1IISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.        1  289 

The  great  practical  aim  of  Buddha's  teaching  was  to  subdue  the 
lusts  of  the  flesh  and  the  cravings  of  self,  and  this  could  only  be  attained  by 
llie  practice  of  virtue.  In  place  of  rites  and  sacrifices  Buddha  prescribed  a 
code  of  practical  morality  as  the  means  of  salvation. 

The  life  and  teachings  of  Buddha  are  also  beginning  to  exercise  a  new 
influence  on  religious  thought  in  Europe  and  America.  Buddhism  will 
stand  forth  as  the  embodiment  of  the  eternal  verity  that  as  a  man  sows  he 
will  reap,  associated  with  the  duties  of  mastery  over  self  and  kindness  to  all 
men,  and  quickened  into  a  popular  religion  by  the  example  of  a  noble  and 
beautiful  life. 

Here  are  some  Buddhist  teachings  as  given  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  and 
claimed  by  Christianity  : 

Whosoever  cometh  to  me  and  heareth  my  sayings  and  doeth  them,  he  is 
like  a  man  which  built  a  house  and  laid  the  foundation  on  a  rock. 

Whv  call  }'e  me  Lord  and  do  not  the  things  which  I  say? 

Judge  not,  condemn  not,  forgive. 

Love  your  enemies  and  do  good,  hoping  for  nothing  again,  and  your 
reward  shall  be  great. 

Blessed  are  they  that  hear  the  word  of  God  and  keep  it. 

Be  ready,  for  the  Son  of  Man  cometh  at  an  hour  when  ye  think  not. 

Sell  all  that  ye  have  and  give  it  to  the  poor. 

Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years,  take  thine  ease, 
eat,  drink  and  be  merry.  But  God  said  unto  him,  Thou  fool,  this  night 
thy  soul  shall  be  required  of  thee,  then  whose  shall  these  things  be  which 
thou  has  provided  ? 

The  life  is  more  than  meat  and  the  body  more  than  raiment.  Whoso- 
ever he  be  of  you  that  forsaketh  not  all  that  he  hath  he  cannot  be  my  dis- 
ciple. 

Here  are  some  Buddhist  teachings  for  comparison  : 

Hatred  does  not  cease  by  hatred  at  any  time.  Haired  ceases  by  love. 
This  is  an  ancient  law.  Let  us  live  happily,  not  hating  those  who  hate  us. 
Among  men  who  hate  us,  let  us  live  free  from  hatred.  Let  one  overcome 
anger  by  love.  Let  him  overcome  evil  by  good.  Let  him  overcome  the 
greedy  by  liberality.      Let  the  liar  be  overcome  by  truth. 

As  the  bee,  injuring  not  the  flower,  itr  color  or  scent,  flies  away,  taking 
the  nectar,  so  let  the  wise  man  dwell  upon  the  earth. 

Like  a  beautiful  flower,  full  of  color  and  full  of  scent,  the  fine  words  of 
him  who  acts  accordingly  are  full  of  fruit. 

Let  him  speak  the  tn.th,  let  him  not  yield  to  anger,  let  him  give  when 
asked,  even  from  the  little  he  has.     By  these  things  he  will  enter  heaven. 

The  man  who  has  trangressed  one  law  and  speaks  lies  and  denies  a 
future  world,  there  is  no  sin  he  could  not  do. 

The  real  treasure  is  that  laid  up  through  charity  and  piety,  temperance 
and  self-control;  the  treasure  thus  hid  is  secured,  and  passes  not  away. 

Nirvana  is  a  state  to  be  realized  here  on  this  earth.  He  who  has  reached 
the  fourth  stage  of  holiness  consciously  enjoys  the  bliss  of  Nirvana.  But  it  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  him  who  is  selfish,  skeptical,  realistic,  sensual,  full  of 
hatred,  full  of  desire,  proud,  self-righteous  and  ignorant.  When  by  supreme 
and  unceasing  effort  he  destroys  all  selfishness  and  realizes  the  oneness  of  all 


1290  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

beings,  is  free  from  all  prejudices  and  dualism,  when  he  by  patient  investi- 
gation discovers  truth,  the  stage  of  holiness  is  reached. 

Among  Buddhist  ideals  are  self-sacritice  for  the  sake  of  others,  com- 
passion based  on  wisdom,  joy  in  the  hope  that  there  is  final  bliss  for  the 
pure-minded,  altruistic  individual. 

In  his  inaugural  address,  delivered  at  the  Congress  of  Orientals,  last 
year,  Max  Mliller  remarked  :  "As  to  the  religion  of  Buddha  being  influenced 
by  foreign  thought,  no  true  scholar  now  dreams  of  that.  The  Religion  of 
Buddha  is  the  daughter  of  the  old  Brahman  religion,  and  a  daughter  in 
many  respects  more  beautiful  than  the  mother.  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
through  Buddhism  that  India,  for  the  first  time,  stepped  forth  from  its  iso- 
lated position  and  became  an  actor  in  the  historical  drama  of  the  world." 

R.  C.  Dutt  says :  "  The  moral  teachings  and  precepts  of  Buddhism 
have  so  much  in  common  with  those  of  Christianity  that  some  connection 
between  the  two  systems  of  religion  has  long  been  suspected.  Candid 
inquirers  who  have  paid  attention  to  the  history  of  India  and  of  the  Greek 
world  during  the  centuries  immediately  preceding  the  Christian  Era,  and 
noted  the  intrinsic  relationship  which  existed  between  these  countries  in 
scientific,  religious  and  literary  ideas,  found  no  difficulty  in  believing  that 
Buddhist  ideas  and  precepts  penetrated  into  the  Greek  world  before  the 
birth  of  Christ." 


A  DECLARATION  OF  FAITH  AND  THE  TRUTH  OF 

BUDDHISM. 

By  Yoshigiro  Kavv.m. 

In  the  Buddhist  church  of  Japan  there  are  some  sixteen  sects,  which  are 
again  divided  into  over  thirty  sub-sects,  but  among  these  denominations  the 
Nichiren  School  stands  preeminent,  owing  to  its  teachings  being  founded  on 
the  true  and  most  excellent  doctrines  of  the  Buddhist  law  as  taught  directly 
by  the  blessed  one,  Gautama  Buddha. 

The  Nichiren  Sect  sets  up  three  Secret  Laws.     They  are  as  follows  : 

1.  "  Honzon,"  or  the  chief  object  of  worship. 

2.  "  Daimoku,"  or  the  title  on  the  Holy  Book  of  the  Lotus  of  the  Good 
Law. 

3.  "Kaidan,"  or  the  place  for  learning  Moral  Precepts. 

What  the  sect  has  taken  for  the  chief  object  of  worship  is  a  hanging 
chart,  called  "Great  Mandala."  The  Mandala  is  identified  with  Sakyamuni 
and  the  Truth.  In  its  middle  part  there  are  inscribed  the  seven  Chinese 
Characters  :  "  Na-mu-myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo."  The  group  of  these  seven  char- 
acters is  called  the  "body  in  general"  of  the  Buddha,  while  the  beings 
arranged  on  both   sides  of  these  seven  characters  are  called  the  "bodies 


KAWAI:   THE    TRUTH    OF   BUDDHISM.  1 29 1 

separate  of  Buddha."  These  beings  are  the  representatives  of  the  ten 
worlds  of  living  beings.  The  ten  worlds  represented  by  them  are  as  follows: 
(l)  The  workl  of  Buddha,  (2)  the  world  of  Bodhisattvas,  or  wise  beings,  (3) 
the  world  of  singly  enlightened  beings,  (4)  the  world  of  beings  of  low  under- 
standing, (5)  the  world  of  deities,  (6)  the  world  of  human  beings,  (7)  the 
world  of  human  spirits,  (8)  the  world  of  beasts,  (9)  the  world  of  hungry 
devils,  (10)  the  world  of  infernal  beings. 

These  ten  worlds,  when  looked  at  as  regards  their  degrees  of  enlighten- 
ment, are  called  as  follows  :  (l)  The  state  of  mind  where  the  intellect  and 
virtue  are  perfectly  attained,  (2)  The  state  of  mind  where  one  can  save  both 
himself  and  others  from  evils  of  all  kinds,  (3)  The  state  of  mind  where  one 
saves  only  himself  without  any  effort,  (4)  The  state  of  mind  where  one  saves 
only  himself,  and  that  with  great  effort,  (5)  The  state  of  mind  where  one 
merely  enjoys  pleasures,  (6)  The  state  of  mind  where  one  acts  well  for 
duty's  sake,  (7)  The  state  of  mind  where  one  acts  well  for  the  sake  of  his 
own  fame  and  interest,  (8)  The  state  of  mind  where  one  is  a  fool  and  with- 
out shame,  (9)  The  state  of  mind  where  one  is  sordid  and  covetous,  (10) 
The  state  of  mind  where  one  is  hard-hearted  and  lawless. 

The  Mandala  shows  that  all  things  and  all  phenomena  in  all  times  and 
all  spaces  are  in  essence  one  and  the  same,  and  that  they  are  in  nature  pure 
and  eternal.  In  short,  the  Mandala  is  the  Buddha  of  original  enlighten- 
ment, but  not  the  Buddha  of  glorious  stature  and  features.  The  Buddha  of 
original  enlightenment  pervades  all  times  and  all  spaces,  and  is  closely 
interwoven  with  all  things  and  all  phenomena.  He  is  universal  and  all- 
present.  Earth,  water,  fire  and  air  are  the  spiritual  body  of  the  Buddha. 
Color,  sound,  smell,  taste,  touch  and  things,  are  also  the  Buddha's  spiritual 
body.  Form,  perception,  name,  conception  and  knowledge,  as  well  as  the 
actions  of  body,  mouth  and  will,  are  the  Buddha's  compensation  body. 
Head,  trunk,  hands  and  feet,  as  well  as  eyes,  ears,  nose,  tongue,  etc.,  are  the 
Buddha's  transformation  body.  Things  and  events  are  all  convertible  with 
one  another  ;  they  are  not  in  any  measure  different  from  one  another.  When 
these  reasons  are  understood  there  are  displayed  the  three  bodies  of  the 
Buddha  of  original  enlightenment.  The  anger  of  infernal  beings,  the  folly 
of  beasts,  the  avarice  of  hungry  devils,  and  all  base  qualities  proper  to  other 
living  beings,  they  all  \mt  together  form  the  whole  body  of  the  Buddha  of 
original  enlightenment.  What  represents  this  mysterious  relation  of  things 
is  called  the  great  Mandala.  As  the  waters  of  thousands  of  rivers  entering 
into  the  ocean  are  mixed  up  with  one  another,  and  have  one  and  the  same 
taste  in  spite  of  their  original  difference  of  taste,  so  all  things  and  all  beings 
of  all  the  worlds,  when  once  entered  in  the  ocean  of  Truth  and  seen  by  the 
intellectual  eyes  of  the  Buddha,  instantly  become  one  and  the  same,  and 
show  themselves  identical  with  the  great  intellect  of  the  Buddha  of  original 
enlightenment. 

That  Nichiren  became  enlightened  shows  that  even  the  vulgar  people  of 


1292  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

the  Last  Days  of  Law  can  get  free  from  all  evils  and  become  Buddhas.  To 
attempt  to  be  a  Nichiren  ought  to  be  the  first  motive  of  any  one  who  believes 
in  the  doctrines  of  our  sect. 

The  "  Daimoku,"  or  the  title  of  the  Holy  Book,  is  now  to  be  explamed. 
The  body  of  anv  one  is  nothing  else  than  the  Buddha's  body.  If  this 
reason  is  known,  everybody  ought  to  set  forth  the  Buddha-heart  when  any 
thought  is  formed  in  his  mind.  The  Buddha-heart  means  a  benevolent 
heart.  He  ought  to  pursue  the  greatest  interest  proper  to  his  real  nature, 
which  is  nothing  else  than  enlightenment,  and  to  reap  the  fruits  which  issue 
from  the  mutual  pleasure  between  himself  and  his  fellows.  But  the  vulgar 
people,  being  not  firm  in  their  determmation,  cannot  maintain  and  enjoy 
these  fruits  with  a  strong  will  and  a  deep  meditation.  Therefore,  our  sect 
lets  them  pursue  the  oral  practice  instead  of  the  mental  one  ;  that  is,  substi- 
tute the  repetition  of  the  "  Daimoku,"  or  the  title  of  the  Holy  Book,  for 
intellectual  discipline.  To  repeat  the  words  "  Na-Mu-Myo-Ho-Ren-Ge-Kyo" 
is  the  oral  practice  in  our  sect.  If  anyone  sincerely  meditates  on  the  Truth 
in  mind  and  repeats  the  "  Daimoku  "  in  heart,  he  will  surely  receive  and 
enjoy  great  blessings.  Then  we  are  able  to  make  ourselves  the  masters  of 
our  heart  and  mind.  We  can  suppress  the  five  appetites  and  seven  pas- 
sions, and  become  possessed  of  a  Buddha-body,  which  is  full  of  the  four 
virtues  of  eternity,  peace,  enlightenment  and  purity.  Thus  conditioned,  we 
are  able  to  make  our  mind  get  rid  of  baseness  and  meanness.  If  anger  and 
fury  are  raging,  let  us  quiet  ourselves  and  meditate  upon  the  matter,  when 
we  are  able  to  attain  to  our  goal.  Ignorant  men  and  women,  who  cannot 
read  and  write,  can  surely  attain  to  the  state  of  Buddhas,  if  they  sincerely 
repeat  the  "  Diamoku,"  or  "  Na-Mu-Myo-Ho-Ren-Ge-Kyo."  This  is  the 
miraculous  oral  practice  in  our  sect. 

What  is  the  "Kaidau,"  or  the  place  for  receiving  moral  precepts?  It  is 
easy  to  be  understood,  since  we  have  already  learned  what  are  the  "  Houzou" 
and  the  "  Diamoku,"  namely,  the  chief  object  of  worship  and  the  title  of  the 
Holy  Book.  It  is  said  above  that  our  bodies  are  the  body  of  the  Buddha  of 
original  enlightenment.  The  real  state  of  things  is  the  miraculous  scene  to 
be  reflected  by  the  Buddha's  enlightenment,  that  is,  to  be  known  by  the 
Buddha's  intellect.  We  ourselves  are  the  Buddha's  intellect,  while  the  real 
state  of  things  is  a  scene  to  be  reflected  by  our  own  enlightenment.  The 
intellect  is  in  the  same  relation  to  this  miraculous  scene  as  the  cover  of  a 
vessel  is  to  the  vessel  itself.  As  the  cover  corresponds  t(j  the  vessel,  so  the 
intellect  corresponds  lo  the  scene.  If  we  practice  the  repetition  of  the 
"Daimoka  "  and  make  our  thoughts  pure  and  clean,  the  bad  appetites  and 
passions  naturally  disappear  by  themselves,  .so  that  we  are  inspired  with  the 
good  moral  precepts  of  our  sect.  Walking,  stopping,  sitting  upright,  lying 
down,  speaking,  being  silent,  engaging  in  an  action,  in  all  these  situations 
we  can  let  ourselves  get  at  the  mysterious  deliverance  ;  birth,  old  age,  dis- 
ease and  death  disappear  by  themselves ;  fears,  sorrows,  pains  and  trouble 


GORDON:    JAPANESE    BUDDHISM.  1 293 

vanish  away  forever.  What  are  left  behind  are  only  eternity,  peace, 
enlightenment  and  purity.  Thus  we  find  ourselves  in  the  paradise  of 
Huddhas.  The  region  in  which  we  live  is  the  land  of  glorious  light. 
Therefore,  the  Holy  Book  says,  "  We  ought  to  know  that  this  place  is  the 
'Kaidau.'" 


SOME  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  BUDDHISM  AS  IT 
EXISTS  IN  JAPAN  WHICH  INDICATE  THAT  IT 
IS  NOT  A  FINAL  RELIGION. 

By  Rev.  M.  L.  Gordon,  of  the  Doshisha  School,  Kyoto,  Japan. 

Despite  all  that  might  be  said  in  its  favor,  and  that  is  much.  Buddhism 
possesses  characteristics  which  clearly  indicate  that  it  is  not  to  be  the  final 
permanent  religion  of  Japan  or  of  any  other  country.  Some  of  these  charac- 
teristics it  is  our  purpose  to  notice  in  this  paper. 

1.  Buddhism's  doctrine  of  the  soul.  It  has  no  adequate  recognition  of 
personality.  Where  there  is  the  union  of  corporeal  form,  sensations,  percep- 
tions, conformations,  and  consciousness,  the  word  "  person "  is  used ;  but 
subject,  soul,  person,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  there  is  not.  But  if  no 
soul,  then  it  is  needless  to  say,  no  personal,  individual  existence  in  a  future 
life.  In  Northern  Buddhism  the  masses  certainly  look  forward  to  a  future 
existence  in  the  "  Pure  land  of  the  West,"  where  there  are  infinite  sources  of 
sensuous  enjoyment.  Yet  question  the  more  intelligent  of  the  priests  on  the 
subject  and  we  are  told  not  only  that  the  objective  existence  of  this  western 
paradise  may  with  equal  propriety  be  admitted  or  denied,  but  also,  in  the 
language  of  one  of  the  most  prominent  priests  of  Japan,  "  there  the  distinction 
between  I  and  thou  does  not  exist." 

2.  Its  doctrine  of  God,  the  Supreme,  the  Absolute.  The  mrno-theistic, 
or  better,  mono-Buddhistic  Shin  sect  of  Japan,  which  makes  Amitabha  Bud- 
dha an  infinite  being,  holds  that  he  was  once  a  man,  and  obtained  buddha- 
hood  by  his  own  exertions.  They  have  no  place  for  a  Creator  and  Pre- 
server. In  their  own  words,  "Our  sect  forbids  all  prayers  for  happiness  in 
the  present  life  to  any  of  the  Buddhas,  even  to  Amitabha  Buddha,  because 
the  events  of  this  life  cannot  be  altered  by  the  power  of  others  "  (than  our- 
selves). And  if  one  presses  for  the  thought  of  personality,  self-consciousness 
and  will  in  Amitabha,  or  in  other  Buddhas,  he  is  again  disappointed.  The 
polytheism  of  the  masses  becomes  the  pantheism  of  the  learned. 

3.  Hence  Buddhism  has  a  superficial  and  inadecjuate  doctrine  of  sin. 
Suff*^ring  is  more  dwelt  upon  than  sin.  The  sense  of  personal  sin  against  a 
personal  God,  who  is  both  a  loving  father  and  a  righteous  judge,  Buddhism 
does  not  allow  of.  It  is  one  of  the  commonest  testimonies  of  Buddhists  who 
have  afterward  become  Christians,  that  sin  as  a  personal  burden  was  unknown 


I  29-1  TARLI  ANIENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

to  lUem  ;  although  of  course  the  intellectual  recognition  of  the  fact  of  sin  and 
its  consecjuences  is  universal  with  man. 

The  fact  just  nientioneil  is  one  cause  of  the  extremely  low  morality  of 
the  priesthood.  I'lie  general  opinion  of  the  people,  the  testimony  of  the 
priests  themselves  often  naively  given,  the  statistics  of  hospitals  as  to  the 
prevalence  of  inmioral  diseases  among  them,  and  the  fact  that  high  govern- 
ment officials  have  repeatedly  urged  upon  assemblies  of  leading  priests  the 
necessity  of  personal  moral  reform  among  the  members  of  their  order,  make 
the  proof  on  this  point  irrefragable. 

4.  Hence  an  unsatisfactory  doctrine  of  salvation.  Subjectively  speak- 
ing there  is  no  adequate  motive  to  repentance,  and  this  inherent  weakness 
is  increased  by  the  transfer  of  emphasis  from  sin  to  suffering.  Original 
Buddhism  found  no  help  for  man  outside  of  himself.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  most  popular  Buddhism  in  the  northern  countries  finds  salvation  in  "the 
power  of  another."  This  saving  power,  according  to  some  sects,  is  to  be 
secured  by  endless  repetitions  of  the  name  Amitabha;  according  to  others, 
by  a  single  believing  pronunciation  of  that  name. 

5.  Its  pessimism.  It  looks  upon  this  world  as  one  of  suffering  only,  a 
world  to  flee  from.  Logically  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  social  reform  and 
progress.  "  Let  the  state  and  society  remain  what  they  are  ;  the  true  Bud- 
dhist priest  has  renounced  the  world  and  has  no  part  in  its  cares  and  occupa- 
tions." 

6.  Its  teaching  with  reference  to  women.  According  to  it  women  are 
greater  sinners  than  men  ;  they  hardly  know  the  difference  between  truth 
and  falsehood,  and  so  are  the  greatest  snares  to  mankind.  Among  all 
Buddhist  sects  and  in  all  Buddhist  lands  the  position  of  woman  is  an 
inferior  and  servile  one.  She  is  "  houseless,"  she  is  the  "  creature  of  three 
obediences."  "  In  childhood  let  her  be  subjected  to  the  will  of  her  father  ; 
in  adult  life  to  the  will  of  her  husband  ;  to  htr  son's  will  when  her  husband 
has  died  ;  a  woman  is  not  permitted  to  enjoy  independence."  Her  father, 
her  husband,  her  brother,  may  command  her  to  spend  weary  years  in  the 
loathsome  life  of  the  brothel  for  his  pecuniary  gain  ;  to  the  "  sinner  with 
three  obediences  "  there  is  left  only  the  choice  between  obedience  and 
death.  In  the  brief  career  of  Christianity  in  Japan  it  has  again  and  again 
rescued  women  who  were  about  to  enter  or  had  already  entered  upon  such  a 
life. 

7.  Its  lack  of  unity  and  homogeneity.  In  one  circle  it  is  materialistic 
and  atheistic,  in  another  polytheistic  and  idolatrous,,  in  a  third  idealistic 
and  pantheistic.  One  forbids  prayer  and  all  worship,  and  makes  salvation 
come  entirely  by  self-help  ;  another  delights  in  vain  repetitions,  denies  all 
merit  to  the  devotee  and  makes  salvation  by  faith  alone. 

8.  Its  failure  to  command  the  exclusive  reverence  of  the  human  heart. 
As  Buddhism  cannot  satisfy  man's  moral,  spiritual  and  intellectual  needs, 
we  find  in   Ceylon,   Burmah,  Thibet,  China  and  Japan   that  Buddhists,  in 


'A 

5 


■J-. 
2 


V) 


r. 


1296  PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SIXTEENTH    DAY. 

ailditioii  to  tlie  rites  of  tlieir  own  sect,  worship  the  Biiddhas  of  other 
Buddhist  sects,  and  also  the  gods,  demons,  and  other  beings  of  the  indige- 
nous religion,  or  the  prevailing  superstition.  Rhys  Davids  says,  "  Not  one 
of  the  hundreds  of  millions  who  offer  flowers  now  and  then  on  Buddhist 
shrines  and  who  are  more  or  less  moKletl  by  Buddhist  teaching,  is  only  or 
altogether  a  Buddhist." 


BUDDHISxVI  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 
By  Rev.  S.  G.  McFarland,  of  Bankok,  Sia.m. 

An  experience  of  more  than  thirty-three  years  of  teaching  Christianity 
and  studying  Buddhism  in  Siam,  has  given  me  the  opportunity  of  making 
some  comparisons  respecting  the  life  and  teachings  of  these  two  systems. 
In  speaking  of  Buddhism,  I  refer  not  to  what  is  taught  in  books  so  much  as 
to  its  principles  and  fruits  in  the  daily  life  of  its  disciples. 

The  tenets  of  Buddhism,  so  far  as  the  morals  of  social  life  are  concerned, 
agree  remarkably  with  those  of  the  decalogue  of  the  Christian  system.  The 
commandments  of  the  second  table  of  the  decalogue  each  finds  its 
counterpart  in  the  Buddhistic  code,  which  is  also  made  up  of  "  ten " 
commandments. 

In  the  teachings  of  Buddhism  great  stress  is  laid  on  the  spirit  of  the 
sixth  commandment.  To  the  minds  of  the  common  people,  this  has  special 
reference  to  animal,  life,  and  some  go  so  far  as  to  include  vegetable  life. 
But  while  no  special  mention  is  made  of  taking  human  life,  still  it  is  a  fact 
that  human  life  is  spared  to  a  remarkable  degree  in  Buddhist  countries.  It 
it  a  part  of  the  prescribed  duty  of  Buddhist  priests,  while  clad  in  their 
sacred  yellow  robes,  to  have  special  regard  for  animal  life.  So  stringent  is 
this  rule,  that  all  the  water  they  use  must  first  be  strained,  lest  the  germs  of 
animal  life  be  found  in  it. 

With  reference  to  the  seventh  commandment,  the  tenets  of  the  Buddhist 
religion  aim  to  control  the  natural  passions  of  men  and  women,  and  stimu- 
late them  to  lives  of  purity.  But  their  social  code  in  reference  to  the  mar- 
riage relation,  and  their  customs  and  laws  in  regard  to  polygamy  are 
widely  different  from  those  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Violations  of  the  cigiith  commandment  are  found  principally  among 
those  classes  that  are  atldictcil  to  the  use  of  opium  and  the  vice  of  gam- 
bling. After  he  has  sold  or  pawned  all  his  own  property,  as  well  as  his 
wife  and  children,  the  shivc  to  opium  does  not  hesitate  to  take  whatever 
else  he  can  lay  his  hands  ni\,  to  be  exchanged  for  money  in  the  pawnshops 
with  which  to  procure  the  <lrtig.  And  the  gambler,  regardless  of  all  scru- 
ples, never  hesitates  to  either  steal  or  kill  to  obtam  money  for  his  exciting 
game  of  chance.  Outside  of  these  two  large  classes  of  Siamese,  the  people 
are  as  trustworthy  as  they  are  in  any  other  country. 


McFARLAND:  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITV.      I  297 

The   spirit  of    tlie   ninth   commandment   is   violated    bv  the   people  of 
Siain,  as  a  people,  more   universally,  perhaps,  than    any  of   the  other  com- 
nianilments.     Prevarication   and    falsehood,   although  denounced  as  a  sin 
are  practiced  by  the  great  majority  of  the  people. 

The  principle  inculcated  in  the  fifth  commandment  of  the  Christian 
ilecalogue  forms  one  of  the  most  beautiful  teatures  of  Buddhism  in  Slam. 
Whether  this  is  pure  Buddhism,  or  whether  it  is  a  graft  from  Confucianism 
I  am  not  prepared  to  say.  But  I  do  know  that  the  affectionate  devotion  of 
children  to  their  parents,  grand-parents,  teachers,  elders  and  superiors,  is  a 
most  attractive  and  lovely  feature  in  the  Siamese  character. 

I  have  said  that  some  of  the  commandments  of  the  Christian  religion 
find  a  counterpart  in  the  religion  of  the  Siamese.  These  are  the  command- 
ments that  relate  to  the  conduct  of  man  with  his  fellow-man.  But  here  the 
line  of  agreement  must  stop ;  and  we  feel  that  it  stops  far  short  of  supply- 
ing the  needs  of  the  sinful  and  immortal  human  soul. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  Esoteric  Buddhism  and  its  teachings,  the 
fact  cannot  be  denied,  that  so  far  as  the  ordinary  Siamese  Buddhist's  belief 
is  concerned,  he  acknowledges  no  Creator;  no  Great  First  Cause;  he  owns 
allegiance  to  no  Supreme  Being:  and  he  looks  forward  to  no  accountability. 
In  the  trials  and  troubles  of  this  life  he  has  no  Guide  d^nd.  no  Almighty 
Helper;  while  the  certain  and  dreaded  future  is  a  dark  and  mysterious 
unknown  and  unknowable  state. 

The  teachings  of  the  new  school  Buddhism,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to 
judge,  have  no  effect  on  the  hearts  of  those  who  believe  and  trust  in  it.  A 
man  renounces  all  worldly  cares,  leaves  his  parents,  wife  and  children,  puts 
on  the  sacred  robes  and  gives  his  entire  time  and  strength  for  years,  it  may- 
be almost  a  life-time,  to  the  study  of  Buddhism  and  to  the  storing  up  of 
merit:  but  whatever  that  man  was  before  he  entered  the  priesthood,  he  is 
still  when  he  returns  to  the  world.  Sometimes  he  is  not  as  good.  Temple- 
life  is  not  always  a  school  of  "industry  and  morals." 

But  on  all  these  points  the  Christian  religion  claims  to  differ  from  the 
Buddhist.  This  life  is  full  of  trouble,  disappointment,  sorrow  and  distress 
of  every  kind,  and  those  who  have  firmly  trusted  their  all,  both  for  time  and 
eternity,  into  the  all-powerful  hands  of  a  loving,  unchanging  Saviour,  firmly 
believe  that  no  other  religion  than  that  of  Jesus  Christ  can  give  us  the 
peace  of  mind  we  seek.  On  incjuiry  as  to  his  hopes  for  the  future,  an  aged 
Buddhist  priest,  who  had  spent  his  life  in  the  monastery,  once  said  to  me, 
"The  future  is  all  dark,  no  light  as  yet  forme."  Even  if  Christians  are 
wrong  ill  their  beliefs,  their  chances  are  on  a  level  with  those  of  the  Budd- 
hist. During  life  he  reaps  a  comfort  and  consolation ;  a  strength  and 
encouragement  that  nothing  else  can  give  ;  and  if  it  is  all  a  dream,  then  let 
him  dream  on,  and  let  him  hold  fast  to  the  Bible,  since  there  is  nothing  else 
so  well  suited  to  the  needs  of  sinful,  helpless  humanity. 

82 


WHAT  THE   CHRISTIAN   BIBLE   HAS  WROUGHT 
FOR  THE  ORIENT. 

By  Rev.  A.  Constantian,  of  Constantinople. 

The  Bible  has  given  impetus  to  mental  activity  in  the  Orient. — Before  the 
introduction  of  Christianity,  Greeks  were  sitting  among  the  ruins  of  their 
past  glory;  Egyptians,  Chaldeans,  Armenians,  Georgians,  Slavonian,  were 
shrouded  in  darkness.  As  soon  as  the  gospel  light  began  to  shine  in  the 
Orient,  a  new  mental  activity  began  to  work,  as  if  new  life  were  put  into  the 
skeleton  of  dry  bones.  Faith  in  an  Almighty  God  enlarged  the  scope  of  the 
mind;  the  infinite  love  of  God,  shown  through' the  death  of  his  only  begotten 
Son  kindled  the  heart;  the  promise  of  an  eternal  life  gave  new  hopes  and 
aspirations  to  the  soul;  and  the  awakened  energies  of  an  inner  man,  aroused 
by  the  renovating  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  began  to  exert  themselves  in  theo- 
logical researches  and  in  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  new  faith.  The 
mysterious  doctrine  of  the  Incaination  excited  the  keenest  intellect  to  grasp 
the  new  idea,  and  thus  an  impulse  was  given  to  mental  activity,  not  known 
hitherto,  except  it  may  be  in  the  days  of  Socrates  and  Plato,  which  is 
believed  to  be  a  providential  preparation  for  the  coming  light. 

In  mental  activity  the  Greek  Church  was  the  most  favored  of  all  the 
Oriental  Churches,  inasmuch  as  she  had  the  rare  privilege  of  access  to  the 
very  words  of  the  apostles,  without  the  disadvantage  of  a  translation,  while 
other  nations  were  obliged  to  resort  to  translation  from  the  original  Greek. 

Of  the  neighboring  nations  the  Chaldean  was  the  first  in  the  field,  as 
the  Bible  was  translated  into  Syriac  very  early,  probably  in  the  first  quarter 
of  the  second  century. 

Next  comes  the  Coptic  version,  which  probably  was  executed  during  the 
third  century.  According  to  some  accounts  Armenia  heard  the  Gospel  news 
first  through  the  preaching  of  the  Apostles  Thaddeus  and  Bartholomew. 
But  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  far  the  Armenians  were  enliglitened 
during  the  first  three  centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  But  it  is  certain  that  in 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  namely, at  302  Tritlat,  the  then  reignin< 
king  of  Armenia  being  baptised  by  Gregory  llie  Iliuniinator,  gradually  the 
whole  nation  accepted  (riiristianify.  During  a  whole  century  Armenia  had 
luj  Bible  of  its  own.  The  Bible  was  read  in  Greek  and  in  Syriac,  as  the 
Armenians  being  neighbors  to  these  nations  understood  to  some  degree  their 
languages.  But  the  Armenian  Church  was  never  satisfied  with  such  an 
arrangement.  Consefjuently  in  the  first  quarter  of  I  he  fifth  century  Messob, 
one  of  the  learned  bishops  of  Armenia,  tried  to  remedy  this  evil ;  he  prepared 
the  present  admirable  Armenian  alphabet  in  order  to  be  able  to  translate  the 

1293 


CONSTANTIAN:TlIE   BIBLE  AND    TIIK  ORIENT.         I  2gg 

Hil)ie  into  the  Armenian  language,  which  he  did  in  company  with  Sahazand 
others. 

NN'hat  Sahaz  and  Messob  were  doing  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifth  centurv 
in  Armenia,  Cyril  and  Methodius  did  in  the  latter  half  of  the  ninth  centurv 
in  Macedonia,  and  thus  the  Christian  Bible  laid  the  foundation  of  the  present 
civilization  and  mental  culture  of  the  vigorous  Slavonic  nations. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  Bible  in  several  cases  gave  birth  to  the  national 
alphabet,  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  a  Christian  literature  in  the  East, 
and  refined  others,  who  had  already  a  literature  to  some  degree. 

T/te  Bible  has  produced  a  better  morality  in  the  Orient. — The  fearful 
description  given  by  St.  Paul  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  in  regard  to  the  immorality  of  his  time,  faithfully  represents  the 
utter  corruption  of  the  Oriental  nations  too. 

And  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  The  evil  was  at  the  very  root.  The 
radical  mistake  was  as  to  the  gods  worshipped  by  the  heathen.  The  god  of 
a  nation  is  the  personification  of  what  in  the  opinion  of  that  nation  is  the 
highest  good. 

But  when  the  Orient  was  freed  from  the  baneful  influence  of  these 
deities,  a  reformation  in  morality  began  to  be  seen  unparalleled  in  the  history 
of  Oriental  nations. 

The  Bible  has  purified  society  in  the  Orient  from  some  of  its  appall- 
ing evils.  —  Before  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  womanhood  was 
degraded,  her  rights  were  denied,  the  nuptial  relation  was  carried  to  a  very 
improper  affinity,  even  allowing  men  to  contract  marriage  with  their  own 
sisters.  Family  purity  was  rare,  polygamy  and  concubinage  were  in  prac- 
tice, and  divorce  was  of  frequent  occurrence.  Weak  children  were  put  to 
death  by  the  hand  of  their  own  parents.  More  than  half  of  the  human  race 
was  either  slaves  to  the  other  half,  or  something  like  it.  Towns  and  villages 
were  often  desolated  by  wars,  and  prisoners  of  war  were  often  put  to  death 
in  cold  blood.  But  when  the  Orientals  were  brought  under  the  influence 
of  the  Gospel,  these  evils  began  to  disappear  gradually.  How  could  a 
community  practice  polygamy  after  receiving  the  Gospel  ?  Had  not 
.\lmighty  God  commanded  two  uniting  to  make  one  body  ?  Could  concu- 
l)inage  continue  among  a  community  who  believed  the  union  of  the  hus- 
band with  his  wife  to  represent  the  mystic  union  of  Christ  to  his  Church  ? 
Could  a  Christian  despise  womanhood,  or  deny  her  rights  after  reading  his 
New  Testament  ?  Was  not  one  of  these  the  blessed  mother  of  Jesus  ?  Did 
not  Jesus  love  .Mary  and  Martha?  Did  not  Peter  command  to  "Give 
iionor  unto  the  wife?"  Again,  how  could  Christians  practice  slaverv  after 
reading  the  New  Testament,  and  seeing  that  all  are  the  children  of  God, 
and  hence  brethren  to  each  other  ? 

Thus  in  the  Orient  the  elevation  of  womanho<i(l,  the  existing  normal 
state  of  marriage,  the  improved  system  of  legislation,  first  formulated  by 
Justinian  in  the  sixth  century,  the  freedom  of  slaves,  the   preservation  of  the 


1300 


PAKLIAMKNP    I'Al'ERS:    SIX  TEIiNTd    DAY. 


lives  of  thousatulb  of  weak  children,  the  cessation  of  wars  to  a  great  extent, 
and  the  amelioration  of  the  miseries  of  prisoners  of  war,  may  be  traced 
back  mainly  to  the  healthy  and  beneficent   influence   of  the  Christian  Bible. 

The  Bible  has  been  the  means  of  spiritual  life  in  the  Orient. — Although  I 
do  not  come  here  to  assert  that  spiritual  life  in  the  Oriental  churches  has 
been  in  a  state  of  progress  without  interruptions  in  the  past  centuries,  under 
the  various  forms  of  sacerdotal  authority,  amid  the  vicissitudes  of  political 
life,  yet  I  believe  a  spiritual  life  has  been  continued  in  our  land, dead  some- 
times to  all  appearance,  still  alive,  like  the  coals  of  a  mighty  oak  seemingly 
e.xtinguished,  but  living  under  the  cover  of  the  ashes  I 

In  conclusion  I  may  say,  without  exaggeration,  that,  whatever  is  tjright 
and  encouraging  in  our  land,  either  in  family  or  in  society,  we  owe  it 
directly  or  indirectly  to  the  Bible.  Nay,  even  the  comparative  value  of  our 
country  may  be  attributed  to  the  Bible.  Other  countries  may  have  better 
soil,  a  healthier  climate,  or  higher  mountains,  but  our  country  surpasses  all 
on  account  of  its  connection  with  the  Bible. 

Whatever  languages  a  university  may  teach,  no  curriculum  shall  be 
satisfactory  if  it  does  not  contain  the  two  languages  of  the  Orient,  the 
Hebrew  and  the  Greek. 


M.  POBEDONOSTZEFF. 

I'ROCrRATOK  OK  THE  IIOLV    SYNOD,  ST.  lliTEKSBURC, 
KUSSI.\. 


.MUSSri.MANS  AN.NOl  N(.  l.N(;  TIIF.  lU^VU  OF  I'k.WKk. 


THE  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 


RELIGION  AND  MUSIC. 
By  Mr.  W.  L.  Tomlins,  of  Chicago. 

In  my  professional  experience  I  have  had  to  examine  thousands  of  adult 
voices,  and  I  have  been  struck  with  the  large  proportion  that  were  spoiled, 
in  some  cases  ruined,  by  habits  which  could  have  been  corrected  in  child- 
hood. So  I  started  children's  classes,  in  order  that  I  at  least  might  help  the 
coming  generation,  and  for  twelve  or  fourteen  years  I  have  had  from  two  to 
ten  classes  every  year  in  the  city  of  two  hundred  or  more  boys  and  girls  in  a 
class.  I  started  out  simply  to  harmonize  the  action  of  the  mouth  and  the 
throat  and  the  lungs,  to  get  a  harmonious  physical  action  of  the  vocal 
machinery,  but  I  was  soon  carried  past  first  intentions. 

I  found  that  as  soon  as  the  machinery  was  well  ordered  the  highest 
emotions,  one  by  one,  would  come  down  and  govern  that  machinery,  and  I 
was  led  by  the  force  of  my  own  teaching  up  into  the  realms  of  emotional 
singing.  I  found  as  I  harmonized  the  various  emotions  and  made  them  into 
a  brotherhood,  as  previously  I  had  harmonized  the  vocal  machinery  with  the 
brotherhood  of  emotions,  there  came  the  development  of  the  spiritual 
nature,  which  before  had  refused  to  govern  or  control  either  the  emotions  or 
the  machinery  when  they  were  out  of  order. 

Here  in  my  hand  I  hold  a  little  piece  of  paper  four  or  five  inches  long. 
It  would  represent  the  scale  of  miles  on  a  geographical  map.  It  would 
stand,  perhaps,  for  two  or  three  hundred  or  two  or  three  thousand  miles,  but 
whether  miles  or  inches  it  is  finite,  it  is  a  measurable  quantity.  I  may  treble 
it  in  shape,  still  it  is  only  so  long.  I  may  make  it  still  more  round  and  bring 
it  so  that  it  represents  nine-tenths  of  the  circle,  still  it  is  finite.  If  you  go 
along  it  and  reach  the  ends  you  will  have  to  come  back,  but  once  connect 
the  ends  and  it  is  a  circle  infinite  in  its  suggestion.  It  represents  the  infinite. 
Not  only  does  it  represent  that  but  it  may  stand  for  individuality,  and  in 
that  sense  I  wish  to  use  the  illustration. 

Again  you  will  imagine  I  have  a  bell;  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that.  If  I 
strike  that  bell  the  vibrations  pass  entirely  round  and  it  gives  out  its  tone. 
It  says  to  you  in  sound  :  "  I  am  a  bell."  I  take  up  another  round  thing,  and 
on  striking  that  it  says  :  "I  am  a  gong."  It  speaks  out  for  itself.  If,  how- 
ever, I  shorten  the  vibrations,  holding  the  bell  with  my  hand  so  that  the 
vibration  is  not  a  complete  circle,  it  does  not  say,  "  I  am  a  bell"  nor  "  I  am 

1302 


TOMLINS:    RELIGION    AND    MUSIC.  I303 

a  gong,"  but  it  gives  a  little  dull  chiak  like  a  piece  of  dead  scrap  iron.     It 
is  a  dead  tone. 

It  is  just  so  with  a  child.  When  the  child  has  made  a  complete  circle 
of  the  machinery  of  the  voice  and  the  attributes  of  the  child  nature,  the  indi- 
viduality comes  out.  Not  only  does  it  say,  "I  am  a  child,"  but  "I  am  a 
child  of  God,  and  there  is  none  other  made  like  me  in  the  universe."  It  is 
when  you  develop  that  in  the  child,  when  the  voice  is  in  complete  harmony 
with  this,  you  have  real  singing.  Music  is  not  to  know  about  scales  and 
flats  and  sharps  and  clefs.  Singing  is  not  the  fireworks  agility  of  the  voice, 
to  be  able  to  run  up  and  down,  to  sing  long  and  short,  and  slow  and  soft, 
and  loud  and  quick.  Singing  is  the  utterance  of  the  soul  through  the 
machinery  of  the  voice. 

Suppose  that  bell  is  broken;  the  broken  bell  is  self-conscious  in  its  dis- 
position to  mend  itself.  The  boy  who  is  incomplete  in  his  circle  is  simply 
concerned  about  himself.  It  is  so  when  he  is  sick  ;  he  has  pain,  that  is  all 
he  thinks  of ;  but  let  him  come  to  health  and  completeness  and  then  there 
is  an  absence  of  self-consciousness,  and  after  that,  which  is  health,  which  is 
harmony,  which  is  virtue,  there  comes  the  sense  of  manhood  and  complete- 
ness, and  after  that  manhood  in  its  higher  development  comes  this  mar- 
velous thing  which  I  cannot  talk  to  you  about  except  I  tell  it  to  you  — 
brotherhood. 

The  boy  when  he  is  complete  with  his  voice  he  wants  to  go  out  and 
sing  and  tell  you  all  about  it,  and  when  he  is  complete  in  that  way  there 
comes  a  governing  center,  and  that  center  is  an  emotional  one  and  with  that 
emotion  coming  to  the  center  he  feels  vitalized  ;  he  takes  a  breath  to  com- 
plete that  vitalization,  and  the  voice  goes  right  out  from  the  boy  to  his 
brethren.  The  boy  joys  in  his  heart.  Then  the  machinery  expresses  that 
and  joy  goes  forth  ;  the  boy  sorrows,  commands,  entreats,  all  these  things  in 
turn.  Then  there  is  a  change.  At  first  he  joys  selfishly.  The  little  fellows 
in  my  class  think  everything  is  sunshine,  and  they  sing  like  the  lark  in  sun- 
siiine  ;  they  sing  simply  from  companionship,  not  for  love  of  their  brothers. 
But  soon  another  change  comes.  Instead  of  commanding  for  the  love  of 
commanding,  the  boy  commands  me  out  of  love  for  me  for  my  good. 
Instead  of  entreating  because  he  is  helpless,  he  entreats  me  with  a  kingly 
courtesy;  instead  of  joying  in  his  own  success  selfishly,  with  that  joy  is  a 
sympathy  with  those  who  have  not  had  the  same  advantages  as  himself ; 
and  instead  of  sorrowing  with  an  utter  sorrow,  he  has  a  hopefulness  that  will 
come  in  the  morrow. 


ELExMENTS  OF  UNIVERSAL  RELIGION. 
By  Dr.  Emil  G.  Hirsch.of  Chicago. 

The  dominion  of  religion  is  coe.xtensive  with  the  confines  of  humanity. 
Religion  is  one  of  the  natural  functions  of  the  human  soul  ;  it  is  one  of  the 
natural  conditions  of  human,  as  distinct  from  mere  animal  life.  Man  alone 
in  the  wide  sweep  of  creation  builds  altars.  And  wherever  man  may  tent 
there  also  will  curve  upward  the  burning  incense  of  his  sacrifice  or  the 
sweeter  savor  of  his  aspirations  after  the  better,  the  diviner  light.  A  man 
without  religion  is  not  normal.  There  may  be  those  in  whom  this  function 
approaches  atrophy.  But  they  are  undeveloped  or  crippled  specimens  of 
the  completer  type.  A  society  without  religion  has  nowhere  yet  been  dis- 
covered. Religion  may  then  in  very  truth  be  said  to  be  the  universal  dis- 
tinction of  man. 

Still,  the  universal  religion  has  not  as  yet  been  evolved  in  the  proces- 
sion of  the  suns.  It  is  one  of  the  blessings  yet  to  come.  There  are  now 
even  known  to  men  and  revered  by  them  great  religious  systems  which  pre- 
tend to  universality.  And  who  would  deny  that  Buddhism,  Christianity  and 
the  faith  of  Islam  present  many  of  the  characteristic  elements  of  the  uni- 
versal faith  ?  In  its  ideas  and  ideals  the  religion  of  the  prophets,  notably 
as  enlarged  by  those  of  the  Babylonian  exile,  also  deserves  to  be  numbered 
among  the  proclamations  of  a  wider  outlook  and  a  higher  uplook.  These 
systems  are  no  longer  ethnic.  They  have  advanced  far  on  the  road  leading 
to  the  ideal  goal  ;  and  modern  man  in  his  quest  for  the  elements  of  the  still 
broader  universal  faith  will  never  again  retrace  his  steps  to  go  back  to  the 
mile-posts  these  have  left  behind  on  their  climb  up  the  heights.  The  three 
great  religions  have  emancipated  themselves  from  the  bondage  of  racial 
tests  and  national  divisions.  Race  and  nationality  cannot  circumscribe  the 
fellowship  of  the  larger  communion  of  the  faithful,  a  communion  destined 
to  embrace  in  one  covenant  all  the  children  of  man. 

The  day  of  national  religions  is  past.  The  God  of  the  universe  speaks 
to  all  mankind.  He  is  not  the  God  of  Israel  alone,  not  that  of  Moab,  of 
Egypt,  Greece  or  America.  He  is  not  domiciled  in  Palestine.  The  Jordan 
and  the  Ganges,  the  Tiber  and  the  Euphrates  hold  water  wherewith  the 
devout  may  be  baptized  unto  his  service  and  redemption.  "  Whither  shall 
I  go  from  thy  spirit  ?  Whither  flee  from  thy  presence  ?"  exclaims  the  old 
Hebrew  bard. 

The  church  universal  must  have  the  pentecostal  gift  of  the  many  flaming 
tongues  m  it,   as   the   rabbis   say   was   the  case  at   Sinai.     God's  revelation 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1304 


HIRSCH:  ELEMENTS  OF  UNIVERSAL  RELIGION.       I305 

must  be  sounded  in  every  language  to  every  land.  But,  and  this  is  essen- 
tia! as  maiking  a  new  advance,  the  universal  religion  for  all  the  children  of 
Adam  will  not  palisade  its  courts  by  the  pointed  and  forbidding  stakes  of 
a  creed.  Creeds  in  time  to  come  will  be  recognized  to  be  indeed  cruel 
barbed-wire  fences  wounding  those  that  would  stray  to  broader  pastures  and 
hurting  others  who  would  come  in.  Will  it  for  this  be  a  godless  church  ? 
Ah,  no  ;  it  will  have  much  more  of  God  than  the  churches  and  synagogues 
with  their  dogmatic  definitions  now  possess.  Coming  man  will  not  be 
ready  to  resign  the  crown  of  his  glory  which  is  his  by  virtue  of  his  feeling 
himself  to  be  the  son  of  God.  He  will  not  exchange  the  church's  creed  for 
that  still  more  presumptuous  and  deadening  one  of  materialism  which  would 
ask  his  acceptance  of  the  hopeless  perversion  that  the  world,  which  sweeps 
by  us  in  such  sublime  harmony  and  order  is  not  cosmos  but  chaos — is  the 
fortuitous  outcome  of  the  chance  play  of  atoms  producing  consciousness  by 
the  interaction  of  their  own  unconsciousness.  Man  will  not  extinguish  the 
light  of  his  own  higher  life  by  shutting  his  eyes  to  the  telling  mdications  of 
purpose  in  history,  a  purpose  which  when  revealed  to  him  in  the  Outcome 
of  his  own  career  he  may  well  find  reflected  also  in  the  interrelated  life  of 
nature.  But  for  all  this  man  will  learn  a  new  modesty  now  woefully  lacking 
to  so  many  who  honestly  deem  themselves  religious.  His  God  will  not  be 
a  figment,  cold  and  distant,  of  metaphysics,  nor  a  distorted  caricature  of 
embittered  theology.  ''  Can  man  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  "  asks  the  old 
Hebrew  poet.  And  the  ages  so  flooded  with  religious  strife  are  vocal  with 
the  stinging  rebuke  to  all  creed-builders  that  man  cannot.  Man  grows  unto 
the  knowledge  of  God,  but  not  to  him  is  vouchsafed  that  fullness  of  knowl- 
edge which  would  warrant  his  arrogance  to  hold  that  his  blurred  vision  is 
the  full  light. 

Says  Maimonides,  greatest  thinker  of  the  many  Jewi.«h  philosophers  of 
the  middle  ages  :  "Of  God  we  may  merely  assert  that  he  is;  what  he  is 
in  himself  we  cannot  know.  '  My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts  and  my 
ways  are  not  your  ways.'  "  This  prophetic  caution  will  resound  in  clear  notes 
in  the  ears  of  all  who  will  worship  in  the  days  to  come  at  the  universal 
shrine.  They  will  cease  their  futile  efforts  to  give  a  definition  of  him  who 
cannot  be  defined  in  human  symbols.  The  religion  universal  will  not  pre- 
sume to  regulate  God's  government  of  this  world  by  circumscribing  the 
sphere  of  .his  possible  salvation  and  declaring,  as  though  he  had  taken  us 
into  his  counsel,  whom  he  must  save  and  whom  he  may  not  save.  The  uni- 
versal religion  will  once  more  make  the  God  idea  a  vital  principle  of  human 
life.  It  will  teach  men  to  find  him  in  their  own  heart  and  to  have  him  with 
them  in  whatever  they  may  do.  No  mortal  has  seen  God's  face,  but  he  who 
opens  his  heart  to  the  message  will,  like  Moses  on  the  lonely  rock,  behold 
him   pass  and  hear  the  solemn  proclamation. 

It  is  not  in  the  storm  of  fanaticism  nor  in  the  fire  of  prejudice,  but  in 
the  still,  small  voice  of  conscience  that  God  speaks  and  is  to  be  found.     He 


1306         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

believes  in  God  who  lives  a  Godlike,  i.  e.,  a  goodly  life.  Not  he  that  mum- 
bles his  credo,  but  he  who  lives  it,  is  accepted.  Were  those  marked  for 
glory  by  the  great  teacher  of  Nazareth  who  wore  the  largest  phylacteries? 
Is  the  sermon  on  the  mount  a  creed?  Was  the  decalogue  a  creed?  Char- 
acter and  conduct,  not  creed,  will  be  the  keynote  of  the  Gospel  in  the  Church 
of  Humanity  Universal. 

But  what  then  about  sin?  Sin  as  a  theological  imputation  will  perhaps 
drop  out  of  the  vocabulary  of  this  larger  communion  of  the  righteous.  'But 
as  a  weakness  to  be  overcome,  an  imperfection  to  be  laid  aside,  man  will  be 
as  potently  reminded  of  his  natural  shortcommgs  as  he  is  now  of  that  of  his 
first  progenitor  over  whose  conduct  he  certainly  had  no  control  and  for 
whose  misdeed  he  should  not  be  held  .accountable.  Religion  will  then  as 
now  lift  man  above  his  weaknesses  by  reminding  him  of  his  responsibilities. 
The  goal  before  is^  Paradise. 

This  religion  will  indeed  be  for  man  to  lead  him  to  God.  Its  sacra- 
mental word  will  be  duty.  Labor  is  not  the  curse  but  the  blessing  of 
human  life.  For  as  man  was  made  in  the  image  of  the  Creator,  it  is  his  to 
create.  Earth  was  given  him  for  his  habitation.  He  changed  it  from 
chaos  into  his  home.  A  theology  and  a  monotheism,  which  will  not  leave 
room  in  this  world  for  man's  free  activity  and  dooms  him  to  passive 
inactivity,  will  not  harmonize  with  the  truer  recognition  that  man  and  God 
are  the  co-relates  of  a  working  plan  of  life.  Sympathy  and  resignation  are 
indeed  beautiful  flowers  grown  in  the  garden  of  many  a  tender  and  noble 
human  heart.  But  it  is  active  love  and  energy  which  alone  can  push  on 
the  chariot  of  human  progress,  and  progress  is  the  gradual  realization  of 
the  divine  spirit  which  is  incarnate  in  every  human  being.  This  principle 
will  assign  to  religion  once  more  the  place  of  honor  among  the  redeeming 
agencies  of  society  from  the  bondage  of  selfishness.  On  this  basis  every 
man  is  every  other  man's  brother,  not  merely  in  misery,  but  in  active  work. 

"  As  you  have  done  to  the  least  of  these  you  have  done  unto  me,"  will  be 
the  guiding  principle  of  human  conduct  in  all  the  relations  into  which  human 
life  enters.  No  longer  shall  we  hear  Cain's  enormous  excuse,  a  scathing 
accusation  of  himself,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  no  longer  will  be 
tolerated  or  condoned  the  double  standard  of  morality,  one  for  Sunday  and 
the  church  and  another  diametrically  opposed  for  week-days  and  the  count- 
ing-room. Not  as  now  will  be  heard  the  cynic  insistence  that  "business  is 
business,"  and  has  as  business  no  connection  with  the  decalogue  or  the 
sermon  on  the  mount.  Religion  will,  as  it  did  in  Jesus,  penetrate  into  all 
the  relations  of  human  society.  Not  then  will  men  be  rated  as  so  many 
hands  to  be  bought  at  the  lowest  possible  price,  in  accordance  with  a 
deified  law  of  supply  and  demand,  which  cannot  stop  to  consider  such 
sentimentalities  as  the  fact  that  these  hands  stand  for  soul  and  hearts. 

An  invidious  distinction  obtains  now  between  secular  and  sacred.  It  will 
be  wiped  away.     Every  thought  and  every  deed  of  man  must  be  holy  or  it 


HIRSCH:  ELEMENTS  OF  UNIVERSAL  RELIGION.        I  307 

is  unworthy  of  men.  Did  Jesus  merely  regard  the  temple  as  holy?  Did 
Buddha  merely  have  religion  on  one  or  two  hours  of  the  Sabbath?  Did  not 
an  earlier  prophet  deride  and  condemn  all  ritual  religion?  "Wash  ye, 
make  ye  clean."  Was  this  not  the  burden  of  Isaiah's  religion?  The 
religion  universal  will  he  true  to  these,  its  forerunners. 

But  what  about  death  and  hereafter?  This  religion  will  not  dim  the 
hope  which  has  been  man's  since  the  first  day  of  his  stay  on  earth.  But  it 
will  be  most  emphatic  in  winning  men  to  the  conviction  that  a  life  worthily 
spent  here  on  earth  is  the  best,  is  the  only  preparation  for  heaven.  Said  the 
old  rabbis:  "One  hour  spent  here  in  truly  goo^  works  and  in  the  true 
intimacy  with  God  is  more  precious  than  all  life  to  be."  The  egotism  which 
now  mars  so  6ften  the  aspirations  of  our  souls,  the  scramble  for  glory  which 
comes  while  we  forget  duty,  will  be  replaced  by  a  serene  trust  in  the  eternal 
justice  of  him  "in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being."  To  have 
done  religiously  will  be  a  reward  sweeter  than  which  none  can  be  offered. 
Yea,  the  religion  of  the  future  will  be  impatient  of  men  who  claim  that  they 
have  the  right  to  be  saved,  while  they  are  perfectly  content  that  others  shall 
not  be  saved,  and  while  not  stirring  a  foot  or  lifting  a  hand  to  redeem 
brother  men  from  hunger  and  wretchedness,  in  the  cool  assurance  that  this 
life  is  destined  or  doomed  to  be  a  free  race  of  haggling,  snarling  competi- 
tors in  which  by  some  mysterious  will  of  providence  the  devil  takes  the 
hindmost. 

Will  there  be  prayer  in  the  universal  religion?  Man  will  worship,  but 
in  the  beauty  of  holiness  his  prayer  will  be  the  prelude  to  his  prayerful 
action.  Silence  is  more  reverential  and  worshipful  than  a  wild  torrent  of 
words  breathing  forth  not  adoration  but  greedy  requests  for  favors  to  self. 
Can  an  unforgiving  heart  pray  "forgive  as  we  forgive?"  Can  one  ask  for 
daily  bread  when  he  refuses  to  break  his  bread  with  the  hungry?  Did  not 
the  prayer  of  the  great  Master  of  Nazareth  thus  teach  all  men  and  all  ages 
that  prayer  must  be  the  stirring  to  love? 

Had  not  that  Utile  waif  caught  the  inspiration  of  our  universal  prayer 
who,  when  first  taught  its  sublime  phrases,  persisted  in  changing  the  open- 
ing words  to  "  Your  father  which  is  in  heaven  ?"  Rebuked  time  and  again 
by  the  teacher,  he  finally  broke  out,  "  Well,  if  it  is  our  father,  why,  I  am  your 
brother."  Yea,  the  gates  of  prayer  in  the  church  to  rise  will  lead  to  the 
recognition  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  men. 

Will  this  new  faith  have  its  bible  ?  It  will.  It  retains  the  old  bibles  of 
mankind,  but  gives  them  a  new  luster  by  remembering  that  "the  letter  kill- 
eth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life."  Religion  is  not  a  question  of  literature,  but 
of  life.  God's  revelation  is  continuous,  not  contained  in  tablets  of  stone  or 
sacred  parchment.  He  speaks  to-day  yet  to  those  that  would  hear  him.  A 
book  is  inspired  when  it  inspires.  Religion  made  the  Bible,  not  the  book 
religion. 

And  what  will  be  the  name  of  this  church  ?     It  will  be  known  not  by 


1308       PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

its  founders,  I)ut  by  its  fruits.  God  replies  to  him  who  insists  upwn  knowing 
his  name :  "  I  am  he  who  I  am."  So  it  will  be  with  the  church.  If  any 
name  it  will  have,  it  will  be  "  the  Church  of  God,"  because  it  will  be  the 
church  of  man. 

When  Jacob,  so  runs  an  old  rabbinical  legend,  weary.-and  footsore  the 
first  night  of  his  sojourn  away  from  home,  would  lay  him  down  to  sleep 
under  the  canopy  of  the  star-set  skies,  all  the  stones  of  the  field  exclaimed  : 
"  Take  me  for  thy  pillow."  And  because  all  were  ready  to  serve  him  all 
were  miraculously  turned  into  one  stone.  This  became  Beth  El,  the  gate 
of  heaven.  So  will  all  religions,  because  eager  to  become  the  pillow  of  man, 
dreaming  of  God  and  beholding  the  ladder  joining  earth  to  heaven,  be 
transformed  into  one  great  rock  which  the  ages  cannot  move,  a  foundation 
stone  for  the  all-embracing  temple  of  humanity,  united  to  do  God's  will  with 
one  accord. 


*     THE  WORLD'S  SALVATION. 

By  Rev.  John  Duke  McFadden,  D.D.,  Carleton,  Neb. 

In  working  for  the  world's  salvation,  we  are  to  work  for  the  overthrow 
of  creeds.  The  religious  world  is  divided,  because  of  creeds  and  not 
because  of  God ;  theories  and  opinions  are  made  substitutes  for  truth.  The 
substitutes  are  relied  on,  and  the  truth  is  left  in  the  background.  The 
prophet's  staff  could  not  put  new  life  into  the  dead  boy :  the  man  of  God 
must  touch  and' breathe  in  him,  and  human  creeds  cannot  give  life  to  the 
dying  race  of  men — God  himself  must  touch  and  heal  and  save.  Christ  was 
the  greatest  of  men.  This  man  came  to  save  the  lost ;  he  did  not  preach 
creeds,  but  the  Word.  This  was  why  the  common  people  heard  him 
gladly — the  word  of  truth  satisfied  their  spiiit  and  enables  them  to  taste  and 
see.  The  Brethren  Church  which  I  represent,  tak^s  the  Word  of  God  for 
its  guide  in  religious  faith  and  practice.  Where  it  is  silent,  we  cannot 
command ;  where  it  speaks  we  must  echo.  By  that  Word  we  are  to  he 
judged,  and  by  it  we  are  to  shape  our  action  until  we  reach  the  judgment. 
In  working  for  the  world's  salvation  we  are  to  work  for  the  union  of  all 
God's  forces.  Ezekiel  says  :  "  Make  a  chain,  for  the  land  is  filled  with 
bloody  crimes  and  the  city  is  filled  with  violence."  The  pulpits  and  churches 
and  organizations  must  be  linked  for  the  work  of  saving  from  crime  and 
violence.  The  same  writer  in  his  vision  saw  united  a  figure  having  the  face 
of  a  man,  of  a  lion,  of  an  eagle,  and  of  an  ox — united  for  God's  work.  He 
teaches  the  union  of  different  forces  for  a  great  object.  I  believe  that  God 
wants  the  union  of  America,  and  Europe,  and  Asia,  and  Africa.  Union  for 
salvation — for  the  lifting  up  of  humanity.  For  this  purpose  God  made  all 
nations  of  one  blood,  and  for  this  purpose  the  Master  prayed,  and  that 
prayer  God  will  answer  through  all  who  do  his  will. 


\<v.v.  i.r  I >ii:k  i'.  n  i\\  nskmi. 

KI-.V.  J  Wll-.S     \.  IK  )\\\:. 
KKV.   U.   K.  lAkKol.l.. 


KI.V.JOIIN  il.MKlNKK. 
I'kDI'.    11(1  )\IAS  t)'(;(>KM  AN. 

i'Ki:s.  i;.  I..  winiM  \n. 


WHAT  HAS  CHRISTIANITY  DOiNE  FOR  THE 

CHINESE? 

By  the  Rev.  Y.  K.  Yen. 

There  are  nominally  three  religions  in  our  country — Confucianism, 
Taoism  and  Buddhism;  but  practically  the  three  have  grown  into  one, 
which  may  fitly  be  called  the  National  religion. 

Under  the  providence  of  God,  this  religion  has  fulfilled  a  very  import- 
ant function  in  the  civilization  of  our  country.  It  has  kept  alive  in  our 
people  the  ideas  of  God,  of  the  evil  of  sin,  of  retribution,  of  the  need  of 
pardon,  of  the  existence  of  the  soul,  and  has  given  all  the  blessings  which 
flow  from  these  ideas.  Like  the^aw  of  the  Jews,  though  in  a  less  degree, 
it  has  been  a  schoolmaster  leading  our  people  to  Christ.  The  relation  of 
Christianity  to  our'  National  religion  is  the  same  as  its  relation  to  natural 
religion  in  general.     It  comes  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill. 

The  benefits  of. Christianity  to  China,  so  far  as  it  has  made  a  lodgment 
there,  may  be^divided  into  the  necessary  and  the  accidental. 

I.  The  benefits  which  necessarily  flow  from  Christianity  are  the  spirit- ' 
ual  and  the  moral. 

1.  The  Spiritual  Benefits. — The  idea  of  God  given  us  by  our  National 
religion  is  vague  and  rudimentary,  and  being  left  to  itself  has  degenerated 
ipto  the  grossest  materialism.  Worship  is  associated  with  temporal  good  ; 
purity  is  cultivated  as  a  means  to  a  worldly  end  ;  in  the  last  analysis,  the 
National  religion  consists  in  making  "  the  belly  the  god."  Christianity, 
giving  us  new  ideas  of  God  and  the  experience  of  their  reality,  has  inspired 
us  with  lofty  thoughts  and  lifted  us  from  the  grossness  of  earth  to  the  spirit- 
uality of  heaven.  It  helps  us  to  forsake  sin  and  to  live  z.  life  of  godliness, 
and  comforts  us  in  our  trials  and  sorrows.  Concentrating  our  minds  on  one 
eternal  Deity,  it  produces  in  us  a  deeper,  more  real  piety  than  can  be  pro- 
duced by  polytheism,  with  its  gods,  demigods,  nature-gods,  and  spirits  of 
heroes.  It  teaches  a  future  personal  existence,  as  our  religion  cannot  do. 
To  those  educated  in  the  old  religion  the  state  beyond  the  seen  is  unknown, 
unthought  of,  and  a  blank.  The  Bible's  clear  words  on  the  nature  of  the 
soul  have  made  it  a  reality  to  us,  and  its  future  life  a  certainty. 

2.  The  Moral  Benefits. — In  our  national  temples  there  are  scrolls  exhort- 
ing to  a  moral  life,  with  the  sanction  that  the  gods  see  our  conduct,  and  that 
there  is  a  retribution  as  sure  as  that  "shadows  follow  objects."  That  our 
National  religion  has  been  a  promoter  of  virtue  is  as  true  as  the  saying  of  St. 
Paul,  "The  Gentiles  do  by  nature  the  things  contained  in  the  law."  But  the 
moral  teaching  does  not  occupy  the  foreground  of  it,  nor  is  it  brought  to  the 


YEN:   CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   CHINESE.         I3II 

mind  of  the  people  constantly  and  systematically.  The  National  religion  has 
no  institutions  for  this  function. 

The  moral  character  of  the  people  is  reflected  in  its  institutions,  manners, 
customs  and  forms  of  etiquette. 

In  government  there  is  an  absence  of  the  idea  that  it  is  for  the  benefit  of 
the  people  ;  hence  it  becomes  a  colossal  business  corporation.  Generally, 
no  one  gets  into  office  except  by  money ;  and  once  in  he  makes  money, 
righteously  or  unrighteously,  to  recoup  himself  for  the  outlay,  or  to  secure 
higher  office,  or  to  retire  rich. 

Take  business.  Large  corporations  are  impossible,  for  lack  of  mutual 
confidence.  They  have  been  lately  attempted,  in  large  numbers,  but  with  few 
exceptions  have  collapsed  through  the  corruption  of  directors  or  cashiers 
Why  is  it  that  the  government  obtains  its  loans  through  foreign  banks,  and 
not  directly  from  the  people  ?  Why  is  it  that  hpngs,  stores  and  shops  find 
their  greatest  difficulty  with  the  bookkeepers  ?  Why  is  it  that  nearly  every 
man  owes  money  to  somebody  ?  Why  is  it  that  to  give  the  lie  to  another  is 
no  offense  ?  Why  is  it  that  we  have  no  national  currency  beyond  the  copper 
coin  of  one  one-thousandth  of  a  dollar  ?  *v 

Cruelty  is  everywhere.  Torture  prevails  in  the  administration  of  justice. 
There  is  hardheartedness  in  families,  in  schools,  in  workshops,  and  especially 
in  the  treatment  of  girls  bought  for  domestic  service  or  for  impure  purposes, 
and  of  those  adopted  into  families  as  future  wives  for  the  sons. 

Woman  has  no  legal  status.  "  When  young,  she  submits  to  her  father ; 
when  married,  to  her  husband ;  when  a  widow,  to  her  son  ;  "  she  is  a  minor 
all  her  life.  A  husband  may  divorce  his  wife,  but  not  vice  versa.  The  mar- 
riage of  a  widow  is  considered  disreputable.  Widowhood  in  China  is  only  a 
step  removed  from  that  in  India. 

The  contrast  between  the  rich  and  the  poor  is  everywhere  marked. 
Though  the  former  do  show  some  benevolence,  yet,  from  their  egoistic  motives 
to  virtue,  they  do  not  show  it  to  the  extent  they  ought. 

Concubinage  is  legal  and  is  freely  practised.  Girls  are  not  educated, 
partly  because  there  is  no  pure  literature. 

Sociologists  tell  us  that  awe  of  power,  shown  in  groveling  submission  to 
despotism,  abject  loyalty,  fondness  for  ceremony  and  pageantry,  is  the  neces- 
sary concomitant  of  disregard  of  life,  liberty  and  property.  In  our  country 
"kneeling  three  times  and  bowing  the  head  to  the  ground  three  times  three" 
is  the  ceremony  by  which  the  mandarins  approach  the  emperor;  and  like 
ceremonies  are  used  from  inferior  to  superior  through  all  grades  of  society. 

Summing  up:  If,  as  appears  from  the  state  of  official  and  social  life, 
there  is  a  want  of  high  integrity,  sympathy  and  social  purity,  and  a  disregard 
of  life,  liberty  and  property,  then  the  religion  which  has  shaped  our  character 
is  surely  amiss. 

The  benefits  of  Christianity  may  now  be  inferred.  Just  in  the  degree  that 
it  is  a  superior  teacher  of  a  higher  standard  of  morals,  in  that  degree  it  has 


1312         PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 

helped  us  in  the  conduct  of  life.  Not  that  we  Christians  have  any  ground  to 
boast  of  our  virtues  ;  but  this  I  do  say,  that  it  has  helped  us  to  be  better  than 
we  otherwise  should  have  been. 

II.  Turn  we  now  to  the  accidental  benefits. 

1.  T/tf  intellectual  benefits  brought  to  us  are  incalculable.  Since  1839, 
when  the  Morrison  Educational  Society  began  its  first  Anglo-Chinese  school, 
schools  of  all  grades  for  boys  and  girls  have  increased  till  in  the  year  1890 
there  were  16,836  pupils  in  college,  boarding  and  day  schools. 

China  in  her  own  schools  studies  only  ancient  learning,  most  of  which 
has  little  bearing  on  the  present  welfare  of  the  people.  Christianity,  in 
introducing  the  liberal  sciences  of  the  West  has  opened  to  us  a  wide  field  of 
information.  The  "School  and  Text  Books  Committee  "  of  the  Missionary 
Conference  of  1877,  has  published  in  Chinese  107  works,  in  193  volumes,  on 
physical  and  metaphysical  science  for  three  grades  of  schools.  The 
graduates  of  the  mission  schools  have  made  their  influence  felt  in  all  depart- 
ments of  life.  The  indirect  result  is  immense.  Our  government  has  estab- 
lished schools  of  modern  learning  and  is  increasing  them.  This  new  edu- 
cation is  yet  in  its  infancy  but  has  already  produced  visible  fruits  and  has 
in  itself  great  possibilities. 

2.  Christianity  has  given  us  physical  benefits  in  establishing  hospitals 
and  dispensaries,  training  medical  jtudents  and  publishing  medical  books. 
In  1890  the-iyamber  of  patients  treated  in  105  hospitals  and  dispensaries 
was  348,439.  This  branch  of  Christian  vork  has  won  general  favor,  even 
in  high  official  stations,  and  large  gifts  have  been  bestowed  on  it  by  men  of 
wealth.     The  blessings  of  Christian  medical  missions  cannot  be  told. 


HOW  TO  ACHIEVE  RELIGIOUS  UNITY. 
By  Rev.  Dr.  William  R.  Alger,  of  Boston. 

The  first  form  of  partial  unification  of  the  human  race  is  the  aesthetic 
unification.  The  second  step  is  the  scientific  unification,  the  third  is  the  eth- 
nic, the  fourth  is  the  political  unification  by  the  establishment  of  an  interna- 
tional code  for  the  settlement  of  all  disputes  by  reason.  The  fifth  will  be 
the  commercial  and  social,  the  free  circulation  of  all  the  component  items  of 
humanity  through  the  whole  of  humanity.  Our  commerce,  steamships,  tele- 
graph and  telephone,  and  the  ever  increasing  travel  is  rapidly  bringing  that 
about;  but  the  commercial  spirit,  as  such,  is  cosmic,  is  selfish.  Men  seek  to 
make  money  out  of  others  by  the  principle  of  profit,  getting  more  than  they 
should. 

The  next  partial  form  of  unification  is  the  economic.  The  economic 
unification  of  the  human  race  will  be  what  ?  The  transfer  of  civilization 
from  its  pecuniary  basis  to  the  basis  of  labor.     The  whole  effort  of  the 


/ 


ALGER:   LAWS   OF   RELIGIOUS   UNITY.  13 13 

human  race  must  not  be  to  purchase  goods  and  sell  them  in  order  to  make 
money.  It  must  be  to  produce  goods  ancf  distribute  them  on  the  principles 
of  justice  for  the  supply  of  human  wants,  without  any  profit.  The  pursuit  of 
money  is  cosmic  and  hostile.  The  money  I  get  nobody  else  can  have  but 
the  spirit  of  cooperation  is  unifying  and  universal,  because  in  the  spiritual 
order  there  is  no  division  ;  there  is  nothing  but  wholes.  The  knowledge  I 
have   all   may  have,  without  division. 

There  are  three  in  unity.  The  unification  of  the  whole  race  is  summed 
up  in  the  seventh  form  of  unification,  which  is  made  up  of  the  six  preceding 
forms  or  distinctions.  Now  the  seventh  is  a  trinity.  Let  us  see  what  are 
the  three.  We  have  the  philosophical  unification  and  the  theological  unifi- 
cation, and  the  unity  of  those  is  the- religious  unification.  Let  me  define. 
Philosophy  is  the  science  of  ultimate'  ground.  Theology  is  the  science  of 
the  first  principle.  The  unity  of  those  two,  transfused  through  the  -whole 
personality  and  applied  as  the  dominant  spirit  of  life  in  the  regulation  of 
conduct  through  all  its  demands,  is  religion.  That  is  the  pure,  absolute, 
universal  religion  in  which  all  can  agree. 

The  first  great  obstacle  to  overcome  is  our  environment— our  social 
environment.  Our  social  environment,,  instead  of  being  redeemed,  instead 
of  representing  the  archetype  mind  pf  God,  the  redemptive,  is  cosmic,  and 
it  is  utterly  vain  for  us  to  go  and  preach  Christianity,  when  just  as  fast  as 
we  utter  these  precepts  they  are  neutralized  by  the  atmospheric  environments 
io  which  they  pass.  The  great  anti-Christ  of  the  world  is  the  unchristian 
character  and  conduct  of  Christendom.  All  through  Christendom  we  preach 
and  profess  one  set  of  precepts  and  practice  the  opposite.  We  say,  "Seek 
ye  first  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  its  righteousness,  and  all  else  shall  be 
added  unto  you."  We  put  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  its  righteousness  in 
the  background  and  work,  like  so  many  incarnate  devils  for  every  form  of 
self-gratification. 

The  great  obstacle  to  the  religious  unification  of  the  human  race  is  the 
irreligious  always  associated  and  olten  identified  with  the  religious.  There 
are  three ^reat  specifications  of  that.  First,  hatred  is  made  religion.  Did 
not  the  Brahmans  and  the  Mohammedans  slaughter  each  other  in  the  streets 
of  Bombay  a  few  days  ago,  hating  each  other  more  than  they  loved  the  gen- 
eric humanity  ot  God  ?  Did  not  the  Catholics  and  Protestants  struggle 
together  furiously  and  come  near  committing  murder  in  Montreal  and 
Toronto  a  few  days  ago  ?  All  over  the  world  the  hatred  of  the  professors 
of  religion  for  one  another  is  irreligion  injected  into  the  very  core  of  religion. 
That  is  fatal. 

Rites  and  ceremonies  are  not  religion.  A  man  may  repeat  the  sound- 
est creed  verbally  a  hundred  times  a  day  for  twenty  years.  He  may  cross 
himself  three  times,  and  bend  his  knee  and  bow  his  head  and  still  be  full  of 
pride  and  vanity;  or  he  may  omit  those  ceremonials  and  retreat  to  himself 
into  his  closet   and  shut  the  door  and  in  struggle  with  God  efface  his  egoism 

83 


ISM         PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

and  receive  the  Divine  Spirit.  That  is  religion,  and  so  on  through  other 
manifestations.  We  must  arrive  at  pure,  rational,  universal  interpretations  of 
all  the  dogmas  of  theology.  We  must  interpret  every  dogma  in  such  a  way 
that  it  will  agree  with  all  other  dogmas  in  a  free  circulation  of  the  distinc- 
tions through  the  unity.  Then  the  human  race  can  be  united  on  that.  They 
never  can  on  the  other.  We  must  put  the  preponderating  emphasis,  with- 
out any  division,  on  the  ethical  aspects  of  religion  instead  of  on  the  specu- 
lative. Formerly  it  was  just  the  other  way.  We  are  rapidly  coming  to  that. 
The  liberalists  began  their  protests  against  the  Catholic  and  Evangelical 
theologies  by  supporting  the  'ethical — emphasizing  character  and  conduct. 
But  all  the  churches  now  recognize  that  a  man  must  have  a  good  character, 
that  he  must  behave  himself  properly,  morally.  There  is  not  one  that  doubts 
or  questions  it.  These  have  become  commonplace,  and  yet  the  liberals  stay 
right  there  and  don't  move  a  step.  Liberalism  thus  far  has  been  ethical 
and  shallow.  Evangelicanism  has  been  dogmatic,  tyrannical  and  cruel,  to 
some  extent  irrational,  but  iX  has  al\yays  been  profound.  It  has  battled  with 
the  real  problems  which  the  liberalists  have  simply  blinked  at,  and  settled 
these  problems  in  universal  agreement.  For  example,  the  doctrine  of  the 
fall  of  Adam.  There  was  a  real  problem.  The  world  is  full  of  evil ;  God 
is  perfect;  he  could  not  create  imperfections.  How  happened  it ?  Why, 
man  was  created  all  right,  but  he  fell.  It  was  an  amazingly  original,  sub- 
tle and  profound  stroke  to  settle  a  real  problem.  The  liberals  came  up,  and, 
saying  it  was  not  the  true  solution,  they  blinked  at  the  problem  and  denied 
that  it  existed.  Now  the  real  solution  seems  to  me  is  not  that  the  evils  in 
the  universe  have  come  from  a  fall.  The  fall  of  an  archdemoniac  spirit  in 
heaven  does  not  settle  the  problem ;  it  only  moves  it  b?ick  one  step.  How 
did  he  fall  ?  Why  did  he  fall  ?  There  can  be  no  fall  in  the  archetypal  idea 
of  God.  Creatures  were  created  in  freedom  to  choose  between  good  and 
evil  in  order  that  through  their  freedom  and  the  discipline  of  struggle  with 
evil  they  might  become  the  perfected  and  redeemed  images  of  God.  That 
settles  the  problem,  and  we  can  all  agree  on  that.  Of  course  you  want  an 
hour  to  expound  it.  This  hint  may  seem  absurd,  but  there  is  more  in  it. 
Finally,  I  want  to  say  we  must  change  the  emphasis  from  the  world  of  death 
to  this  world.  Redemption  must  not  be  postponed  to. the  future.  It  must 
be  realized  on  the  earth.  I  don't  think  it  is  heresy  to  say  that  we  must  not 
confine  the  idea  of  Christ  to  the  mere  historic  individual,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ; 
but  we  must  consider  that  Christ  is  not  merely  the  individual.  He  is  the 
completed  genus  incarnate.  He  is  the  absolute  generic  unity  of  the  human 
race  in  manifestation.  Therefore,  he  is  not  the  follower  of  other  men,  but 
their  divine  exemplar.  We  must  not  limit  our  worship  of  Christ  to  the 
mere  historic  person,  but  must  see  in  the  individual  person  the  perfected 
genus  of  the  divine  humanity  which  is  God  himself,  and  realize  that  that  is 
to  be  multiplied.  It  cannot  be  divided,  but  it  may  be  multiplied  commen- 
surately  with  the  dimensions  of  the  whole  human  race. 


'^^^^^^^^^'^!'^'y!^i^^-:m^^ 


KK.STIVAl.  CAR  XV  TRIPLICANK,  M AHRAS,  INDIA. 


EVOLUTION  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  Henry  Drummond,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.E.,  F.G.S. 

■  No  more  fit  theme  could  be  chosen  for  discussion  at  this  Congress  than 
the  relation  of  Christianity  and  evolution.  Evolution — and  by  that  I  do 
not  mean  Darwinism,  which  is  not  yet  proved,  nor  Spencerianism,  which  is 
incomplete,  nor  Weismannism,  which  is  in  the  hottest  fires  of  criticism,  but 
evolution  as  a  great  category  of  thought — is  the  supreme  word  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  More  than  that,  it  is  the  greatest  generalization  the  world 
has  ever  known. 

The  mere  presence  of  this  doctrine  in  science  has  reacted  as  by  an  elec- 
'tric  induction  on  every  surrounding  circle  of  thought.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
whether  we  shun  the  change,  or  court  it,  or  dread  it,  it  has  come,  and  we  must 
set  ourselves  to  meet  it.  No  truth  now  can  remain  unaffected  by  evolution. 
We  can  no  longer  take  out  a  doctrine  in  this  century  or  in  that,  bottle  it 
like  a  vintage,  and  store  it  in  our  creeds.  We  see  truth  now  as  a  profound 
ocean  still,  but  with  a  slow  and  ever-rising  tide.  Theology  must  reckon 
with  this  tide.  We  can  store  this  truth  in  our  vessels,  for  the  formulation 
of  doctrine  must  never  stop;  but  the  vessels;  with  their  mouths  open,  must 
remain  in  the  ocean.  If  we  take  them  out  the  tide  cannot  rise  in  them,  and 
we  shall  only  have  stagnant  doctrines  rotting  in  a  dead  tlieology. 

To  the  student  of  God's  ways,  who  reverently  marks  his  progressive 
revelation  and  scans  the  horizon  for  each  new  fulfillment,  the  field  of  science 
under  the  influence  of  this  great  doctrine,  presents  just  now  a  spectacle  of 
bewildering  interest.  To  say  that  he  regards  it  with  expectation  is  feebly 
to  realize  the  dignity  and  import  of  the  time.  He  looks  at  science  with 
awe.  It  is  the  thing  that  is  moving,  unfolding.  It  is  the  breaking  of  a 
fresh  seal.  It  is  the  new  chapter  of  the  world's  history.  What  it  contains 
for  Christianity,  or  against  it,  he  knows  not.  What  it  will  do,  or  undo — for 
in  the  fulfilling  it  may  undo — he  cannot  tell.  The  plot  is  just  at  its  thickest 
as  he  opens  the  page  ;  the  problems  are  more  in  number  and  more  intricate 
than  they  have  ever  been  before,  and  he  waits  almost  with  excitement  for 
the  next  development. 

And  yet  this  attitude  of  Christianity  towards  science  is  as  free  from 
false  hope  as  it  is  from  false  fear.  It  has  no  false  fear,  for  it  knows  the 
strange  fact  that  this  plot  is  always  at  its  thickest ;  and  its  hope  of  a  quick 
solution  is  without  extravagance,  for  it  has  learned  the  slowness  of  God's 
unfolding  and  his  patient  tempering  of  revelation  to  the  young  world 
which  has  to  bear  the  strain.  Hut  for' all  this,  we  cannot  open  this  new  ami 
closely  written  page  as  if  it   had  litlle  lo  give  us.     With  nature  as  God's 

1316 


DRUMMOND:  EVOLUTION  AND  CHRISTIANITY.       I317 

work;  with  man,  God's  finest  instrument,  as  its  investigator;  with,  a  mul- 
titude of  the  finest  of  these  fine  instruments,  in  laboratory,  field  and  study, 
hourly  engaged  upon  this  book,  exploring,  deciphering,  sifting  and  verify- 
ing—  it  is  impossible  that  there  should  not  be  a  solid,  original  and  ever 
increasing  gain. 

The  idea  of  gain  for  religion  to  be  made  out  of  its  relations  with.science 
is  almost  a  new  thing.  Its  realization  with  whatever  partial  success  is  by 
far  the  most  striking  feature  of  the  present  situation.  The  intercourse 
between  these  two,  until  very  recently,  was  remote,  suspicious  and  strained. 
After  the  first  great  quarrel  —  for  they  began  the  centuries  hand  in  hand 
—  the  question  of  religion  to  science  was  the  peremptory  one:  "How 
dare  you  speak  at  all  ? "  Then  as  science  held  to  its  right  to  speak,  the 
question  became  more  pungent :  "  What  new  menace  to  our  creed  does 
your  latest  discovery  portend?"  By  and  by.  both  grew  wiser,  and  the 
coarser  conflict  ceased.  For  a  time  we  find  religion,  suggesting  a  compro- 
mise, and  asking  simply  what  particular  adjustments  to  its  latest  hypothesis 
science  would  demahd.  But  all  that  is  changed.  We  do  not  now  speak 
of  the  right  to  be  heard,  or  of  menaces  to  our  faith,  or  even  of  compromises. 
Our  question  is  a  maturer  one  —  we  ask  what  contribution  science  has  to 
bestow,  what  good  gift  the  Wise  Men  are  bringing  now  to  lay  at  the  feet  of 
our  Christ. 

To  survey  the  field,  therefore,  for  the  mere  purpose  of  celebrating  the 
triumphs  of  religion  and  science  is,  let  us  hope,  an  extinct  method.  True 
science  is  as  much  a  care  of  true  theology  as  any  branch  of  truth,  and  if  it 
is  necessary  for  a  few  moments  to  approach  the  subject  partly  in  an 
afMDlogetic  attitude,  the  6nal  object  is  to  show,  not  how  certain  old  theo- 
logical conceptions  have  saved  their  skins  in  recent  conflicts,  but  that  they 
have  come  out  of  the  struggle  enriched,  purified  and  enlarged. 

I.  The  first  fact  to  be  registered  is  that  evolutiop  has  swept  over  the 
doctrine  of  creation,  and  left  it  untouched,  except  for  the  better.  The 
stages  in  the  advance  here  are  easily  noted.  Working  in  its  own  field,  science 
made  the  discovery  of  how  God  made  the  world.  To  science  itself  this 
discovery  was  as  startling  and  as  unexpected  as  it  has  ever  been  to  theol- 
ogy. Exactly  fifty  years  ago  Mr.  Darwin  wrote  in  dismay  to  Hooker  that 
the  old  theory  of  specific  creation — that  God  made  all  species  apart  and 
introduced  them  into  the  world  one  by  one — was  melting  away  before  his 
eyes.  He  unburdens  the  thought,  as  he  says  in  his  letter,  almost  "  as  if  he 
were  confessing  a  murder."  But  so  entirely  has  the  world  bowed  to  the 
weight  of  the  facts  before  which  even  Darwin  trembled,  that  one  of  the  last 
books  on  Darwinism,  by  so  religious  a  mind  as  that  of  Mr.  Alfred  Russell 
Wallace,  contains  in  its  opening  chapter  these  words  :  "The  whole  scientific 
and  literary  world,  even  the  whole  educated  public,  accept  as  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge  the  origin  of  species  from  other  allied  species,  by  the 
ordinary  process  of  natural  birth.    The  idea  of  special  creation,  or  any  other 


I318         PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 

exceptional  mode  of  production,  is  absolutely  extinct."     Theology,  after  a 
period  of  hesitation,  accepted  this  version  on  the  whole.    The  hesitation  was 
,not  due,  as  is  often  supposed,  to  prejudice.     What  theology  waited  for  was 
what  science  itself  was  waiting  for — the  arrival  of  the  proof. 

That  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  proved  yet,  no  one  will  assert.  That 
in  some  of  its  forms  it  is  never  likely  to  be  proved,  many  are  even  con- 
vinced. It  will  be  time  for  theology  to  be  unanimous  about  it  when  science 
is  unanimous  about  it.  Yet  it  would  be  idle  not  to  record  the  fact  that  in  a 
general  form  it  has  received  the  widest  assent  from  modern  theology.  And 
there  is  nothing  here  but  gain.  If  science  is  satisfied,  even  in  a  general 
way,  with  its  theory  of  evolution  as  {he  method  of  creation,  "assent"  is  a 
cold  word  with  which  those  whose  business  it  is  to  know  and  love  the  ways 
of  God  should  welcome  it.  It  is  needless  at  this  time  of  day  to  point  out 
the  surpassing  grandeur  of  the  new  conception.  How  it  has  filled  the  Chris- 
tian imagination  and  kindled  to  enthusiasm  the  soberest  scientific  minds 
from  Darwin  downwards  is  known  to  every  pne.  For  that  splendid  hypoth- 
esis we  cannot  be  too  grateful  to  science  ;  and  that  theology  can  only  enrich 
itself,  which  gives  it  even  temporary  place  in  its  doctrine  of  creation.  The 
theory  of  evolution  fills  a  gap  at  the  very  beginning  of  our  religion  ;  and  no 
one  who  looks  now  at  the  transcendent  spectacle  of  the  world's  past  as  dis- 
closed by  science,  will  deny  that  it  has  filled  it  worthily.  Yet,  after  r.ll,  its 
beauty  is  not  the  part  of  its  contribution  to  Christianity  which  one  empha- 
sizes here.  Scientific  theology  required  a  new  view,  though  it  did  not 
require  it  to  come  in  so  magnificent  a  form.  What  it  needed  was  a  credible 
presentation,  in  view  especially  of  astronomy,  geology,  palaeontology,  and 
biology.  These,  as  we  have  said,  had  made  the  former  theory  simply  unten- 
able. And  science  has  supplied  theology  with  a  theory  which  the  intellect 
can  accept,  and  which  for  the  devout  mind  leaves  everything  more  worthy 
of  worship  than  before. 

As  to  the  time-honored  question  of  the  relation  of  that  theory  to  the  Book 
of  Genesis,  it  may  surely  be  said  that  theology  has  now  no  longer  any  diffi- 
culty. The  long  and  interesting  era  of  the  "reconcilers"  is  to  be  looked 
upon  as  past.  That  was  a  necessary  era.  With  the  older  views  of  revela- 
tion there  was  no  alternative  but  to  harmonize  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  with 
palceontology.  And  no  more  gallant  or  able  attempts  were  ever  made  to 
bridge  an  apparently  serious  gulf  than  were  the  "  Reconciliations"  of  Hugh 
Miller  and  Chalmers,  of  Kurtz  and  Guyot,  and  the  band  of  brilliant  men 
who  spent  themselves  over  this  great  apology.  But  the  solution,  when  it 
came,  reached  us  from  quite  another  quarter. 

For,  wholly  apart  from  this  problem,  theology  meantime  was  advancing 
in  new  directions.  The  science  of  Biblical  criticism  was  born.  The  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  casting  its  transforming  light  over  every  branch  of  know- 
ledge, came  in  time  to  be  applied  to  the  literature  and  doctrine  of  the  Old 
Testament.      Under  the  new  light  the  problem   of   the   reconciliation  of 


DRUMMOND:  EVOLUTION  AND  CHRISTIANITY.        I  3^9 

Genesis  and  science  simply  disappeared.  The  two  things  lay  in  different 
regions,  no  bridge  was  necessary  and  none  was  called  for.  Genesis  was  not 
a  scientific  but  a  religious  book,  and  there  being  no  science  there,  for  theo- 
logians to  put  it  there,  or  "reconcile"  as  if  it  were  there,  was  seen  to  be  a 
mistake.  This  new  position  is  as  impregnable  as  it  is  final.  Genesis  is  a 
presentation  of  one  or  two  great  elementary  truths  to  the  childhood  of  the 
world.  It  can  only  be  read  aright  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  written,  with 
its  original  purpose  in  view  and  its  original  audience.  Dating  from  the 
childhood  of  the  world,  written  for  children,  and  for  that  child-spirit  in  man 
which  remains  unchanged  by  time,  it  takes  color  and  shape  accordingly. 
Its  object  is  purely  religious,  the  point  being  not  how  certain  things  were  made 
— which  is  a  question  for  science  which  the  revealer  of  truth  has  everywhere 
left  to  science — but  that  God  made  them.  It  is  not  dedicated  to  science, 
but  to  the  soul.  It  is  a  sublime  theology,  a  hymn  of  creation,  given  in  view 
of  idolatry  or  polytheism,  telling  the  worshipful  youth  of  the  earth  that  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  and  every  flying  and  creeping  thing  were  made  by 
God. 

This  conclusion,  and  it  cannot  be  too  widely  asserted,  is  now  a  common- 
place with  scientific  theology.  The  misfortune  is  that,  with  the  broken 
state  of  the  churches,  there  is  no  one  to  announce  in  the  name  of  theology 
that  this  controversy  is  at  an  end.  The  theological  world  needs  nothing 
as  much  just  now  as  a  clearing  house,  a  register  office,  a  something  akin 
to  the  ancient  councils,  where  the  legitimate  gains  of  theological  science 
may  be  registered,  the  new  advances  chronicled,  popular  errors  exploded, 
and  authoritative  announcements  made  of  the  exact  position  of  affairs.  The 
waste  of  time  both  to  friends  and  foes — to  friends  in  laboriously  proving 
what  is  settled,  to  foes  in  ingloriously  slaying  the  slain — is  a  serious  hind- 
rance to  the  progress  of  truth  ;  and  could  any  council  have  dealt  with  this 
controversy,  let  us  say,  as  a  British  Association  with  Bathybius — the  relig- 
ous  world  would  be  spared  such  paltry  spectacles  as  Mr.  Huxley  annihilat- 
ing Mr.  Gladstone,  in  presence  of  a  blaspheming  enemy,  over  a  problem, 
which,  to  real  theology,  is  non-existent.  Probably  nine-tenths  of  the 
"  modern  attacks  "  upon  religion  from  the  side  of  science  are  assaults  upon 
positions  which  theological  science  has  itself  discredited,  but  whose  dis- 
claimers, for  want  of  a  suitable  platform  to  announce  them  from,  have  not 
been  heard. 

II.  Evolution  has  swept  over  the  church's  conception  of  origins  and  left 
it  also  untouched  except  for  the  better.  The  method  of  creation  is  one  thing, 
the  question  of  origins  is  another.  There  is  only  one  theory  of  the  method 
of  creation  in  the  field,  and  that  is  evolution  ;  but  there  is  only  one  theory  of 
origins  in  the  field  and  that  is  creation.  Instead  of  abolishing  a  creative 
hand,  in  short,  as  is  sometimes  supposed,  evolution  demands  it.  All  that  Mr. 
Darwin  worked  at  was  the  origin  of  species ;  he  discovered  nothing  new,  and 
professed  to  know  nothing  new,  about  the  origin  either  of  matter  or  of  life. 


? 


1320        PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAV. 

Nothing  is  more  ignorant  than  the  attempt  to  pit  evolution  or  natural  law 
against  creation,  as  if  the  one  excluded  the  other.  The  Christian  apologist 
who  tries  to  refute  objections  founded  upon  their  supposed  antagonism  is 
engaged  in  a  wholly  superfluous  task.  Evolution  instead  of  being  opposed 
to  creation  assumes  creation.  Law  is  not  the  cause  of  the  order  of  the  world 
but  the  expression  of  it-^o  far  from  accounting  for  the  origin  of  the  world, 
it  is  one  of  the  chief  things  whose  origin  has  to  be  accounted  for.  Evolution 
only  professes  to  offer  an  account  of  the  development  of  the  world,  but  it 
does  not  profess  either  to  account  for  it,  or  for  itself. 

The  neutrality  of  evolution  here  has  been  again  and  again  asserted  by 
its  chief  exponents,  and  the  fact  ought  to  take  a  place  in  all  future  discus- 
sion of  the  subject.  Mr.  Huxley's  words  alone  should  be  sufficient  to  set 
the  theological  mind  .at  rest.  "The  doctrine  of  evolution,"  he  writes,  "is 
neither  theistic  nor  anti-theistic.  It  has  no  more  to  do  with  theism  than  the 
first  book  of  Euclid  has.  It  does  not  even  come  in  contact  with  theism  con- 
sidered as  a  scientific  doctrine."  "  Behind  the  cooperating  forces  of  nature," 
says  Weissman,  "  which  aim  at  a  purpose,  we  must  admit  a  cause.  .  . 
inconceivable  in  its  nature,  of  which  we  can  say  only  one  thing  with  cer- 
tainty, that  it  rau.st  be  theological." 

Far  too  lightly,  in  the  past,  have  religious  minds  been  wont  to  assume 
the  irreliglousness  of  scientific  thought.  Scientific  thought,  as  scientific 
thought,  can  neither  be  religious  nor  irreligious,  yet  when  the  pure  man  of 
science  speaks  a  pure  word  of  science — a  neutral  and  colorless  word — 
because  he  has  failed  to  put  in  the  theological  color  he  has  been  branded 
as  an  infidel.  It  must  not  escape  notice,  in  any  summing  up  of  the  present 
situation,  how  scientific  men  have  themselves  repudiated  this  charge.  It  is 
not  denied  that  some  have  given  ground  for  it  by  explicit  utterance— even 
by  blatant,  insolent  and  vulgar  utterance.  But  far  more,  and  among  them 
those  who  are  currently  supposed  to  stand  foremost  in  the  opposing 
ranks,  have  expressly  denounced  it  and  gone  out  of  their  way  to  denounce  it. 
Professor  Tyndall  says,  "  I  have  noticed  during  years  of  self-observa- 
tion that  it  is  not  in  hours  ol  clearness  and  vigor  ih&X.  atheism  commends 
itself  to  my  mind  ;  that  in  the  hours  of  stronger  and  healthier  thought  it 
ever  dissolves  and  disappears,  as  offering  no  solution  of  the  mystery  in 
which  we  dwell  and  of  which  we  form  part." 

Apart  from  that,  it  may  well  be  that  some  of  the  protest  of  science 
against  theism  is  directed  not  against  a  t.rue  theism,  but  against  those 
superstitions  and  irrational  forms  which  it  is  the  business  of  science,  in 
whatever  department,  to  expose.  What  Tyndall  calls  a  "  fierce  and  dis- 
torted theism,"  and  which  elsewhere  he  does  not  spare,  is  as  much  the 
enemy  of  Christianity  as  of  science  ;  and  if  science  can  help  Christianity  to 
destroy  it,  it  does  well.  What  we  have  really  to  fight  against  is  both 
unfounded  belief  and  unfounded  unbelief;  and  there  is  perhaps  just  as 
much  of  the   one  as  of  the  other  afloat  in  current  literature.     "In  these 


DRUMMOND:  EVOLUTION  AND  CHRISTIANITY.       I32I 

days,"  says  Ruskin,  "you  have  to  guard  against  the  fatalist  darkness  of 
the  two  opposite  prides  :  the  pride  of  faith,  which  imagines  that  the  nature 
of  the  Deity  can  be  defined  by  its  convictions,  and  the  pride  of  science, 
which  imagines  that  the  energy  of  Deity  can  be  explained   by  its  analysis." 

The  question  as  to  the  proportion  of  scientific  men  who  take  the  Chris- 
tian side  is  too  foreign  to  the  present  theme  to  call  for  remark  ;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  there  is  probably  no  more  real  unbelief  among  men  of 
science  than  among  men  of  any  other  profession.  The  numbering  of  heads 
here  is  not  a  system  that  one  fancies,  but  as  it  is  a  line  often  taken  on  the 
opposite  side,  and  seems  to  havtf  a  weight  with  certain  minds,  I  record  here, 
in  passing,  the  following  authorized  statement  by  a  well-known  Fellow  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  London  : 

"I  have  known  the  British  Association  under  forty-one  different  presi- 
dents—  all  leading  men  of  science,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
appointed  on  other  grounds.  On  looking  over  these  forty-one  names,  I 
count  twenty  who,  judged  by  their  private  utterances  or  private  communica- 
tions, are  men  of  Christian  belief  and  character,  while,  judged  by  the  same 
test,  only  four  disbelieve  in  any  divine  revelation.  Of  the  remaining  seven- 
teen, some  have  possibly  been  religious  men,  and  others  may  have  been 
opponents ;  but  it  is  fair  to  suppose  that  the  greater  part  have  given  no 
very  serious  thought  to  the  subject.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all  these 
twenty  have  been  men  of  much  spirituality,  and  certainly  some  of  them 
have  not  been  classed  as  'orthodox,'  but  the  figures  at  least  indicate  that 
religious  faith  rather  than  unbelief  has  characterized  the  leading  men  of  the 
Association." 

But  to  return.  Instead  of  robbing  the  world  of  a  God,  science  has 
done  more  than  all  the  philosophies  and  natural  theologies  of  the  past  to 
sustain  and  enrich  the  theistic  conception.  Thus:  (i)  It  has  made  it 
impossible  for  the  world  ever  to  worship  any  other  God.  The  sun,  for 
instance,  and  the  stars  have  been  "found  out."  Science  has  shown  us 
exactly  what  they  are.  No  man  can  worship  them  any  more.  If  science 
has  not  by  searching  found  out  God,  it  has  not  found  any  other  God,  or 
anything  the  least  like  a  God  that  might  continue  to  be  even  a  conceivable 
object  of  worship  in  a  scientific  age.  (2)  By  searching,  though  it  has  not 
found  God,  it  has  found  a  place  for  God.  At  the  back  of  all  phenomena 
science  posits  God.  As  never  before,  from  the  purely  physical  side,  there  is 
room  in  the  world  for  God;  there  is  a  license  to  anyone  who  can  name  this 
name  to  affirm,  to  speak  out,  to  introduce  to  the  world  the  object  of  his 
faith.  And  the  gain  here  is  distinct.  Hitherto,  theology  held  it  as  an 
almost  untested  dogma  that  God  created  the  world.  That  dogma  has  now 
passed  through  the  fiercest  of  crucibles  and  comes  out  untarnished.  A 
permission  to  go  on,  a  license  from  the  best  of  modern  science  to  resume  the 
old  belief,  is  at  least  something. 

(3)  By  vastly  extending  our  knowledge  of  creation,  science  has  given  us 


1322    PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 

a  more  God-like  God.  The  new-f»und  energies  in  tlie  world  demand  a  Will, 
and  an  ever  present  will.  God  no  longer  made  the  world  and  withdrew ;  he 
pervades  the  whole.  Appearing  at  special  crises,  according  to  the  old  view, 
he  was  to  be  conceived  of  as  the  nonresident  God,  the  occasional  wonder- 
worker. Now  he  is  always  there.  Science  has  nothing  finer  to  offer  Chris- 
tianity than  this  exaltation  of  its  supreme  conception  —  God.  Is  it  too  much 
to  say  that  in  a  practical  age  like  the  present,  when  the  idea  and  practice  of 
worship  tend  to  be  forgotten,  God  should  wish  to  reveal  himself  afresh  in 
ever  more  striking  ways  ?  Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  at  thi?  distance  from 
creation,  with  the  eye  of  theology  resting  largely  upon  the  incarnation  and 
work  of  the  Man  Christ.  Jesus,  the  Almighty. should  design  with  more  and 
more  impressiveness  to  utter  himself  as  the  Wonderful,  the  Counselor,  the 
Great  and  Mighty  God  ?  Whether  this, be  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  every 
step  of  science  discloses  the  attributes  of  the  Almighty  with  a  growing  magni- 
ficence. The  author  of  Natural  Religion  tells  us  that  "  the  average  scientific 
man  worships  just  at  present  a  more  awful,  and  as  it  were  a  greater,  deity 
than  the  average  Christian."  Certain  it  is  that  the  Christian  view  and  the 
scientific  view  together  form  a  conception  of  the  object  of  worship,  such  as 
the  world  in  its  highest  inspiration  never  reached  before.  The  old  student  of 
natural  theology  rose  from  his  contemplation  of  design  in  nature  with 
heightened  feelings  of  the  wisdom,  goodness  and  power  of  the  Almighty. 
But  never  before  had  the  attributes  of  eternity,  and  immensity,  and  infinity, 
clothed  themselves  with  language  so  majestic  in  its  sublimity. 

III.  Evolution  has  swept  over  the  argument  from  design  and  left  it 
unchanged  except  for  the  better.  In  its  old  form,  it  is  as  well  to  admit 
squarely,  this  argument  has  been  swept  away.  To  it,  as  to  the  doctrine  of 
special  creation,  the  work  of  the  later  naturalists  has  proved  absolutely 
fatal.  But  the  same  hand  that  destroyed,  fulfilled,  and  this  beautiful  and 
serviceable  argument  has  lately  received  such  a  rehabilitation  from  evolu- 
tion as  to  promise  for  it  a  new  lease  of  life  and  usefulness.  Darwin  has  not 
written  a  chapter  that  is  not  full  of  teleology.  The  "design  "  is  there  still, 
less  in  the  part  than  in  the  whole,  less  in  the  parts  than  in  the  relations  of 
the  parts ;  and  though  the  time  is  not  quite  ripe  yet  for  the  full  re-statement 
of  the  venerable  argument,  it  is  clear  we  are  to  have  it  with  us  again 
invested  with  profounder  significance.  It  is  of  this  that  Mr.  Huxley  after 
showing  that  the  old  argument  is  scientifically  untenable,  writes:  "It  is 
necessary  to  remember  that  there  is  a  wider  teleology  which  is  not  touched 
by  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  but  is  actually  based  upon  the  fundamental 
proposition  of  evolution." 

Passing  away  from  these  older  and  more  familiar  problems,  let  me  indi- 
cate lastly,  and  in  a  few  closing  words,  one  or  two  of  the  more  recently  dis- 
closed points  of  contact.  Not  a  few  theological  doctrines,  and  some  of 
supreme  significance,  are  for  the  first  time  beginning  to  feel  the  effect  of  the 
new  standpoint ;  and  though  it  were  premature  to  claim  actual  theological 


CHURCH  OF  ST.  STEPHEN',  VIENNA,  AUSTRIA. 


1324   PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 

contribution  from  this  direction,  on*  cannot  fail  to  notice  where  the  rays  are 
striking  and  to  prophesy  that  before  another  half  century  is  past  a  theolog- 
ical advance  of  moment  may  result.  The  adjustments  already  made,  it  will 
be  observed,  have  come  exactly  where  all  theological  reconstruction  must 
begin,  with  the  foundation  truths,  the  doctrines  of  God,  creation  and  provi- 
dence. Advances  in  due  order  and  all  along  the  line  from  these  upward  are 
what  one  might  further  and  next  expect.  With  suggestions  in  some  of  these 
newer  directions  the  whole  field  of  theology  is  already  alive,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity now  offered  to  theological  science  for  a  reconstruction  or  illumination 
of  many  of  its  most  important  doctrines  has  never  been  surpassed  in  hope- 
fulness or  interest.  .      -  ,       * .    .  . 

Under  the  new  view,  for  instance,  the  whole  question  of  the  Incarnation 
is  beginning  to  assume  a  fresh  development.  Instead  of  standing  alone,  an 
isolated  phenomena,  its  profound  relations  to  the  whole  scheme  of  nature 
are  opening  up.  The  question  of  Revelation  is  undergoing  a  similar  expan- 
sion. The  whole  order  and  scheme  of  iiature,  the  books  of  science,  the 
course  of  human  history,  are  seen  to  be  only  parts  of  the  manifold  revela- 
tion of  God.  As  to  thef  specific  revelation,  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
Scriptures,  evolution  has  already  given  the  world  what  amounts  to  a  new 
Bible.  Its  peculiarity  is  that  in  its  form  it  is  like  the  world  in  which  it  is 
found.  It  is  a  word,  but  its  root  is  now  known,  and  we  have  other  words 
from  the  same  root.  Its  substance  is  still  the  unchanged  language  of  heaven, 
yet  it  is  written  in  a  familiar  tongue.  The  new  Bible  is  a  book  whose  parts, 
though  nof-of  unequal  value,  are  seen  to  be  of  different  kinds  of  value ; 
where  the  casual  is  distinguished  from  the  essential,  the  local  from  the 
universal,  the  subordinate  from  the  primal  end.  This  Bible  is  not  .a  book 
which  has  been  made  ;  it  has  grown.  Hence  it  is  no  longer  a  mere  word- 
book, nor  a  compendium  of  doctrines,  but  a  nursery  of  growing  truths.  It 
is  not  an  even  plane  of  proof-texts  without  proportion  or  emphasis,  or  light 
and  shade ;  but  a  revelation  varied  as  nature  with  the  divine  in  its  hidden 
parts,  in  its  spirit,  its  tendencies,  its  obscurities  and  its  omissions.  Like 
nature,  it  has  successive  strata,  and  valley  and  hill-top,  and  atmosphere,  and 
rivers  which  are  flowing  still,  and  here  and  there  a  place  which  is  desert,  and 
fossils,  too,  whose  crude  forms  are  the  stepping-stones  to  higher  things.  It 
is  a  record  of  inspired  deeds,  as  well  as  of  inspired  words,  an  ascending 
series  of  inspired  facts  in  a  matrix  of  human  history.  This  is  not  the 
product  of  any  destructive  movement,  nor  is  this  transformed  book  in  any 
sense  a  mutilated  Bible.  ■  All  this  has  taken  place,  it  may  be,  without  the 
elimination  of  a  book  or  the  loss  of  an  important  word.  It  is  simply  the 
transformation  by  a  method  whose  main  warrant  is  that  the  book  lends  itself 
to  It. 

.  Other  questions  are  moving  just  now,  but  one  has  only  time  to  name 
them.  The  doctrine  of  immortality,  the  relation  of  the  person  of  Christ  to 
evolution,  and  the  modes  of  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  attracting 


SNELL:  THE  FUTURE  OF  RELIGION.      1 325 

attention,  and  lines  of  new  thought  are  already  at  the  suggestion  stage.  Not 
least  in  interest  also  is  a  possible  contribution  from  science  on  some  of  the 
more  practical  problems  of  soteriology,  and  the  doctrine  of  sin.  On  the  last 
point,  the  suggestion  of  evolution  that  sin  may  be  the  relic  of  the  animal  past 
of  man,  the  undestroyed  residuum  of  the  animal  and  the  savage — ranks  at 
least  as  a  hypothesis,  and  with  proper  safeguards  may  one  day  yield  some 
glimmering  light  to  theology  on  its  oldest  and  darkest  problem.  If  this 
partial  suggestion,  and  at  present  it  is  nothing  rnore,  can  be  followed  out  to 
any  purpose,  the  result  will  be  of  much  greater  than  speculative  interest. 
For  if  science  can  help  us  in  any  way  to  know  how  sin  came  into  the  world, 
it  may  help  us  better  to  know  how  to  get  it  out.  Even  to  diagnose  it  more 
thoroughly  will  be  a  gain.  Sin  is  not  a  theme  to  be  expounded  only 
through  the  medium  of  proof-texts  ;  it  is  to  be  studied  from  the  life,  to  be 
watched  biologically,  and  followed  out  through  all  its  psychological  states. 
A  more  accurate  analysis,  a  better  understanding  of  its  genesis  and  nature, 
may  modify  some  at  least  of  the  attempts  now  being  made  to  get  rid  of  it, 
whether  in  the  national  or  individual  life,  which  are  as  futile  as  they  are 
unscientific.  But  the  time  is  not  ripe  to  speak  with  other  than  the  greatest 
caution  and  humility  of  these  still  tremendous  problems. 


FUTURE  OF  RELIGION.  ' 

By  Merwin-Marie  Snell. 

Religion  is  as  indestructible  as  force  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  the  manifestation  of 
the  mightiest  as  \Vell  as  the  most  exalted  of  all  forces,  the  aspiration  of  man. 
In  the  very  structure  of  human  organism,  in  the  pulsations  of  every  soul,  in 
the  interlacings  of  every  fiber,  are  writ  the  great  truths  of  the  solidarity  of 
life,  the  coordination  of  beings,  the  cooperation  of  wills.  Every  human  breath 
is  a  sigh  for  the  unattained,  every  human  thought  is  a  dream  of  cosmic  broth- 
erhood, every  human  volition  is  a  grasping  of  the  garment  of  a  Saviour  God. 
Is  there  a  human  being  that  does  not  aspire  ?  Well,  be  it  so;  but  where  is 
he  who  does  not  love  ?  Religion  in  its  five-fold  aspect  of  doctrine,  spiritual  life, 
ethics,  ceremonial  and  organization,  is  to  be  found  in  every  nation  and  tribe 
that  bears  the  name  of  man.  It  is  true  that  the  forms  of  its  manifestation, 
intellectual,  spiritual,  moral,  aesthetic  and  practical,  are  almost  countless  in 
iheir  variety;  but  at  bottom  of  them  all  are  the  same  principles,  the  same 
instincts,  the  same  aspirations. 

We  know  that  religion  is  true,  and  therefore  immortal,  because  it  is  uni- 
versal. Whatever  is  an  essential  element  of  human  nature  must  be  true,  for 
if  we  could  doubt  the  veracity  of  our  own  natures,  all  reasoning,  all  thought, 
all  action,  would  become  an  absurdity,  and  we  should  be  engulfed  in  a  skep- 
ticism so  complete  as  to  constitute  an  immediate  and  literal  suicide.     But 


1326      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

because  of  the  veracity  of  nlture  all  fts  various  manifestations  must  be  looked 
upon  as  so  many  pearls  of  thought  and  feeling  hung  upon  the  same  golden 
thread  of  truth.  If  this  be  so,  truth  is  universal,  and  not  the  monopoly  of  a 
single  priesthood.  Every  religion  must  be  at  bottom  a  religion  of  truth,  every 
cultus  must  be  at  heart  a  revelation  o(  beauty  ;  every  moral  code  must  be  in 
effect  a  school  of  goodness! 

We  live  in  a  wondrous  age,  and  the  superscription  of  its  wonders  is 
this  one  word,  universality.  All  the  varied  commodities  of  mirid  and  matter, 
men  and  books,  ideas  and  things,  are  passing  from  one  land  to  another 
with  astonishing  rapidity.  Now  it  is  possible,  as  never  before,  to  know  our 
fellow  men  in  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  be  known  by  them.  If,  then,  every 
doctrine  is  true,  every  worship  beautiful,  and  every  form  of  duty  good,  it 
appears  that  there  lie  before  us  spiritual  treasures  far  more  lavish  than  any 
material  goods  which  nation  can  acquire  from  nation  or  man  from  man.  Is 
any  one  so  dull  of  perception  as  to  believe  that  while  silks  and  porcelains  and 
delicacies  and  machinei-y  are  becoming  the  common  possessions  of  mankind, 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  commodities  will  alone  remain  inert?  Not  so; 
religion  is  of  all  things  least  local  and  provincial  in  its  character. 

It  appears  then,  that  the  religion  of  the  future  will  have  no  fences;  per- 
haps I  had  better  say,  it  will  have  no  blinds.-  It  will  be  open  on  every  side 
towards  every  vehicle  of  truth,  every  embodiment  of  beauty,  every  instru- 
ment of  goodness,  that  is  to  say,  toward  all  expressions  of  thought,  all  mani- 
festation of  feeling,  all  standards  of  conduct.  Since  love  is  the  father  of  all 
the  gods,  the  root  and  essence  of  the  spiritual  sense,  it  is  especially  by  love 
and  in  love  that  this  breaking  down  of  the  old  barriers  will  be  realized.  The 
fundamental  characteristic  of  the  religious  future  will  be  a  universal  union  in 
love. 

If  to  this  accord  of  spirit  there  is  to  be  added  an  accord  of  thought  and 
worship  and  conduct,  it  must  be  based,  not  upon  a  minimizing  of  religious 
differences,  not  upon  a  rejection  of  all  but  a  few  supposed  fundamentals, 
but  upon  a  full,  unreserved  acceptance  oi  all  the  elements  of  all  religions. 
Vain  is  his  task  who  would  lastingly  suppress  any  manifestations  of  the 
spiritual  sense  which  any'  time  or  any  age  has  witnessed.  Religion  is 
eternal,  not  only  in  its  essence,  but  in  its  infinitude  of  forms.  Truth  is  one, 
but  the  aspects  of  truth  are  infinite  ;  beauty  is  one,  but  the  manifestations 
of  beauty  are  endless;  goodness  is  one,  but  the  applicaliorts  of  goodness 
are  innumerable.  The  human  mind  is  broad  enough  to  contain  and  recon- 
cile all  doctrines ;  the  human  heart  is  large  enough  to  embrace  and  har- 
monize all  sympathies  and  admirations  ;  the  human  will  is  strong  enough 
to  execute  all  duty. 

If  religion  has  a  future,  surely  each  of  its  elements  will  share  in  that 
future.  Doctrine  has  a  future,  discipline  has  a  future,  morality  has  a  future, 
ritual  has  a  future,  organization  has  a  future  ;  and  by  the  law  of  evolution 
the  future  can  be  expected  to  be  an  advance  upon  the  present.     Religion 


GRACEY:  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE.         I  327 

in  the  future  will  not  only  become  broad  enough  to  take  in  every  form  of 
doctrine,  ot  spirituality,  of. morality,  of  ritual,  of  organization,  but  will  pro- 
gress until  each  of  these  elements  shall  have  reached  its  highest  degree  of 
development. 

We  must  look  forward,  then,  nqt  to  a  hazy  mist  of  general  religious 
notions,  but  to  a  definite  and  compact  doctrinal  system,  far-reaching  yet 
elastic,  in  which  all  the  religious  ideas  of  the  whole  world  shall  have  been 
taken  into  consideration  ;  a  discipline  for  the  spiritual  life,  consisting  of 
exact  scientific  laws  based  upon  the  broadest  possible  inductions ;  a  moral 
code  summing  up  all  the  ethical  lights  of  the  race  in  a  strong,  clear  norm  of 
beauty,  not  crudely  reached,  but  so  constituted  as  to  be  adaptable  to  all  the 
varying  circumstances  of  life  and  environment ;  a  ceremonial  system  in 
which  there  shall  be  room  for  every  beauty  and  dignity  of  ritual,  every  simplic- 
ity and  spontaneity  of  informal  fraternization,  which  has  been  ever  enjoyed 
on  earth  ;  a  cosmopolitan  organization  which  shall  leave  the  fullest  play  for 
individual  method  and  initiative,  and  shall  unite  in  itself  all  the  different 
forms  of  religious  prganlzation  that  men  and  \vomen  have  ever  dared  to 
contend  over,  and  which  shall  yet  have  unity  enough  to  insure  the  highest 
economy  of  effort  and  to  constitute  a  true  cooperative  brotherhood  of  uni- 
versal humanity.  This  must  be  the  outcome,  if  one  only  premise  the  per- 
petuity of  the  spiritual  sense  in  its  five-fold  manifestation,  and  the  sov- 
reignty  of  the  law  of  evolution  in  the  realm  of  mind  as  well  as  in  that  of 
matter. 

The  religion  of  the  future  will  be  universal  in  every  sense.  It  will 
embody  all  the  thought  and  aspiration  and  virtue  and  emotion  o(  all  human- 
ity ;  it  will  draw  together  all  lands  and  peoples  and  kindreds  and  tongues, 
into  a  universal  brotherhood  of  love  and  service  ;  it  will  establish  upon  earth 
a  heavenly  order. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE. 
Bv  John  Talbot  Gracey,  D.  D.,  of  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

The  religions  of  the  world  are  susceptible  of  classification  into  ethnic 
and  catholic  divisions. 

Ethnic  religions  are  controlled  by  the  character  of  the  nations  holding 
them.  They  are  limited  by  the  laws  which  limit  the  races  among  which  they 
are  found,  and  they  manifest  neither  desire  nor  power  to  pass  those  boun- 
ilaries.  Zoroastrianism  has  been  confined  to  the  tribes  of  Iran  ;  Confucian- 
ism to  the  races  of  China.  Greece,  Rome,  Scandinavia  and  Egypt  had 
each  a  national  religion.  Brahmanism  is  limited  to  geographical  territory. 
It  is  also  bounded  by  blood.  It  must  be  propagated  by  birth,  and  hence  it 
follows  the  Hindu  law  of  inheritance. 

Catholic  religions.affect  to  be  adapted  to  all  men,  and  their  adherents 


\.'--i- 


1328   PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 

have,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  fgit  it  incumbent  on  them  to  propagate 
them.  Islam,  Buddhism,  and  Christianity  are  the  chief  representatives  of 
this  class.  Judaism  may,  on  some  theories  of  interpretation  of  the  older 
Jewish  Scriptures,  possibly  be  included  with  the  universal  religions,  though 
in  all  its  later  history  it  has  been  a  national  one. 

That  there  is  a  common  religiort  to  come  is  suggested  in  many  ways. 
The  increased  admixture  of  races  in  our  day  tends  to  a  fusion  of  varieties, 
and  a  return  to  a  common  type,  which  is  not  an  accidental' but  a  permanent 
tendency,  resulting  from  the  increased  communication  amongst  the  races. 
The  result  of  this  was  clearly  seen  by  De  Tocqueville  :  "  It  seems  evident 
that  the  more  the  barriers  are  removed  which  separate  nation  from  nation 
.  amongst  mankind,  and  citizen  from  citizen  amongst  a  people,  the  stronger 
is  the  bent  of  the  human  mind,  as  if  by  its  own  impulse,  toward- an  only  and 
■Jv  >  .  all-powerful  Being,  dispensing  equal  laws  in  the  same  manner  to  every  man." 
":;'  V, .  .  If  civilization  demands  that  men  ascertain  their  community  of  interests  in 
';•'-':•■■  relation  to  their  bodies  and  minds,  it  is  inevitable  that  they  shall  institute 

inquiries  as  to  their  community  of  religious  interests.     Thus  the  irresistible 
laws  that  hold  human  society  impel  men  toward  some  commpn  faith. 
I-     •  Further,  in  tliis  age  men  are  eager  in  their  search  after  universal  prin- 

r,:-  ciples  in  all  departments  of  human  thinking.     The  best  thinkers  are  inquir- 

;;i '  ing  after  universal  laws.     It  would  seem  impossible  that  men  should  come 

(■'  to  know  that  common  laws  from  a  common  lawgiver  govern  them  in  their 

relations  to  material  things,  without  going  ur\  to  the  logical  and  irresist- 
ible conclusion  that  common  laws  from  a  common  lawgiver  govern  their 
spiritual  interests. 

But  what  will  that  common  religion  be  ?  "There  is  .nothing  in  relig- 
ious history,"  said  Archdeacon  Hardwick,  "which  is  more  remarkable  than 
the  striking  resemblances  which  the  religious  thought  of  the  world  often 
presents  in  widely  separated  quarters  of  the  globe."  How  widespread,  for 
instance,  is  the  notion  of  the  unity  of  the  godhead!  The  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation  of  Deity  is  also  a  prevailing  notion.  The  world's  altars  show  a 
wide  demand  for  a  sacrificial  cult.  These  coincidences  and  correspond-, 
ences  among  the  religious  notions  and  traditions  of  mankind,  appear  in  broken 
and  disjointed  fragments  ;  but  they  are  not  void  of  value.  What  I  want  to 
emphasize  is,  that  broken,  malformed  and  distorted  though  these  ideas  may 
be,  they  are  the  dearest  things  these  people  know.  They  will  sacrifice  their 
wealth  for  them  ;  they  will  look  cannon  out  of  countenance  to  defend  them  ; 
,  they  will  wander  into  distant  parts   and  lay  them  down  on  burning  sands 

and  die  for  them.  The  instances  are  rare  in  which  any  such  great  formulas 
of  faith  have  ever  been  displaced.  Men  cling  to  them  as  their  solace  and 
defence,  for  guidance  and  for  merit. 

It  seems  easy  of  assertion  that  the  religion  which  contains  within  itself 
the  largest  number  of  these  great  root-thoughts  of  the  world's  faiths,  and 
correlates  them  on  a  logical  basis,  has  a  huge  chance  of  becoming  the  relig- 
ion of  the  world. 


RHEIMS  CATHEDRAL,  RHEIMS,  FRANCE. 


S4 


/ 


1330      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

Now  I,  a  Christian,  need  not^  assert  that  all  the  great  ideas  of  men 
are  included  in  the  faith  I  would  defend  with  my  life.  I  may  challenge  the 
presentation  of  any  faith  held  by  men  to-day,  or  known  to  past  history, 
which  contains  so  many  of  the  great  ideas  ot  religion  which  men  hold  dear 
as  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  doubtful  if  anything  can  be  found  in  the 
history  of  religious  thought  prior  to  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ  which  men 
would  concede  to  be  lovely  or  of  good  report,  which  Jesus  Christ  did  not 
re-formulate  and  reaffirm.  Mt  is  impossible  to  discover  in  all  the  interven- 
ing history  of  the  race  smce  Jesus  Christ  the  appearance  of  a  new  religious 
idea.n  Christianity  has  the  thought  of  the  unity  of  the  godhead,  and  that 
of  the  trinity  in  unity,  and  that  of  incarnation. of  the  godhead,  and  that  of 
sacrifice  and  propitiation  for  sin,  and  that  of  intercession,  and  that  of  regen- 
eration. All  the  other  great  items  of  the  faiths  of  the  world  are  not  only 
present,  but  coordinated,  correlated,  and  logically  presented  as  a  whole. 
Jesus  Christ  not  only  restated  all  that  men  had  ever  held  to  be  of  good 
report,  but  beggared  the  future  by  anticipating  the  very  power  to  adjust 
~and  correlate  them.  His  logical  order  of  religious  thought  and  his  high 
Tpiritualization  of  ethics  have  not  been  substituted,  displaced  nor  supple- 
mented. In  every  point  of  theology,  as  in  every  point  of  morals,  he,is  the 
world's  master  at  this  hour.  He  is  the  monarch  of  morals,  and  the  prophet 
who  has  announced  the  final  theology  of  the  race. 

It  is  much  more  probable  that  the  faiths  of  the  world  will  be  re-adjusted 
than  displaced,  and  just  that  religion  which  shall  hold  the  key  of  the  ulti- 
mate adjustment  of  the  discordant  beliefs  of  mankind  will  force  itself  into 
final  acceptance. 

In  addition  to  holding  in  solution  the  great  germs  of  all  human  belief, 
this  successful  religion  will  be  uniform  in  its  adaptation  to  the  highest  religious 
instincts  of  men.  And  finally  this  religion  will  provide  for  its  own  dissem- 
ination by  the  profoundest  philosophy  of  propagandism. 

The  Christian  religion  propounds  a  germ-theory  of  extension.  It  is 
seed  ;  it  is  yeast.  It  has  a  power  inherent  in  itself.  It  is  in  the  nature  of 
its  beginnings  to  grow.  It  demands  of  its  followers  that  it  be  put  into  juxta- 
position with  all  peoples.  Its  law  of  dissemination  demands  that  it  be 
placed  at  all  the  greatest  centers  of  human  influence.  In  accordance  with 
this  program  it  is  established  to  some  degree  in  every  great  center  from 
which  influence  radiates  at  this  hour  among  men  It  is  already  the  recog- 
nized dominant  religion  of  nations  which  control  much  more  than  half  tae 
land  surface  of  the  globe  and  all  of  the  seas.  I  have  not  assumed  the 
divine  character  of  this  Christian  system  of  faith  ;  I  did  need  not  for  my 
argument  so  much  as  to  assert  its  superiority  over  other  faiths.  I  have  only 
estimated  the  probabilities,  whether  following  the  drift  of  things  this  Chris- 
tian religion  is  to  become  the  religion  of  men. 


THE    ULTIMATE    RELIGION. 
By  Rt.  Rev,  John  J.  Keane,  D.D. 

At  the  close  of  our  Parliament  of  Religions,  it  is  our  duty  to  look  back 
and  see  what  it  has  taught  us,  to  look  forward  and  see  to  what  it  points. 

These  days  will  always  be  to  us  a  memory  of  sweetness.  Sweet  indeed 
it  has  been  for  God's  long  separated  children  to  meet  at  last,  for  those  whom 
the  haps  and  mishaps  of  human  life  have  put  so  far  apart,  and  whom  the 
foolishness  of  the  human  heart  has  so  often  arrayed  in  hostility,  here  to  clasp 
hands  in  friendship  and  in  brotherhood,  in  the  presence  of  the  blessed  and 
loving  Father  of  us  all ;  Sweet  to  see  and  feel  that  it  is  an  awful  wrong 
for  religion,  which  is  of  the  God  of  love,  to  inspire  animosity,  hatred,  which 
is  of  the  evil  one  ;  sweet  to  tie  again  bonds  of  affection  broken  since  the  days 
of  Babel,  and  to  taste  "  how  good  and  how  sweet  a  thing  it  is  for  brethren  to 
live  in  unity."  And  we  have  felt,  as  we  looked  in  one  another's  eyes,  that 
the  only  condition  on  which  we  can  ever  attain  to  unity  in  the  truth,  is  to  dis- 
miss the  spirit  of  hostility  and  suspicion  and  to  meet  on  the  basis  of  mutual 
truthfulness  and  charity. 

These  days  have  been  days  of  instruction  too.  They  have  given  us 
object-lessons  in  old  truths,  which  have  grown  clearer  because  thus  rendered 
concrete  and  living  before  us. 

In  the  first  place,  while  listening  to  utterances  which  we  could  not  but 
approve  and  applaud,  though  coming  from  sources  so  diverse,  we  have  had 
practical,  experimental  evidence  of  the  old  saying  that  there  is  truth  in  all 
religions.  And  the  reason  is  manifest.  It  is  because  the  human  family 
started  from  unity,  from  one  undivided  treasury  of  primitive  truth  ;  and  when 
the  separations  and  the  wanderings  came,  they  carried  with  them  what  they 
could  of  the  treasure.  No  wonder  that  we  all  recognize  the  common  posses- 
sion of  the  olden  truth  when  we  come  together  at  last.  And  as  it  is  with  the 
long  divided  children  of  the  family  of  Noah,  so  also  it  is  with  the  too  long 
separated  children  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

Then  we  have'heard  repeated  and  multifarious,  yet  concordant,  definition 
of  what  religion  really  is.  Viewed  in  all  its  aspects,  we  have  seen  how 
true  is  the  old  definition  that  Religion  means  the  union  of  man  with  God. 
This,  we  have  seen,  is  the  great  goal  towards  which  all  aim,  whether 
walking  in  the  fullness  of  the  light  or  groping  in  the  dimness  of  the  twilight. 

And,  therefore,  we   have   seen  how  true  it   is  that  religion  is  a  reality 

back  of  all  religions.     Religions  are  orderly  or  disorderly  systems  for  the 

attainment  of  that  great  end,  the  union  of  man  with  God.     Any  system  not 

having  that  for  its  aim  may  be  a  philosophy,  but  cannot  be  a  religion. 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B, 

«33» 


1332        PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

And,  therefore,  again,  we  havs  clearly  recognized  that  religion,  in 
itself  and  in  the  system  for  its  attainment,  necessarily  implies  two  sides,  two 
constitutive  elements, —  the  human  and  the  Divine,  man's  side  and  God's  side 
in  the  union  and  in  the  way  or  means  to  it.  The  human  side  of  it,  the  craving, 
the  need,  the  aspiration,  the  endeavor,  is,  as  here  testified,  universal  among 
men.  The  distinguished  scientist,  Quatrefages,  is  borne  out  by  all  the 
evidence  of  facts  in  asserting  that  man  is  essentially  a  religious  being.  And 
this  is  demonstration  that  the  Author  of  our  nature  is  not  wanting  as  to 
His  side ;  that  the  essential  religiousness  of  man  is  not  a  meaningless 
freak  of  nature ;  that  the  craving  is  not  a  Tantalus  in  man's  heart  meant 
only  for  his  delusion  and  torture;  nay,  that  its.  Author  has  not  left  it  to 
guess  and  grope  in  the  dark  for  its  object,  but  with  the  mighty  aspiration 
and  need  gives  the  Divine  response  and  guidance  and  fruition.  This  Par- 
liament has  thus  been  a  mighty  blow  to  atheism,^  to  deism,  to  agnosticism, 
to  naturalism,  to  mere  humanism.  Had  it  tended  to  foster  any  of  these, 
it  would- have  been  false  to  humanity,  to  God,  and  to  truth  ;  it  would  have 
been  a  misfortune.  But  while  the  utterances  of  these  various  philosophies 
have  been  listened  to  with  courteous  patience  and  charity,  yet  its  whole 
meaning  and  moral  has  been  to  the  contrary ;  the  whole  drift  of  its  prac- 
tical conclusion  has  been  that  man  and  the  world  never  could,  and  in  the 
nature  of  things  never  can,  do  without  God  ;  and  so  it  is  a  blessing. 

From  this  standpoint,  therefore,  on  which  (jur  feet  are  so  plainly  and 
firmly  planted  by  this  Parliament,  we  look  forward  and  ask.  Has  religion  a 
future,  and  what  is  that  future  to  be  like  ?  Again,  in  the  facts  which  we 
have  been  studymg  during  these  seventeen  days,  we  find  the  data  to  guide 
us  to  the  answer. 

Here  we  have  heard  the  voice  of  all  the  nations,  yea,  and  of  all  the 
ages,  certifving  that  the  human  intellect  must  have  the  great  First  Cause  and 
Last  End  as  the  alpha  and  the  omega  of  its  thinking  ;  that  there  can  be  no 
philosophy  of  things  without  God. 

Here  we  have  heard  the  cry  of  the  human  heart  all  the  world  over  that, 
without  God,  life  would  not  be  worth  living. 

Here  we  have  heard  the  verdict  of  human  society  in  all  its  ranks  and 
conditions,  the  verdict  of  those  who  have  most  intelligently  and  most  disin- 
terestedly studied  the  problem  of  the  improvement  of  human  conditions,  that 
only  the  wisdom  and  power  of  religion  can  solve  the  mighty  social  problems 
of  the  future,  and  that,  in  proportion  as  the  world  advances  toward  the  per- 
fection of  self-government,  the  need  of  religion  as  a  balance-power  in  every 
human  life,  and  in  the  relations  of  man  with  man  and  of  nation  with  nation, 
becomes  more  and  more  imperative. 

Yes,  humanity  proclaims  with  all  its  lungs  and  with  all  its  tongues,  that 
the  world  can  never  do  without  religion  ;  that  the  future  of  religion  must,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  be  more  influential  and  more  glorious  than  the  past ; 
that  the  chief  characteristic  and  the  chief  instrumentality  of  human  progress 
must  be  progress  in  religion. 


keane:  the  ultimate  religion.  1333 

Next  we  must  ask,  shall  the  future  tendency  of  religion  be  to  greater  * 
unity,  or  to  greater  diversity  ? 

This  Parliament  has  brought  out  in  clear  light  the  old,  familiar  truth 
that  religion  has  a  two-fold  aim  :  the  improvement  of  the  individual,  and, 
through  that,  the  improvement  of  society  and  of  the  race  ;  that  it  must 
therefore  have  in  its  system  of  organization  and  its  method  of  action  a  two- 
fold tendency  and  plan ;  on  the  one  side,  what  might  be  called  religious 
individualism,  on  the  other  side  what  may  be  termed  religious  socialism,  or 
solidarity ;  on  the  one  side,  adequate  provision  for  the  dealings  of  God  with 
the  individual  soul,  on  the  other,  provision  for  the  order,  the  harmony,  the 
unity,  which  is  always  a  characteristic  of  the  works  of  God,  and  which  is 
equally  the  aim  of  wisdom  in  human  things,  for  "  Order  is  heaven's  first 
law."  -' 

The  Parliament  has  also  shown  that  if  it  may  be  truly  alleged  that 
there  have  been  times  when  solidarity  pressed  too  heavily  on  individualism, 
at  present  the  tendency  is,  on  the  contrary,  to  an  extreme  of  individualism, 
threatening  to  fill  the  world  more  and  more  with  religious  confusion  and  dis- 
tract the  minds  of  men  with  religious  contradictions.  Sensible  people  every- 
where seem  to  be  growing  sick  of  this  confusion  and  tired  of  these  contra- 
dictions, and  no  wonder  that  they  are.  On  all  sides  we  hear  the  demand 
for  more  religious  unity,  an  echo  of  the  cry  that  went  up  from  the  heart  of 
Christ,  "O,  Father,  grant  that  all  may  be  made  one." 

But  on  what  basis,  by  what  method,  is  religious  unity  to  be  attained  or 
approached  ?  Is  it  to  be  by  a  process  of  elimination,  or  by  a  process  of 
synthesis  ?  Is  it  to  be  by  laying  aside  all  disputed  elements,  no  matter  how 
manifestly  true  and  beautiful  and  useful,  so  as  to  reach  at  last  the  simplest 
form  of  religious  assertion,  the  protoplasm  of  the  religious  organism  ?  Or, 
on  the  contrary,  is  it  to  be  by  the  acceptance  of  all  that  is  manifestly  true 
and  good  and  useful,  of  all  that  is  manifestly  from  the  heart  of  God  as 
well  as  from  the  heart  of  humanity,  so  as  to  attain  to  th6  developed  and  per- 
fected organism  of  religion  ?  To  answer  this  momentous  question  wisely, 
let  us  glance  at  analogies. 

First,  in  regard  to  human  knowledge,  we  are  and  must  be  willing  to  go 
down  to  the  level  of  uninformed  or  imperfectly  informed  minds,  not,  how- 
ever, in  order  to  make  that  the  intellectual  level  of  all,  but  in  order  that  from 
that  low  level  we  may  lead  up  to  the  higher  and  higher  levels  which  knowl- 
edge has  reached. 

In  like  manner,  as  to  civilization,  we  are  willing  to  meet  the  barbarian 
or  the  savage  on  his  own  low  level,  not  in  order  to  assimilate  our  condition 
to  his,  but  in  order  to  lead  him  up  to  better  conditions. 

From  this  universal  rule  of  wisdom  religion  cannot  differ.  In  its  study, 
too,  we  must  be  willing  to  go  down  to  the  simplest  assertion  of  the  truth  and 
the  simplest  plan  for  man's  improvement ;  but  not  in  order  to  make  this  the 
universal  religious  level,  but  in  order  from  this  to  lead  up  to  the  highest  and 


1334        PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

the  best  that  the  bounty  of  God  and  the  response  of  humanity  offer  us.  In 
this  process,  the  comparative  study  of  religions  makes  us  acquainted  with 
many  stages  of  arrested  development.  It  is  assuredly  not  the  will  of  God 
that  any  portion  of  humanity  should  remain  in  these  imperfect  conditions 
always.  ' 

In  the  light,  therefore,  of  all  the  facts  here  placed  before  us,  let  us  ask  to 
what  result  that  gradual  development  will  lead  us. 

In  the  first  place,  this  comparison  of  all  the  principal  religions  of  the 
world  has  demonstrated  that  the  only  worthy  and  admissible  idea  of  God  is 
that  of  monotheism.  It  has  shown  that  polytheism  in  all  its  forms  is  only  a 
rude  degeneration.  It  has  proved  that  pantheism' in  all  its  modifications,  oblit- 
erating as  it  does  the  personality  both  of  God  and  of  man,  is  no  religion  at 
ail,  and  therefore  inadmissible  as  such ;  that  it  cannot  now  be  admitted  as  a 
philosophy,  since  its  very  first  postulates  are  metaphysical  contradictions. 
Hence  the  basis  of  all  religion  is  belief  in  the  one  living  God.  ^ 

Next,  this  Parliament  has  shown  that  humanity  repudiktes  the  gods  of 
the  Epicureans,  who  were  so  taken  up  with  their  own  enjoyment  that  they 
had  no  thought  for  poor  man,  had  nothing  to  say  to  him  for  his  instruction, 
and  no  care  to  bestow  on  him  for  his  welfare.  It  has  shown  that  the  god  of 
agnosticism  is  only  the  god  of  the  Epicureans  dressed  up.  in  modern  garb, 
and  that  as  he  cares  nothing  for  humanity,  but  leaves  it  in  the  dark,  humanity 
cares  nothing  for  him  and  is  willing  to  leave  him  in  his  unknowableness.  As 
the  first  step  in  the  solid  ascent  of  the  true  religion  is  belief  in  the  one  living 
God,  so  the  second  must  be  the  belief  that  the  Great  Father  has  taught  his 
children  what  they  need  to  know  and  what  they  need  to  be  in  order  to  attain 
their  destiny,  that  is,  belief  in  divine  revelation. 

Again,  the  Parliament  has  shown  that  all  the  attempts  of  the  tribes  of 
earth  to  recall  and  set  forth  God's  teaching,  all  their  endeavors  to  tell  of  the 
means  provided  by  Almighty  God  for  uniting  man  with  himself,  logically 
and  historically  lead  up  to  and  culminate  in  Jesus  Christ.  We  have  seen 
that  all  the  great  religious  leaders  of  the  world  declared  themselves  gropers 
in  the  dark,  pointing  on  toward  the  fullness  of  the  light,  or  conscious  pre- 
cursors and  prophets  of  him  who  was  to  be  the  Light  of  the  World.  We  have 
seen  that  whatever  in  their  teaching  is  true  and  beautiful  and  good  is  but 
the  foretaste  of  the  fullness  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good  to  be 
bestowed  in  him.  "  Blessed,"  he  exclaims  to  his  disciples,  "blessed  are  the 
eyes  that  see  the  things  which  you  see  ;  for  I  say  to  you  that  many  prophets 
and  kings  have  desired  to  see  the  things  that  you  see  and  have  not  seen 
them,  and  to  hear  the  things  that  you  hear  and  have  not  heard  them."  We 
know  the  honesty  and  sincerity  of  the  sages  of  old  ;  and  we  know  there 
was  not  one  of  them  but  "would  have  considered  it  a  folly  and  an  impiety 
that  he,  poor  distant  groper  for  the  light,  should  be  even  compared  to  the 
Holy  One  who  declared,  "  I  am  the  Way  and  the  Truth  and  the  Life.  I  am 
the  Light  of  the  world  ;  he  that  foUoweth  me  walketh  not  in  darkness  buf 


KEANE:   THE    ULTIMATE    RELIGION.  1335 

shall  have  the  light  of  life."  The  world's  longing  for  the  truth  points  to 
him  who  brings  its  fullness.  The  world's  sad  wail  over  the  wretchedness 
of  sin  points  not  to  the  despairing  escape  from  the  thralls  of  humanity — a 
promise  of  escape  which  is  only  an  impossibility  and  a  delusion — but  to 
humanity  is  cleansing  and  uplifting  and  restoration  in  his  redemption.  The 
world's  craving  for  union  with  the  Divine  finds  its  archetypal  glorious 
realization  in  his  incarnation  ;  and  to  a  share  in  that  wondrous  union  all 
are  called  as  branches  of  the  mystical  Vine,  members  of  the  mystical  Body, 
which  lifts  humanity  above  its  natural  state  and  pours  into  it  the  life  of  love. 
What  Wordsworth  and  Emerson  caught  faint  glimpses  of  through  the 
immanence  of  God  in  nature  is  that  wondrous  dwelling  of  God  in  sanctified 
man  which  he  bestows,  who  makes  us  partakers  in  his  own  Son.ship.  He  it 
is  that  does  full  justice  to  all  the  human  in  religion,  because  he  is  the  Son  of 
Man,  and  can  say  with  far  more  truth  than  the  poet :  "  There  is  nothing 
human  that  does  not  concern  me."  He  it  is  that  does  full  justice  to  all  the 
divine  in  religion,  because  he  is  the  Son  of  God  who  has  taken  humanity 
in  his  arms  in  order  to  lift  it  to  its  Creator.  Therefore  is  he,  among  all  that 
have  ever  taught  of  God,  the  "  one  mediator  between  God  and  man." . 
Therefore  does  the  verdict  of  the  ages  proclaim,  in  the  words  of  the  Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles,  who  knew  him  and  knew  all  the  rest :  "  Other  foundation 
can  no  man  lay  but  that  which  God  hath  laid,  which  is  Christ  Jesus."  As 
long  as  God  is  God,  and  man  is  man,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  center  of  religion 
forever. 

But,  still  further,  we  have  seen  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  myth,  not  a 
symbol,  but  a  living  personal  reality.  He  is  not  a  vague,  shadowy  personal- 
ity, leaving  only  a  dim,  vague,  mystical  impression  behind  him;  he  is  a 
clear  and  definite  personality,  with  a  clear  and  definite  teaching  as  to  truth, 
clear  and  definite  command  as  to  duty,  clear  and  definite  ordaining  as  to 
the  means  by  which  God's  life  is  imparted  to  man  and  by  which  man  receives 
it,  corresponds  to  it,  and  advances  toward  perfection.  "  In  Him,"  says  the. 
apostle,  "there  is  not  it  is  and  il  is  not,  but  it  is  is  in  him,"  sublime  declar- 
ation of  the  definiteness  and  positiveness  of  his  provision  for  the  enlighten- 
ment and  sanctification  of  mankind. 

Not  merely  to  ears  long  closed  in  death  did  he  utter  his  heavenly 
message ;  he  embodied  it  in  everlasting  form,  in  the  written  code  penned 
by  his  inspired  followers,  and  in  the  ever-living  tribunal  to  which  he  said  : 
"  As  the  living  Father  hath  sent  me,  so  do  I  send  you :  go  therefore,  teach 
all  nations,  and  behold  I  am  with  you  all  days,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world." 

That  wondrous  message  he  sent  "to  every  creature,"  proclaiming  as  it 
had  never  been  proclaimed  before  the  value  and  the  rights  of  each  individ- 
ual soul,  the  sublimest  individualism  the  world  had  ever  heard  of.  And 
then,  with  the  heavenly  balance  and  equilibrium  which  brings  all  individu- 
alities into  order  and  harmony  and  unity,  he  calls  all  to  be  sheep  of  one 
Fold,  branches  of  one  Vine,  members  of  one  Body,  in  which  all,  while  mem- 


1336   PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SEVENTEENTH  DAY. 

bers  of  the  head  are  also  "  members  Sne  of  another,"  in  which  he  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  his  own  sublime  prayer  and  prophecy:  "That  all  may  be  one,  as 
thou,  Father,  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us,  that  they 
may  be  made  perfect  in  one."  Thus  he  makes  his  church  a  perfect  society, 
both  human  and  divine  ;  on  its  human  side,  the  most  perfect  multiplicity  in 
unity  and  unity  in  multiplicity,  the  most  perfect  socialism  and  solidarity 
that  the  world  could^  ever  know;  on  its  divine  side,  the  instrumentality 
devised  by  the  Saviour  of  the  world  for  imparting,  maintaining  and  perfect- 
ing the  action  of  the  divine  life  in  each  soul;  in  its  entirety,  "the  body  of 
Christ,"  as  the  apostle  declares  it,  a  Body,  a  Vine,  both  divine  and  human,  a 
living  organism,  imparting  the  life  of  God  to  humanity.  This  is  the  way  in 
which  the  Church  of  Christ  is  presented  to  us  by  the  apostles  and  by  our 
Lord  himself.  It  is  a  concrete  individuality,  as  distinct  and  unmistakable 
as  himself.  It  is  no  mere  aggregation,  no  mere  cooperation  or  confedera- 
tion of  distinct  bodies ;  it  is  an  organic  unity,  it  is  the  Body  of  Christ,  our 
means  of  being  engrafted  in  him  and  sharing  in  his  life.  This  is  unmis- 
takably his  provision  for  the  sanctification  of  the  world ;  will  anyone 
venture  to  devise  a  substitute  for  it  ?  Will  any  one,  in  the  face  of  this  clear 
and  jmperative  teaching  of  our  Lord,  assert  that  any  separated  branch  may 
choose  to  live  apart  by  itself,  or  that  any  aggregation  of  separated  branches 
may  do  instead  of  the  organic  unity  of  the  Vine,  of  the  Body? 

From  the  depths  of  my  soul  I  sympathize  most  tenderly  with  those  who 
look  fondly  on  ways  and  organizations  made  dear  by  heredity  and  by  proud 
historic  memories.  But  reverence  and  loyalty  to  the  Son  of  God  must  come 
first ;  the  first  question  must  be.  Is  this  the  Vine,  the  Body,  fashioned  by  the 
hands  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ?  And  if  history  shows  that  it  is  not, 
then  to  all  the  pleadings  of  kith  and  kin  the  loyal  Christian  must  exclaim, 
as  did  the  apostles  of  old  :  "Whether  we  should  obey  man  or  obey  God, 
judge  ye." 

Men  of  impetuous  earnestness  have  embodied  good  and  noble  ideas  in 
separate  organizations  of  their  own.  They  were  right  in  the  ideas;  they 
were  wrong  in  the  separation.  On  the  human  side  of  the  Church  of  Christ, 
there  will  always  be,  as  there  always  has  been, room  for  improvement;  room 
for  the  elimination  of  human  evils,  since  our  Lord  has  given  no  promise 
of  human  impeccability;  room  for  the  admission  and  application  of  every 
human  excellence,  room  for  the  employment  and  the  ordering  of  every 
human  energy  in  every  work  that  is  for  God's  glory  and  man's  welfare ; 
room  not  only  for  individual  twigs,  but  for  strong,  majestic  branches  and 
limbs  innumerable ;  but  all  in  the  organic  unity  of  the  one  Vine,  the  one 
Body.  For  on  the  divine  side  there  can  be  "no  change  nor  shadow  of  alter- 
ation; "  and  the  living  organism  of  the  Vine,  of  the  Body,  must  ever  main- 
tain its  individual  identity,  just  as  a  living  human  being,  though  ever  subject 
to  a  life  of  vicissitudes,  is  ever  the  same  identical  self.  Therefore  we  under- 
stand why  the  great  apostle  denounces  and  deplores  schisms,  organic  sepa- 


RRV.  GEORGE  C.  I.(.)KI.M  EK.  D.U.,  BOSTON. 

"  THE  BAl-TISTS  HAVE  BEEN  I'KOMINENT  IN  FOUNDING  MODEKN  MISSIONS  TO  THE  HEATHEN, 
AND  ARE  EVERYWHEKE  ACKNOWLEDGED  AS  THE  HEROIC  LEADERS  IN  AN  ENTERrRISE  WHICH 
MEANS  THE  SALVATION  AND  LNIKICATION  OF  RACES  IN  CHRIST,  AND  WITHOUT  WHICH  THIS 
PAKLIAMENTOF  RELIGIONS  WOULD  NEVER  HAVE  BEEN  DREAMT  OF,  MUCH  LESS  SO  WONDERFULLY 

REALIZED." 


1338       PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SEVENTEExNTH    DAY. 

rations.  Therefore  we  understand  why  the  world's  craving  for  unity  can 
never  be  satisfied  by  mere  aggregations  and  confederations  of  separated 
bodies,  for  such  a  man  made  union  can  never  realize  the  oneness  prayed  for 
and  predicted  by  the  Son  of  God. 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  ultimate  center  of  religion.  He  has  declared  that  his 
one  organic  church  is  equally  ultiniate.  Because  I  believe  him,  here  must 
be  my  stand  forever. 


CHRIST  THE  UNIFIER  OF  MANKIND. 
By  Rev.  George  Dana  Boardman,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Envoys  Extraordinary  and  Ministers  Plenipotentiary  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God — Men  and  Women, — The  hour  for  the  closing  of  this 
most  extraordinary  convention  has  come.  Most  extraordinary,  I  say,  for  this 
Congress  is  unparalleled  in  its  purpose ;  that  purpose  is  not  to  array  sect 
against  sect,  or  to  exalt  one  form  of  religion  at  the  cost  of  all  other  forms ; 
but  "to  unite  all  religion  against  all  irreligion."  Unparalleled  in  its  com- 
position, save  on  the  day  of  Pentecost ;  and  it  is  Pentecostal  day  again,  for 
here  are  gathered  together  devout  men  from  every  nation  under  heaven ; 
Parthians,  and  Medes,  and  Elamites,  and  the  dwellers  in  Mesapotamia,  in 
Judea  and  Cappadocia,  in  Pontus  and  Asia,  in  Phrygia  and  Pamphylia,  in 
Egypt  and  in  the  parts  of  Libya  about  Cyrene,  and  sojourners  from  Rome, 
both  Jews  and  proselytes,  Cretes  and  Arabians,  we  do  hear  them  speak- 
ing, every  man  in  his  own  language,  and  yet  as  though  in  one  common 
vernacular,  the  wonderful  works  of  God.  And  so  is  fulfilled  in  a  sense 
more  august  than  on  Pentecost  itself,  the  memorable  prophesy  of  the  one 
coming,  universal  religion  :  "  It  shall  be  in  the  last  days,  saith  God,  I  will 
pour  forth  of  my  Spirit  on  all  flesh ;  and  your  sons  and  your  daughters 
shall  prophesy,  and  your  young  men  shall  see  visions,  and  your  old  men 
shall  dream  dreams.  Yea,  and  on  my  servants  and  handmaidens  in  those 
days  will  I  pour  forth  of  my  Spirit ;  and  they  shall  prophesy." 

All  honor  to  Chicago,  whose  beautiful  White  City  suggestively  symbo- 
lizes the  architectural  unity  of  the  One  City  of  our  One  God.  All  honor  to 
this  noble  Chairman — this  John  the  Beloved,  whose  surname  is  Barrows — 
for  the  Christian  bravery  and  the  consummate  skill  with  which  he  has  man- 
aged this  most  august  of  human  Parliaments,  this  crowning  glory  of  earth's 
fairest  Fair. 

And  what  is  the  secret  of  this  marvelous  unity  ?  Let  me  be  as  true  to 
my  own  convictions  as  you,  honored  representatives  of  other  religions,  have 
been  nobly  true  to  your  own.  I  believe  it  is  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  is  the 
one  great  unifier  of  mankind. 

Coypright,  iSgs,  by  J.  H.  B. 


BOARDMAN:   CHRIST   THE    UNIFIER.  1 339 

And,  first,  Jesus  Christ  unifies  mankind  by  his  own  incarnation.  Kor 
when  he  was  L)orn  into  the  world,  he  was  born,  as  I  believe,  more  than  a 
single  person  ;  more  even  than  history's  uniquest  hero  ;  he  was  born,  to  use 
the  Bible  phrase,  "The  Son  of  Man."  Ponder  the  profound  significance  of 
this  unique  title.  It  is  not  "  a  son  of  man  ;  "  it  is  not  "a  son  of  men  ; "  it 
is  not  "  the  son  of  men  ;  "  but  it  is  "  The  Son  of  Man."  That  is  to  say, 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  the  universal  Homo,  the  essential  Vir,  the  Son  of  human 
nature.  Blending  in  himself  all  races,  ages,  sexes,  capacities,  tempera- 
ments, Jesus  is  the  archetypal  man,  the  ideal  hero,  the  consummate  incar- 
nation, the  symbol  of  perfected  human  nature,  the  sum  total  of  unfolded, 
fulfilled  humanity,  the  Son  of  Mankind.  Towering  above  all  mankind, 
yet  permeating  all  mankind,  Jesus  Christ  is  mankind's  one  great  Incfuctive 
Man.  As  such,  he  is  the  inhabitant  of  all  lands  and  of  all  times.-  See,  for 
instance,  how  he  blends  in  himself  all  race  marks— ijheroitic  reverence, 
Hamitic  force,  Japhetic  culture.  See  how  he  illustrates  in  himself  all  essen- 
tial human  capacities — reason,  imagination,  conscience,  courage,  patience, 
faith,  hope,  love, — blending  in  hi's  own  pure  whiteness  all  colors  of  all 
manly  virtues,  all  hues  of  all  womanly  graces,  being  himself  the  Eternal 
God's  own  infinite  solar  light.  See  how  he  absorbs  and  assimilates  into  his 
own  perfect  religion  all  that  is  good  in  all  other  religions — the  symbolism 
of  Judea,  the  aspiration  of  Egypt,  the  aestheticism  of  Greece,  the  majesty  of 
Rome,  the  hopefulness  of  Persia,  the  conservatism  of  China,  the  mysticism 
of  India,  the  enthusiasm  of  Arabia,  the  energyof  Teutonia,  the  versatilities  of 
Christendom.  All  other  religions,  comparatively  speaking,  are  more  orlPSs 
topographical.  For  example.  There  is  the  Institute  religion  of  Palestine 
the  Priest  religion  of  Egypt,  the  Hero  religion  of  Greece,  the  Empire  relig- 
ion of  Rome,  the  Gueber  religion  of  Persia,  the  Ancestor  religion  of  China, 
the  Vedic  religion  of  India,  the  Buddha  religion  of  Burma,  the  Shinto  relig- 
ion of  japan,  the  Valhalla  religion  of  Scandinavia,  the  Moslem  religion  of 
Turkey,  the  Spirit  religion  of  our  own  American  aborigines.  But  Chris- 
tianity is  the  religion  of  mankind.  Zoroaster  was  a  Persian,  Confucius  was 
a  Chinaman,  Gautama  was  an  Indian,  Mohammed  was  an  Arabian,  but 
Jesus  is  the  Son  of  Man.  And  therefore  his  religion  is  equally  at  home 
among  black  and  white,  red  and  tawny,  mountaineers  and  lowlanders, 
landsmen  and  seamen,  philosophers  and  journeymen,  men  and  women, 
patriarchs  and  children.  Like  the  great  sea,  his  religion  keeps  flowingly 
conterminous  with  the  ever-changing  shore  line  of  every  continent,  every 
island,  every  promontory,  every  recession.  And  this  because  he  is  the  Son 
of  Man,  in  whom  there  is  and  can  be  neither  Jew  nor  non-Jew,  neither  Greek 
nor  Scythian,  neither  Asiatic  nor  American,  neither  male  nor  female,  but 
all  are  one  new  man  in  him,  and  he  is  all  in  all.  Thus  is  he  unifying  all 
mankind  by  his  own  incarnation.  The  Son  of  Man,  and  he  only,  is  his- 
tory's true  Avatar. 

Again,  Jesus  Christ  is  unifying  mankind  by  his  own  teaching.     Take. 


1340       PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY.     . 

in  way  of  illustration,  his  doctrine  of  love,  as  set  forth  in  his  own  mountain 
sermon,  for  instance  ;  his  beatitutltes,  his  precepts  of  reconciliation,  non- 
resistance,  love  of  enemies  ;  his  bidding  each  of  us  use,  although  in  solitary 
closet  prayers,  the  plural  "  Our,  we,_usjj^ 

"When  thou  prayest,  enter  into  thine  inner  chamber,  and  having  shut 
thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father,  who  seeth  in  secret.  After  this  manner  there- 
fore pray  ye  :  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven  ;  Give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread ;  Forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  also  have  forgiven  our  debtors  ;  Bring 
us  not  into  temptation  ;  Delive/  us  from  the  evil  one." 

Do  you  not  see  that  when  every  human  being  throughout  the  world  car- 
ried out  in  daily  life  the  loving  precepts  of  the  mountain  instruction — becom-  ■ 
ing,  li^e  the  Master  himself,  a  peacemaker,  declining  to  retaliate,  loving  his 
enemies,  recognizing  in  his  own  private  chamber  the  universal  brotherhood 
by  saying  "  Our  Father : "  do  you  not  see,  I  say,  that  when  all  mankind 
does  all  this,  all  mankind  will  also  become  one  blessed  unity  ? 

Or  take  particularly  Christ's  summary  of^  his  mountain  teaching,  as 
set  forth  in  his  own  golden  rule:  "All  things  therefore  whatsoever  ye 
would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  even  so  do  ye  also  unto  them ;  for  this 
is  the  law  and  the  prophets."  It  is  Jesus  Christ's  positive  contribution  to 
sociology,  or  the  philosophy  of  society.  Without  loitering  amid  minute 
classifications,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  various  theories  of  society  may, 
substantially  speaking,  be  reduced  to  two.  The  first  theory,  to  borrow  a 
term  from  chemistry,  is  the  atomic.  It  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  men 
are  a  mass  of  separate  units,  or  independent  Adams,  having  no  common 
bond  of  organic  union  or  interfunctional  connection.  Pushing  to  the 
extreme  the  idea  of  individualism,  its  tendency  is  egoistic,  disjunctive,  chao- 
tic. Its  motto  is  "  After  me  the  flood."  It  is  the  theory  of  Diabolus  and 
those  who  are  his.  The  second  theory,  to  borrow  again  from  chemistry,  is 
the  molecular.  It  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  such  an  actual- 
ity as  mankind ;  and  that  this  mankind  is — so  to  speak — one  colossal  per- 
son ;  each  individual  member  there6f  forming  a  vital  component,  afunctional 
factor  in  the  one  great  organism  ;  so  that  membership  in  society  is  universal, 
mutual  co-membership.  Recognizing  each  individual  of  mankind  as  a  con- 
stituent member  of  the  one  great  human  corpus,  or  corporation,  its  tendency 
is  altruistic,  cooperative,  constructive.  Its  motto  is  :  "  We  are  members 
one  of  another."  It  is  the  theory  of  Jesus  Christ  and  those  who  are  his.  I 
say  then  that  it  is  Jesus  Christ  himself  who  has  given  us  the  key  to  that 
greatest  of  modern  problems— the  problem  of  sociology.  Even  the  great 
Comte,  in  whose  elaborate  system  of  religion  the  worship  of  humanity  lies 
as  the  corner-stone,  discerned,  as  from  afar,  this  splendid  truth  ;  for  he 
taught  that  the  key  to  social  regeneration  is  to  be  found  in  what  he  called 
"  altruism  :  "  that  is,  the  state  of  being  regardful  of  the  good  of  others  ;  the 
victory  of  the  sympathetic  instincts  over  self-love  ;  in  a  single  word.  Other- 
ism.     Oh,  that  the  scales  had  fallen  from  this  great  man's  eyes,  and  that  he 


BOARDMAN:   CHRIST   THE    UNIFIER.  I  34  I 

m 

had  recognized  in  the  Man  of  Nazareth  and  of  Calvary  the  true,  infinite 
Altruist !  For  Christianity — I  mean  Christ's  own  Christianity — exalts  man- 
kind as  a  whole  by  exalting  each  man  as  being  a  constituent  part  of  that 
whole;  thus  transfiguring  individualism  into  wholeism.  Here  is  the  acme 
of  human  genius ;  here  is  the  zenith  of  human  majesty. 

Do  you  not  see,  then,  that  when  every  human  being  throughout  the 
world  obeys  our  Master's  golden  rule,  all  mankind  will  indeed  become  one 
glorious  unity  ? 

Or  take  Christ's  doctrine  of  neighborhood,  as  set  forth  in  his  own  parable 
of  the  Good  Samaritan.  According  to  this  parable,  neighborhood  does  not 
consist  in  local  nearness;  it  is  not  a  matter  of  ward,  city,  state,  nation,  conti- 
nent :  it  is  a  matter  of  glad  readiness  to  relieve  distress  wherever  found. 
According  to  human  teachers,  it  was  the  Jewish  priest  and  the  Jewish  Levite 
who  were  neighbors  of  the  Jewish  traveler  to  Jericho.  According  to  the 
divine  teacher,  it  was  the  Samaritan  foreigner  who  was  the  real  neighbor  of 
the  waylaid  Jew.  That  is  to  say,  every  human  being  who  is  in  distress, 
and  whom  I  can  practically  help  —  whether  he  lives  in  Chicago  or  in  Pekin  — 
is  my  neighbor.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  locomotive  and  the  steam  engine 
and  the  telegraph  are  swiftly  making  all  mankind  one  vast  physical  neigh- 
borhood. And  Jesus,  in  his  parable  of  the  Goof"  Samaritan,  transfigures 
physical  neighborhood  into  moral;  abolishing  the  word  "foreigner,"  making 
"the  whole  world  kin."  "^ankind"  —  what  is  i;  h^i  "  ^an-kinned  ?  "  How 
subtile  Shakespeare's  play  on  words  when  he  makes  Hamlet  whisper  aside  in 
presence  of  his  royal,  but  brutal  uncle  :  "  A  little  more  than  kin,  and  less 
than  kind."  Now  do  you  not  see  that  when  every  human  being  —  American, 
Asiatic,  European,  African,  Islander  —  regards  and  treats  every  other  human 
being  as  his  own  neighbor,  all  mankind  will  indeed  become  one  blessed 
unity  ? 

Or  take  Christ's  doctrine  of  mankind,  asset  forth  in  his  own  missionary 
commission:  "AH  authority  hath  been  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  on 
earth.  Go  ye  therefore  into  all  the  world,  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  whole 
creation,  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  name  of 
the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  teaching  them  to  observe 
all  things  whatsoever  I  commanded  you  ;  and  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world"  (the  consummation  of  the  aeon).  How  start- 
lingly  these  words  must  have  fallen  on  the  ears  of  those  Jewish  disciples  I 
Hitherto  they  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  Israel  was  Jehovah's  only 
chosen  people,  and  that  no  foreigner  could  secure  his  favor  except  by  being 
circumcised,  and  so  grafted  into  the  Abrahamic  stock.  And  now,  after  two 
thousand  years  of  an  exclusively  Jewish  religion,  the  risen  Lord  bids  his 
countrymen  go  forth  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  evangel  of  recondi- 
tion to  every  creature,  discipling  to  himself  every  nation  under  heaven.  How 
majestically  the  Son  of  Abraham  dilates  into  the  Son  of  Man  !  How  hero- 
ically his  great  Apostle  to  the   Gentiles,  St,   Paul,  sought  to  carry  out  his 


1342       PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

Master's  missionary  commission  !  In  fact,  the  mission  of  Paul  was  a  reversal 
of  the  mission  of  Abraham.  Great  was  Abraham's  call ;  but  it  was  a  call 
to  become  the  founder  of  a  single  nationality  and  an  isolated  religion. 
Greater  was  Paul's  call;  for  it  was  a  call  to  become  the  founder,  under  the 
Son  of  Man,  of  a  universal  brotherhood  and  a  cosmopolitan  religion.  He 
himself  was  the  first  conspicuous  human  illustration  of  his  Master's  parable 
of  the  Good  Samaritan.  Being  Christ's  chosen  vessel,  to  convey  as  in  an 
elect  vase  his  name  before  Gentiles,  he  magnified  his  great  office,  feeling 
himself  a  debtor  to  every  human  being,  whether  Greek  or  barbarian.  And 
he  illustrated  his  Master's  doctrine  of  neighborhood,  because  he  had  caught 
his  Master's  own  spirit.  For  the  Son  of  God  himself  was  time's  great  for- 
eign missionary ;  mankind's  sublime,  typical  neighbor ;  stooping  from  heaven 
to  bind  up  the  wounds  of  our  far-off,  alien,  waylaid,  bleeding  humanity,  and 
convey  it  to  the  blessed  inn  of  his  own  redeeming  grace.  And  as  the 
Father  had  sent  the  Son  into  the  world,  even  so  did  the  Son  send  Paul  into 
the  world.  Nobly  conscious  of  this  divine  mission,  he  recognized  in  every 
human  being,  however  distant  or  degraded,  a  personal  neighbor  and  brother. 
And  so  he  went  forth  into  all  the  world  of  the  vast  Roman  Empire,  announc- 
ing, it  might  almost  be  said  in  literal  truth,  to  every  creature  under  heaven 
the  glad  tidings  of  mankind's  reconciliation  in  Jesus  Christ.  ,  And  in  thus 
proclaiming  everywhere  the  blessed  news  of  a  common  Saviour,  in  whom 
there  is  neither  Jew  nor  non-Jew,  but  all  are  one  new  man  in  Christ,  St.  Paul 
became  the  first  human  announcer  of  the  characteristic  and  glorious  doctrine 
of  modern  times,  human  brotherhood.  In  the  matter  of  the  "  solidarity  of 
the  nations,"  Paul,  the  Jew-Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  towers  over  every  other 
human  hero, being  himself  the  first  conspicuous  human  deputy  to  "the  Par- 
liament of  Man,  the  Federation  of  the  World." 

Do  you  then  not  see  that  when  every  human  being  believes  in  Christ's 
doctrine  of  mankind  as  set  forth  in  his  missionary  commission,  all  mankind 
will  indeed  become  one  blessed  unity  ? 

Or  take  Christ's  doctrine  of  the  church,  as  set  forth  in  his  own  parable  of 
the  sheep  and  the  goats;  a  wonderful  parable,  the  magnificent  catholicity  of 
which  we  miss,  because  our  commentators  and  theologians,  in  their  anxiety 
for  the  standards,  insist  on  applying  it  only  to  the  good  and  the  bad  living 
in  Christian  lands,  whereas  it  is  a  parable  of  all  nations  in  all  times. 

Read  it  and  behold  the  unspeakable  catholicity  of  the  Son  of  Man  ! 
Oh,  that  his  church  had  caught  more  of  his  spirit ! 

Do  you  not  see,  then,  that  when  every  human  being  recognizes  in  every 
ministering  service  to  others  a  personal  ministry  to  Jesus  Christ  himself,  all 
mankind  will  indeed  become  one  blessed  unity  ? 

Once  more,  and  in  general  summary  of  Christ's  teaching,  take  his  own 
epitome  of  the  law,  as  set  forth  in  his  answer  to  the  lawyer's  question  : 
"  Master,  which  is  the  greatest  of  the  commandments  ?"  and  the  Master's 
answer  was  this  :  "  The  first  is,  Hear,  O  Israel ;  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  : 


REV.  GEORGE  DANA  BOARDMAX,  D.D.,  PHILADELI'HIA. 


"THIS  lAKI.IAMENT  IS  UNPARALLELED  IN  ITS  lUKrOSK  NOT  TO  ARRAY  SECT  AGAINST  SECT, 
OR  EXALT  DNE  FORM  OK  RELIGION  AT  THE  COST  OE  ALL  OTHER  FORMS,  BUT  TO  TNITE 
ALL  RELIGION  AGAINST  ALL  IKRELIOION.  ALL  HONOR  TO  ITS  I'ROMOI  ERS  FOR  THE  FAR 
REACHING  SAGACITY  WITH  WHICH  THEV  HAVE  CONCEIVED,  ANU  THE  CONSUMMATE  SKILL  WITH 
WHICH  THEV  HAVE  MANAGEO,  THIS  MOST  AUGUST  OK  HUMAN  1'AKLIAMENTS,  THIS  CROWNING 
GLORY  OF  THE  EAKTH'S  FAIREST  FAIR." 


1344       PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAV. 

and  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  tliy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength  ;  this  is  the  first  and 
great  commandment.  And  a  second  One  like  unto  it  is  this,  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  hangeth  the  whole 
law,  and  the  prophets." 

Not  that  these  two  commandments  are  really  two;  they  are  simpiv  a 
twofold  commandment;  each  is  the  complement  of  the  other,  both  being  the 
obverse  and  the  reverse  legends  engraved  on  the  golden  medallion  of  God's 
will.  In  other  words,  there  is  no  real  difference  between  Christianity  and 
morality;  for  Christianity  is  morality  looking  Godward,  and  morality  is 
Christianity  looking  manward.  Christianity  is  morality  celestialized.  Thus 
on  this  twofold  commandment  of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man  hangs,  as  a 
mighty  portal  hangs  on  its  two  massive  hinges,  not  only  the  whole  Bible 
from  Genesis  to  Apocalypse,  but  also  all  true  morality,  natural  as  well  as 
revealed.  Or,  to  express  myself  in  language  suggested  by  the  undulatory 
theory:  Love  is  the  ethereal  medium  pervading  God's  moral  universe,  by 
means  of  which  are  propagated  the  motions  of  his  impulses,  the  heat  of  his 
grace,  the  light  of  his  truth,  the  electricity  o"f  his  activities,  the  magnetism  of 
his  nature,  the  affinities  of  his  character,  the  gravitation  of  his  will.  In 
brief,  Love  is  the  very  definition  of  Deity  himself:  "God  is  love;  and  he 
that  abideth  in  love  abideth  in  God,  and  God  in  him." 

Do  you  not  then  see  that  when  every  human  being  loves  the  Lord  his 
God  with  all  his  heart  and  his  neighbor  as  his  own  self,  all  mankind  will 
indeed  become  one  blessed  unity  ? 

Again  :  Jesus  Christ  is  unifying  mankind  by  his  own  death.  Tasting 
by  the  grace  of  God  death  for  every  man,  he  became  by  that  death  the  pro- 
pitiation, not  only  for  the  sins  of  the  Jew,  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world.  And  in  thus  taking  away  the  sin  of  the  whole  world  by  reconciling 
in  himself  God  to  man  and  man  to  God,  he  also  is  reconciling  man  to  man. 
What  though  his  work  of  reconciliation  has  been  slow  ;  ages  having  elapsed 
since  he  laid  down  his  own  life  for  the  life  of  the  world,  and  the  world  still 
rife  with  wars  and  rumors  of  wars  ?  Underrate  not  the  reconciling,  fusing 
power  of  our  Mediator's  blood.  Recall  the  memorable  prophecy  of  the 
high  priest  Caiaphas  when  he  counseled  the  death  of  Jesus  on  the  ground 
of  the  public  necessity  :  "  Ye  know  nothing  at  all,  nor  do  ye  take  account 
that  it  is  expedient  for  you  that  one  man  should  die  for  the  people,  and  that 
the  whole  nation  perish  not."  But  the  Holy  Ghost  was  upon  the  sacrileg- 
ious pontiff,  though  he  knew  it  not  ;  and  so  he  builded  larger  than  he  knew. 
Meaning  a  narrow  Jewish  policy,  he  pronounced  a  magnificently  catholic 
prediction:  "Now  this  he  said  not  of  himself;  but  being  high  priest  th.it 
year,  he  prophesied  that  Jesus  should  die  for  the  nation ;  and  not  for  the 
nation  only,  but  that  he  might  also  gather  together  (synagogue)  into  one 
the  children  of  God  that  are  scattered  abroad."  Accordingly,  the  moment 
that  the  Son  of  Man  bowed  his  head  and  gave  back  his  spirit  to  his  Father, 


BOARDMAN:   CHRIST   THE    UNIFIER.  1 345 

the  v.-iil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  thus 
signifying  that  the  way  into  the  true  holy  of  holies  was  henceforth  open  to 
all  mankind  alike ;  to  Roman  Clement  as  well  as  to  Hebrew  Peter,  to 
Greek  Athanasius  as  well  as  to  Hebrew  John,  to  Indian  Khrishnu  Pal  as 
well  as  to  Hebrew  Paul.  Eor  in  Christ  Jesus  Gentiles  who  once  were  far 
off  are  made  nigh  ;  for  he  is  the  world's  peace,  making  both  Jews  and  non- 
Jews  one  body,  breaking  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition  between  them, 
having  abolished  on  his  own  cross  the  enmity,  that  he  might  create  in  him- 
self of  the  twain  (Jews  and  non-Jews)  one  new  man,  even  mankind  Chris- 
tianized into  one  unity,  so  making  peace.  And  m  that  coming  day  of  com- 
pleted catholic  unity,  when  the  daughte|-  of  Jehovah's  dispersed  ones  shall 
bring  her  offering,  and  all  the  nations  under  heaven  shall  be  turned  unto 
one  pure  language,  and  shall  serve  him  with  one  consent ;  then  shall  it  be 
seen  that  the  saying  of  Caiaphas  was  but  the  echo  of  the  saying  of  him 
whom  he  adjudged  to  the  cross:  "I  am  the  good  Shepherd,  and  I  know 
my  sheep,  and  I  lay  down  my  life  for  them  ;  and  other  sheep  I  have,  which 
are  not  of  this  fold ;  them  also  I  must  bring,  and  they  shall  hear  ray  voice, 
and  they  shall  become  one  flock,  one  Shepherd." 

Thus  the  cross  declares  the  brotherhood  of  man,  under  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  in  the  Sonhood  of  Christ. 

Once  more,  Jesus  Christ  is  unifying  mankind  by  his  own  immortality. 
For  we  Christians  do  not  worship  a  dead,  embalmed  deity.  We  believe  that 
the  Son  of  Man  has  burst  the  bars  of  death,  and  is  alive  forevermore,  hold- 
ing in  his  own  grasp  the  keys  of  hades.  The  followers  of  Buddha,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  claim  that  Nirvana — that  state  of  existence  so  nebulous  that  we 
cannot  tell  whether  it  means  simply  unconsciousness  or  total  extinction — is 
the  supremest  goal  of  aspiration ;  and  that  even  Buddha  himself  is  no  longer 
a  self-conscious  person,  but  has  himself  attained  Buddhahobd  or  Nirvana. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  followers  of  Jesus  believe  that  he  is  still  alive,  sitting 
at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  in  the  heavens,  from  henceforth  expecting 
till  he  make  his  foes  his  footstool.  Holding  personal  communion  with  him, 
his  disciples  feel  the  inspiration  of  his  vitalizing  touch,  and,  therefore,  are 
ever  waking  to  broader  thoughts  and  diviner  catholicities.  As  he  himself 
promised,  he  is  with  his  followers  to  the  end  of  the  aeon  ;  inspiring  them  to 
send  forth  his  evangel  to  all  the  nations  ;  to  soften  the  barbarism  of  the 
world's  legislation  ;  to  abolish  its  cruel  slavery,  its  desolating  wars,  its  mur- 
derous dram-shops,  its  secret  seraglios  ;  to  found  institutes  for  body  and 
mind  and  heart ;  to  rear  courts  of  arbitration  ;  to  lift  up  the  valleys  of  pov- 
erty ;  to  cast  down  the  mountains  of  opulence;  to  straighten  the  twists  of 
wrongs ;  to  smooth  the  roughness  of  environments ;  in  brief,  to  uprear  out  of 
the  debris  of  human  chaos  the  one  august  temple  of  the  new  mankind  in 
Jesus  Christ.  . 

Thus  the  Son  of  Man,  by  his  own  incarnation,  by  his  own  teachings,  by 
his  own  death,  by  his  own  immortality,  is  most  surely  unifymg  mankind. 

85 


1346        PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SEVENTEENTH    DAY. 

And  the  Son  of  Man  is  the  sole  unifier  of  mankind.  Buddha  was  in 
many  respects  a  very  noble  character ;  no  Buddhist  can  offer  him  heartier 
reverence  than  myself.  But  Buddha  and  his  religion  are  Asiatic  ;  what  has 
Buddha  done  for  the  unity  of  mankind  ?  Why  are  we  not  holding  our  ses- 
sions in  fragrant  Ceylon  ?  Mohammed  taught  some  very  noble  truths  ;  but 
Mohammedanism  is  fragmental  and  antithetic ;  why  have  not  his  followers 
invited  us  to  meet  at  Mecca  ?  But  Jesus  Christ  is  the  one  universal  man  ; 
and  therefore  it  is  that  the  first  Parliament  of  Religions  is  meeting  in  a 
Christian  land,  under  ^Christian  auspices.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  sole  bond  of 
the  human  race  ;  the  one  nexus  of  the  nations ;  the  great  vertebral  column  of 
the  one  body  of  mankind.  He  it  is  who  by  his  own  personality  is  bridging 
the  rivers  of  languages;  tunneling  the  mountains  of  caste  ;  dismantling  the 
fortresses  of  nations  ;  spanning  the  seas  of  races  ;  incorporating  all  human 
varieties  into  the  one  majestic  temple-body  of  mankind.  For  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  true  centre  of  gravity ;  and  it  is  only  as  the  forces  of  mankind  are  piv- 
oted on  him  that  they  are  in  balance.  And  the  oscillations  of  mankind  are 
perceptibly  shortening  as  the  time  of  the  promised  equilibrium  draws  near. 
There,  as  on  a  great  white  throne,  serenely  sits  the  swordless  King  of  the 
ages — himself  both  the  Ancient  and  the  Infant  of  Days — calmly  abiding  the 
centuries,  mending  the  bruised  reed,  fanning  the  dying  wick,  sending  forth 
righteousness  unto  victory ;  there  he  sits,  evermore  drawing  mankind  nearo 
ind  nearer  himself ;  and,  as  they  approach,  I  see  them  dropping  the  spear, 
waving  the  olive-branch,  arranging  themselves  in  symmetric,  shining,  lap- 
turous  groups  around  the  Divine  Son  of  Man  ;  he  himself  being  their  ever- 
lasting Mount  of  Beatitudes. 

"Yea,  Truth  and  Justice  then 
Will  down  return  to  men, 

Orb'd  in  a  rainbow ;  and,  like  glories  wearing, 
Mercy  will  sit  between, 
Throned  in  celestial  sheen, 

With  radiant  feet  the  tissued  clouds  down  steering ; 
And  Heaven,  as  at  some  festival, 
Will  open  wide  the  gates  of  her  high  palace-hall." 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  SECTION. 


REPORTS  AND  ABSTRACTS   OF  PAPERS  PREPARED 

FOR  THE  PARLIAMENT  AND  READ  IN 

WHOLE  OR  In  part 


SERVICE  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGIONS  TO 
UNITY  AND  MISSION  ENTERPRISE. 

By  Mr.  Merwin-Marie  Snell,  Chairman. 

[The  speaker  pointed  out  the  universality  of  religion,  and  the  necessity 
of  the  scientific  study  of  religions,  for  which  he  gave  the  following  princi- 
ples] :  I.  Collect  all  data  regarding  religions;  2.  One  need  not  disbelieve 
his  own  creed  to  examine  others  without  bias ;  3.  Where  facts  are  in  dis- 
pute, the  testimony  of  the  adherents  of  the  system  under  consideration  out- 
weighs that  of  others ;  4.  Study  the  facts  chronologically ;  5.  Superficial 
resemblances  between  systems  must  not  be  accepted  as  conclusive  evidence 
of  relationship ;  6.  Apparent  absurdities  or  falsities  may  result  from  error 
as  to  the  facts,  or  misunderstanding  of  their  significance.  To  study  the 
science  of  religions  intelligently  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  scientist.  Mission- 
ary work.  Christian,  Buddhist,  or  Moslem,  can  not  dispense  with  this  science. 
Every  missionary  training-school  should  be  a  college  of  comparative  relig- 
ion. Ignorance  and  prejudice  in  the  propagandist  are  as  great  an  obstacle 
to  the  spread  of  a  religion  as  in  those  whom  it  seeks.  The  first  requisite  of 
successful  mission  work  is  knowledge  of  the  truths  and  beauties  of  the  relig- 
ion to  be  displaced,  that  they  may  be  used  as  a  point  d'appui  for  the  special 
arguments  and  claims  of  the  religion  to  be  introduced.  Into  this  union  of 
religious  science  all  can  enter.  Much  has  been  said  about  the  union  of  sci- 
ence and  religion  ;  much  more  important  is  the  union  of  all  men  in  science 
and  religion. 


»347 


THE  EGYPTIAN    RELIGION   AND    ITS    INFLUENCE 
ONOTHEk   RELIGIONS. 

By  J.  A.  S.  Grant  (Bey),  A.M.,  M.D.,  LL.D. 

Egyptian  history  was  divided  into  the  mythical  and  the  historic  periods. 
These  were  subdivided  by  dynasties.  The  beliefs  have  their  foundation  in 
the  mythical  period,  and  its  dynasties  reveal  an  evolution.  They  comprise 
a  dynasty  of  gods  (Cf.  Heb.  Elohim)  as  rulers,  probably  over  nature  and  the 
lower  creation ;  a  second  dynasty  of  gods,  rulers  over  a  higher  creation 
(man);  a  dynasty  of  demi-gods  ruling  over  man  as  a  race,  and  a  dynasty  of 
prehistoric  kings  of  communities.  Leaving  out  this  fourth  dynasty  we  see 
transitions  that  Manetho  did  not  explain.  The  first  dynasty  created  the 
world,  the  second  arose  through  some  great  change  at  the  creation  of  man, 
whom  the  gods  ruled  and  had  free  intercourse  with.  From  some  cause  they 
were  obliged  to  withdraw  from  man,  and  end  intercourse  with  him.  Being 
naturally  religious  this  left  him  ill  at  ease.  He  could  no  more  raise  himself 
to  their  level.  ■  The  gods  pitied  him,  partook  of  his  nature  and  came  to 
earth  again.     This  introduced  the  third"  dynasty. 

The  teaching  as  to  the  demi-gods  ran  thus  :  Sky  was  the  goddess  Nut, 
earth  the  god  Seb.  Their  children  share  the  natures  of  the  father  and 
mother,  and  are  partly  terrestrial,  partly  celestial.  The  more  prominent  are 
Osiris  and  Set,  the  sons,  and  Isis  and  Nephthys,  the  daughters.  Osiris 
ruled,  and  married  Isis,  but  we  read  of  no  children.  Osiris  was  the  personi- 
fication of  good,  and  always  journeying  to  do  his  people  good.  Ambition 
inspired  Set  to  kill  him  and  to  usurp  his  place,  becoming  the  personification 
of  evil  (Cf.  the  Apocalypse,  rebellion  in  heaven,  and  Satan's  rule  on  earth). 
Isis  became  miraculously  pregnant  and  bore  Horus,  who  warred  against 
Set  and  overcame  him.  Being  demi-gods  neither  could  be  annihilated,  and 
Seb  decided  that  each  should  have  place  and  power.  This  arbitration 
explains  the  continuance  of  good  and  evil.  Osiris,  though  slain  in  body, 
appears  in  the  nether  world  as  judge  of  the  dead,  and  Horus  in  the  world 
of  spirit  introduces  the  justified  to  him  (Cf.  the  Christian  Messiah,  and  the 
sacrifice  for  sin).  The  death  of  Osiris  on  account  of  sin  was  the  atoning 
sacrifice,  all  others  being  sacrifices  of  thanksgiving.  Osiris,  Isis  and  Horus 
were  universally  worshiped  as  a  triad.  Isis  was  frequently  represented 
with  the  sucking  child,  Horus,  on  her  knee  (Cf.  the  Madonna  and  infant). 

The  Egyptians  believed  that  the  body  consists  (i)  of  the  sahoo,  the 
fleshy  body;  (2)  the  ^a,  the  spiritual  and  unseen  double  of  the  substantial 
body,  an  intelligence  permeating  it  and  guiding  its  functions  ;  and  (3)  the 
ba^  the  spirit.     When  the  flesh-body  died,  the  spiritual  body  and  the  spirit 

1348 


GRANT:   THE    EGYPTIAN    RELIGION.  1349 

continued  to  live,  but  separately.  The  spirit  went  to  the  judgment  of 
Osiris.  If  justified,  it  was  admitted  into  his  presence,  and  made  daily  pro- 
gress in  the  celestial  life.  Obstacles  were  easily  overcome  by  assuming  the 
form  of  the  deity.  The  justified  spirit  is  always  called  the  Osiris;  ».  ^.,  it 
became  assimilated  to  the  god.  The  spiritual  body  {ia)  continued  to  live 
on  earth  wherever  it  had  existed  before  disembodiment.  It  lived  especially 
in  the  tomb,  where  it  could  rest  in  the  mummy  or  in  the  portrait-statue. 
It  continued  lo  hunger  and  thirst,  etc.,  as  wlien  embodied,  lived  on  the  spir- 
itual essence  of  offerings,  and  could  starve  to  death,  ».  e.,  undergo  annihila- 
tion. There  is  some  indication  that  this  spiritual  body  was  to  unite  with  the 
spirit,  for  occasionally  the  spirit  visited  ^|the  tomb  where  the  spiritual  body 
dwell,  and  there  was  a  divinity  called  "  Unilers  of  spirit-bodies." 

The  spirit,  if  condemned,  underwent  punishment.  The  guiltier  spirits 
suffered  hell-fire  and  final  annihilation.  The  less  guilty  spirits  were  incar- 
nated in  unclean  animals,  and  sent  back  to  earth  for  second  probation. 

The  Egyptians,  though  accused  of  animal  worship,  saw  in  animals  attri- 
butes of  their  one  nameless  god.  Originally,  the  apparent  adoration  of 
animals  was  really  adoration  of  their  god  for  some  beneficent  attribute.  The 
history  of  the  early  dynasties  proves  the  result  elevating.  Bunsen  says  that 
animals  were  at  first  mere  symbols,  but  the  inherent  curse  of  idolatry 
rendered  them  real  objects  of  worship.  Maspero  believes  that  Egyptian 
religion  was  at  first  pure  and  spiritual,  but  its  later  developments  became 
grossly  material.  To  symbolize  spiritual  truth  is  dangerous.  The  Egyp- 
tians figured  the  attributes  of  their  one  god  ;  and  in  time  each  was  wor- 
shiped as  a  deity.  The  one  god  was  nameless,  but  the  combination  of  all  the 
other^good  divinities  made  up  his  attributes,  which  were  simply  powers  of 
nature.  Renouf  says  a  Power  behind  all  these  was  recognized  and  fre- 
quently mentioned.  But  to  that  Power  no  temple  was  raised.  The  name 
Osiris  was  held  so  sacred  that  it  was  never  pronounced,  while  sculptors  and 
scribes  always  spelled  it  backwards  as  Ari-as.  In  the  Hebrew  religion 
JahvehElohim  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth;  so  Osiris-Ra  received 
material  from  Ptah  to  create  the  world.  In  Christianity  God  created  all 
things  through  Christ;  so  Ptah  created  all,  working  visibly  through  Osiris- 
Ra,  the  creative  principle.  Egyptian  religion,  therefore,  depicts  an  almighty 
deity,  nameless,  self-existent  and  uncreate. 


GENESIS  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CONFUCIANISM. 

By  Dr.  Ernest  Faber,  Shanghai. 

Confucianism  comprises  all  the  doctrines  and  practices  acknowledged 
by  Confucius  and  his  best  followers  during  2,400  years.  It  has  become  the 
characteristic  feature  in  the  life  of  China.  It  is  the  key  to  deeper  under- 
standing of  China  and  the  Chinese.  Confucius  professed  to  be  only  a 
transmitter.  He  received  his  ideas  from  ancient  records.  He  published 
what  suited  his  purpose  in  the  Five  Sacred  Books.  To  these  were  added 
his  Analects,  and,  centuries  later,  a  few  other  works.  The  canon  was  com- 
pleted in  the  seventh  Christian  century.  It  comprises  thirteen  works  of 
various  contents  and  unequal  value,  most  of  them  compilations  written 
neither  by  one  author  nor  at  one  time.  The  text  has  undergone  many 
changes  in  these  thousand  years.  About  the  meaning  the  best  scholars 
have  never  agreed.  There  have  been  opposing  schools  of  interpretation. 
Taoism,  Buddhism  and  other  agencies  have  with  those  internal  causes 
modified  ancient  into  modem  Confucianism. 

I,  Chinese  Life  Before  Confucius. — Confucianism  has  its  roots  in 
antiquity ;  it  branched  from  the  main  stream,  Taoism  representing  ancient 
China  in  its  principal  features.  The  elements  of  Confucianism  go  back  centu- 
ries before  Confucius.  The  religious  features  of  pre-Confucianism  were  these: 
Mankind  was  regarded  as  subject  to  a  superior  power  called  Heaven,  the 
supreme  ruler  (Shang-ti),  or  God  (Ti).  Under  him  many  minor  deities 
ruled  as  ministering  spirits  over  lesser  or  larger  spheres.  A  multitude  of 
spirits  roamed  about,  evil  spirits  causing  all  evil.  Animals  and  trees  were 
inhabited  by  spirits,  and  worshiped.  Sacrifices  were  offered  to  propitiate 
the  higher  beings.  Exorcism  and  deprecatory  services  warded  off  evil. 
Oracles,  etc.,  revealed  the  will  of  the  gods,  or  fate,  and  thus  directed  human 
action.  A  primitive  philosophy  based  on  dualism  and  the  evolution  of  the 
five  elements  explained  all.  Under  the  Chow  dynasty  (B.C.  1 123?),  ances- 
tor-worship became  the  most  prominent  religious  service. 

II.  Confucius  and  his  work. — He  was  of  superior  moral  character.  His 
aim  was  political ;  the  reestabli  ihment  of  strong.imperial  government.  Against 
anarchy  he  found  it  necessary  to  lay  the  greatest  stress  on  authority  and 
subordination.  In  his  moral  teaching  man  is  principally  a  political  being 
on  a  basis  of  social  relations.  Development  of  personal  character  is  sub- 
ordinated to  social  and  political  duties.  The  Chinese  empire  is  visible 
heaven  on  earth.  Its  emperor  is  the  the  only-begotten  son  of  heaven,  hold- 
ing   power  over  earth  as  his  right.     Like  the  laws  of  nature  his  laws  are 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 

1350 


ERVAD  SHERIARJI  DADABHAl  UHARUCHA,  BOMBAY,  INDIA. 

"THE  FARSEES  OP  INDIA  AND  I'ERSIA  PROFESS  THE  ANCIENT  RELIGION  OK  ZOROASTER  THE 
RENOWNED  SACE  AND  PROPHET  OK  PERSIA.  WHILE  OTHER  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  WORLD, 
SUCH  AS  THOSE  OF  ANCIENT  EGVIT,  CHALDEA,  ASSYRIA,  BABVLON,  GREECE  AND  ROME,  HAVB 
DISAPPEARED  FROM  THE  PACE  OF  THE  EARTH,  THIS  HAS  SURVIVED  MANY  TRIALS  AND 
VICISSITUDES,  AND  STILL  FLOURISHES,  IF  NOT  IN  ALL  ITS  PRISTINE  VIGOR  AND  GLORY,  WITH 
MANY  OF  ITS  DISTINCTTVB  FEATURES  PRESERVED  PRACTICALLY  INTACT." 


1352        PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SCIENTIFIC  SECTION. 

laws  of  heaven,  every  transgression*causing  evil  consequences.  Return  to 
the  right  path  restores  harmony.  Religion  is  subordinated  to  government. 
The  emperor  is  subject  only  to  heaven,  with  the  exclusive  privilege  and 
duty  of  sacrificing  to  heaven.  Gods  and  spirits  are  subject  to  the  emperor, 
who  rewards  or  punishes  them.  The  invisible  world  corresponds  exactly 
to  every  Chinese  institution.  To  avoid  confusion  with  the  common  concept 
of  gods  Confucius  spoke  of  "  heaven  "  instead  of  God  and  gods.  All  his 
fundamental  views  (except  that  of  woman)  were  optimistic.  Human  nature 
is  the  same  in  every  man.  Each  can  become  a  sage,  no  excuse  being 
allowed  for  failure.  Human  depravity  was  not  taken  into  account.  As 
Confucius  left  sin  unremoved,  no  regeneration  of  China  could  result. 
Ancestral  worship  became  the  characteristic  of  Confucianism.  It  aimed  to 
confine  worship  to  the  worshipers'  sphere  of  life,  a  mistake  that  favored  the 
spread  of  Buddhism  and  increase  of  idolatry.  Confucius  laid  down  the 
Ux  talionis  in  its  fullest  extent,  and  the  bad  effects  are- evident  even  in  the 
present.  Yet  he  is  the  greatest  Chinese  teacher,  the  embodiment  of  all 
ideals  of  Chinese  character.  His  consciousness  of  his  divine  mission  is  the 
secret  of  his^  strength,  the  cloak  of  his  weakness.  China  worships  Confu- 
cius as  her  teacher. 

[Prof.  Faber  did  not  discuss  the  sacred  books  and  the  schools  of  Con- 
fucianism.] 

HI.  Modem  Confucianhm. — The  immense  extent  of  modem  China  is 
due  not  to  the  teachings  of  Confucius,  f>eaceful  attraction  of  neighboring 
states,  but  to  war  and  suppression.  "Are  not  these  all  wars  of  unrighteous- 
ness ?  "  said  Mencius.  The  Confucian  constitution  of  the  state  has  changed. 
In  parts  of  China  ruin  is  everywhere.  Splendid  temples  and  rich  monasteries 
number  hundreds  of  thousands,  but  the  majority  of  the  people  living  near  are 
poor  and  sunk  in  vice.  Most  of  the  temples  are  dedicated  to  gods  Confucius 
and  Mencius  never  heard  of.  In  temples  to  Confucius  cattle,  sheep,  pigs, 
fish  and  fowl  are  slaughtered,  and  silk  burned.  The  ancients  did  not  do  so. 
They  invited  his  presence  to  one  place  only.  Misery  is  neither  properly 
relieved,  nor  its  causes  removed.  Man's  queue  and  woman's  small  feet  were 
not  the  custom  of  the  [Confucian]  Middle  Kingdom.  Denuding  roads  of 
trees,  increasing  their  length  by  sharp  turns  to  more  than  twice  the  straight- 
line  distance,  pagodas,  and  horse-shoe-like  graves  scattered  everj-where,  are 
instances  of  \.\\c  fung-shui  (good-luck)  superstition,  of  which  Confucius  knew 
nothing,  nor  was  the  term  mentioned  in  the  ancient  records.  To  expect  luck 
from  external  things  is  in  contradiction  to  the  teachings  of  the  ancients ; 
they  cultivated  their  virtue,  and  expected  their  blessings  from  heaven. 
Examination  of  students  is  far  from  the  pattern  of  the  ancients,  is  nothing 
but  phraseology  and  empty  routine.  Where  is  the  formation  of  character  ? 
Can  such  examinations  get  men  strong  to  withstand  temptation,  to  overcome 
evils,  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  the  people  ?  In  literature  is  found  the  same 
state  as  2400  years  ago,  the  very  thing  that  induced  Confucius  to  clear  away 


ZOROASTRIANISM.  '  1 353 

thousands  of  useless  volumes.  .  .  .  Erecting  arches  in  honor  of  women 
violates  "  the  rule  of  antiquity,  that  nothing,. either  good  or  evil,  should  be 
known  of  women  outside  the  female  departments."  Imperial  sanction  for 
the  Taoist  pope;  favor  to  Buddhism  (especially,  to  the  Pekin  lamas),  spirit- 
ism, animal-worship,  fortune-telling,  abuses  and  excesses  in  ancestral  worship, 
theatrical  performances,  dragon-boat  festivals,  idol-processions,  street  dis- 
plays, infanticide,  prostitution,  making  retribution  a  prominent  motive  in 
morals,  codifying  penal  law,  publishing  the  statutes,  the  cessation  of  the 
imperial  tours  of  inspection  and  many  other  things  would  not  be  approved 
by  Confucius  and  Mencius.  But  the  railroad  and  steamship  and  electric 
light  would  make  Confucius  say:  "The  spirit  of  the  ancients  now  appears 
in  western  lands,  as  millenniums  ago  int^hina.  All  who  honor  my  name  !  the 
people  of  the  West  are  in  advance  of  you,  as  the  ancients  were  of  the  rest  of 
the  world.  Learn  what  they  have  good  ;  correct  their  evil  by  what  you  have 
better.     This  is  my  meaning  in  the  great  principle  of  reciprocity." 


SELECTIONS    FROM    "  A  SKETCH   OF  ZOROAS- 
TRIANISM." 

Prepared  by  the  Parsees  of  Bombay. 

Zoroastrianism  has,  perhaps,  stronger  claims  on  our  interest  than 
Islam,  Buddhism,  Brahmanism  or  Confucianism.  It  flourished  originally  in 
Afghanistan,  eastern  Persia  and  adjacent  districts  ;  under  the  Achaemenians 
it  extended  to  western  Persia,  and  under  the  Sassanians  it  influenced  Asia 
Minor  and  Egypt.  Its  founder  was  Zarathushtra  Spitama,  an  authentic  per- 
sonage who  lived  not  later  than  B.C.  1200.  He  was  philosopher,  poet  and 
prophet.  He  suffered  persecution  on  account  of  the  reform  he  promulgated. 
In  opposition  to  the  Daeva-worship,  the  prehistoric  polytheism  of  the  fore- 
fathers of  Hindus  and  Iranians,  Zoroaster  named  his  religion  Mazda- 
worship,  Mazda  being  the  Parsee  name  of  God.  Other  reformers  had  pre- 
viously struggled  against  Daeva-worship,  but  it  was  Zoroaster  who  suc- 
ceeded in  extirpating  it.  His  religion  teaches  the  worship  only  of  the  one 
true  God,  and  every  Zoroastrian  makes  this  confession  of  faith  :  "  I  confess 
myself  a  worshiper  of  Mazda,  a  follower  of  Zoroaster,  an  opponent  of 
false  gods,  and  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  Lord."  Thus  Mazda-worship  in 
the  Avesta  is  emphatically  termed  the  good  religion,  and  it  elevates  Zoroaster 
alone  to  the  worshipful  beings.  This  distinction  is  conferred  only  upon 
divine  ones,  and  never  upon  another  man  throughout  the  Avesta. 

The  extant  scriptures  of  Zoroastrianism  consist  of  the  Zend-Avesta, 
Zend  meaning  "commentary"  and  Avesta  "text."  It  is  a  collection  of 
writings  by  several  authors  at  different  limes.     The  present  form  is  a  later 


1354      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:    SCIENTIFIC    SECTION. 

arrangement  for  liturgic  purpose.  The  text  contains  two  groups  of  compo- 
sitions :  (i)  The  Yasna,  including  the  five  Gathas  or  sacred  songs  of  Zoroas- 
ter himself;  (2)  The  Visparad,  Vendidad  and  Kordeh-Avesta.  Only  the 
Gathas  originated  with  Zoroaster;  the  rest  are  the  compositions  of  priests 
after  his  death,  but  not  later  than  B.C.  559.  In  the  Gathas  we  find  Zoroas- 
ter in  flesh  and  blood,  preaching  pure  monotheism  and  lofty  morality. 
Nearly  every  stanza  contains  one  or  more  names  of  God,  either  his  proper 
name,  Ahura  Mazda,  or  one  of  his  six  appellations  called  Holy  Immortals. 
Later  than  the  Gathas  is  the  book  of  sacrificial  or  liturgical  prayers,  called 
Yasna,  to  be  recited  at  ceremonies.  The  Visparad  consists  of  invocations 
to  all-  chiefs  of  creations,  virtues,  etc.  It  is  never  recited  alone,  but  with 
parts  of  the  Yasna  at  higher  ceremonies.  The  Vendidad  comprises  laws 
against  evil  and  impure  beings  or  things.  The  Khordeh-Avesta  is  a 
smaller  collection  of  miscellaneous  pieces. 

We  conclude  this  presentation  of  the  literature  with  a  citation  from  a 
sermon  of  Zoroaster : 

"Now  will  I  proclaim  to  you,  give  ear  unto  me,  now  hear, 

Ye  who  look  from  near  or  afar. 

It  has  been  now  all  revealed  (to  me).      Verily  be  ye  the  worshipers  of  the 

Most  Wise 
So  that  the  evil-doctrined  one  may  not  again  spoil  the  world. 
He  the  wicked  one  who    has  caused  tongues  disbelieving  with   an  evil 

-    faith.     .... 
Not  to  be  deceived  is  the  All-pervading  Lord.     .     .     . 
Now  I  proclaim  to  you  the  Most  High  of  all. 

Praise  with  righteousness  (Him),  who  is  the  Giver  of  good     .     .     . 
And  let  the  Wise  Lord  hear  it  through  the  holy  spirit.     ... 
Him  only  choose  thou  for  our  praises  of  salutation, 
(For)  verily  now  I  have  transparently  seen  Him  with  my  (mental)  eyes, 
Of  good  mind,  word,  and  deed, 

The  Knower  with  righteousness,  Him  the  Wise  Lord. 
Let  us  deposit  His  adorations  in  the  house  of  purity. 
Him  only  propitiate  with  our  good  mind. 

Who  has  made  us  content  (who  is  our  consoler)  both  in  felicity  and  distress ; 
So  that  the  Wise  Lord  working  with  might  would  make 
Our  cattle  and  brave  men  to  prosper. 

Until  (there  come  to  us)  good  knowledge  of  the  good  mind  with  righteous- 
ness. 
To  Him  only  offer  sacrifice  with  the  worship  of  pious  thought, 
Who  has  been  sung  with  the  proper  name  of  Ahura  Mazda  (the  Wise  Lord), 
Since  He  gives  through  good  mind  and  righteousness 
In  His  kingdom  His  fullness  and  immortality, 

To  everyone  of  those  who  would  give  power  and  strength  (to  the  helpless)." 
Many  more  passages  in  the  Gathas  prove  that  Zoroaster  proclaimed 
pure  theism. 


TAOISM. 
A  Prize  Essay. 

Taoism  and  Confucianism  are  the  oldest  religions  of  China.  Taoism 
originated  with  the  originator  of  all  religions.  He  transmitted  it  to  Lao-tsze, 
who  was  born  in  the  Chow  dynasty  (about  B.C.  604),  was  contemporary 
with  Confucius,  and  kept  the  records.  His  Tao  Teh  King  treats  of  the 
origin  and  philosophy  of  nature,  of  the  mystery  behind  and  above  the  vis- 
ible universe,  in  order  to  educate  the  ignorant.  In  time,  Taoism  divided 
into  four  schools — the  Original,  the  Mountain,  the  Barrier  and  the  Orthodox 
schools.  After  ten  generations  these  schools  became  one  again.  The  Barrier 
school  is  probably  represented  to-day  by  the  Pure  Truth  school,  which  really 
originated  with  Wang  Chieh  in  A.D.  1 161,  and  has  flourished  all  the  more 
since  the  rise  of  the  Mongol  dynasty.  The  present  head  of  Taoism  is  of  the 
Orthodox  school.  At  present  Taoism  has  a  northern  and  a  southern  branch. 
Our  sacred  books  are  divided  into  advanced,  secondary  and  primary  classes, 
the  advanced  class  discussing  the  question  how  to  find  truth  or  the  eternal, 
the  secondary  class  the  origin  of  things,  and  the  elementary  class  treating  of 
spirits.  There  are  also  three  secondary  classes  in  three  books — The  Great 
Beginnings  The  Great  Peace,  The  Great  Purity.  The  Orthodox  school  also 
has  a  literature  divided  into  three  independent  classes,  and  called  the  sacred 
literature  of  the  three  classes. 

If  Taoists  seek  Taoism's  deep  meaning  in  earnest,  and  put  unworthy 
desires  aside,  they  are  not  far  from  its  original  goal.  But  in  after  gener- 
ations the  marvelous  overclouded  this ;  Taoists  left  the  right  way,  and 
boasted  wonders  of  their  own.  Legends  of  gods  and  genii  became  incor- 
porated with  Taoism.  In  the  Han  dynasty  Taoism  had  thirty-seven  books 
and  the  genii  religion  ten.  These  were  different  at  first.  But  from  the  time 
Taoism  ceased  to  think  purity  and  peaceableness  sufficient  to  satisfy  men,  it 
became  the  genii  religion  [magic  and  spiritualism],  though  still  called 
Taoism.  From  B.C.  206  to  A.D.  220  the  doctrines  of  Hwangti  and  Lao-tsze 
flourished  together.  The  former  ones  related  to  miracles  and  wonders,  the 
latter  to  truth  and  virtue.  The  Tao  Teh  King  had  said  nothing  of  the  pel- 
let of  immortality,  but  about  A.D.  420  this  theory  of  a  spiritual  germ  was 
read  into  it.  Kwo  Chang  Keng  held  that  what  the  Tao  Teh  King  says 
about  things  being  produced  by  what  existed  before  nature,  is  the  source  of 
the  germ  of  immortality.  The  Wu  Chin  Pien,  another  of  our  orthodox 
books,  discusses  nothing  except  the  importance  of  this  eternal  germ.  The 
art  of  breathing  the  breath  of  life  was  practiced,  and  the  fundamental  nature 
of  Taoism  underwent  change.     Then  the  secret  of  the  germ  of  life  and  the 

1355 


1356        PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SCIENTIFIC  SECTION. 

art  of  refining  one's  nature  were  sc*ight ;  and  its  foundations  experienced 
another  change.  Finally  Chang  Lu  {circa  A.D.  385-582  ?)  used  charms  in 
his  teaching,  and  employed  fasting,  prayer,  hymns  and  incantations  to  obtain 
blessings  and  repel  calamities ;  and  Taoism's  fundamental  doctrines  had 
utterly  disappeared. 

What  does  Taoism  mean  by  the  phrase,  Carrying  out  heaven's  will  ? 
It  means  that  heaven  is  the  first  Cause  of  religion,  that  man  is  produced  by 
two  forces,  Yin  and  Yang  ;  that  heaven  gave  the  spiritual  nature ;  and  that 
when  this  is  lost  he  cannot  carry  out  heaven's  will  nor  be  a  man.  Heaven 
is  called  the  great  clearness,  the  great  space,  and  this  clear  sjpace  is  heaven's 
natural  body.  Taoism  regards  heaven  as  its.  lord,  and  seeks  to  follow 
heaven's  way.  If  men,  to  preserve  the  heaven-given  soul,  can  premise  Yin 
and  Yang  as  the  fuundation  of  truth  and  of  the  spiritual  nature,  and  can 
nourish  the  heaven-given  spiritual  life,  what  need  for  the  medicine  of 
immortality  ?  But  those  who  carry  out  heaven's  will  are  able  to  fulfill  their 
duties  as  men.  Those  who  really  study  religion,  cultivate  their  spiritual 
nature,  preserve  their  souls,  gather  up  their  spiritual  force,  and  watch  their 
hearts.  They  believe  that  if  the  spiritual  nature  be  not  nurtured,  it  daily 
dwindles;  if  the  soul  be  not  preserved,  it  daily  dies;  if  the  spiritual  force 
be  not  exercised,  it  Is  dissipated  daily  ;  if  the  heart  be  not  watched,  it  is 
daily  lost.  Taoism,  though  considering  purity  fundamental,  adds  patience 
to  purity  and  holds  to  it  with  perseverance,  overcomes  the  hard  with  soft- 
ness, and  the  firmest  with  readiness  to  yield.  Thus  Taoism  attains  a  state 
not  far  from  man's  original  one  of  honesty  and  truth  without  becoming  con- 
scious of  it. 

Practice  virtue  in  quiet  and  for  a  longtime.  From  the  unseen  let  some- 
thing appear  ;  afterwards  let  it  return  to  the  unseen.  Collect  your  spirits 
till  you  have  force.  Collect  your  forces  till  you  have  living  seeds.  This  is 
producing  something  where  nothing  existed.  Sow  those  seeds,  nourish 
them  with  your  influence,  exercise  your  influence  to  keep  your  spirits,  and 
lead  them  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen.  When  human  duties  are  fulfilled, 
not  a  particle  of  the  eternal  intelligent  germ  need  be  lost.  Space  and  my 
body  are  but  parts  of  one,  and  will  be  of  the  same  age.  Without  seeking 
immortality,  the  body  becomes  immortal.  If  not,  this  bit  of  divine  light  is 
Yin  ;  extinguished  by  the  bad  influences  of  this  life. 

Comprehension  of  the  hereafter  is  one  of  the  mysteries  in  which  no 
religion  can  equal  Taoism.  The  living  force  in  my  body  fills  space,  influ- 
ences everything,  and  is  one  with  creation.  If  we  can  in  reality  attain  to  it 
[life-force  ?],  we  are  able  to  know  spirits  in  the  dark  domains.  In  the 
future  life  there  is  but  one  principle.  Ghosts  are  the  intelligent  powers  of 
Yin  ;  gods,  those  of  Yang. 

The  benefits  conferred  by  Taoism  on  the  government  cannot  be 
exhausted  by  relating  isolated  instances. 

Taoism  and  the  genii-religion  have  deteriorated.     Taoists  only  practice 


v. 


1358      PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SCIENTIFIC    SECTION. 

charms,  read  prayers,  play  on  strii^ed  or  reed  instruments,  and  select 
famous  mountains  to  rest  in.  They  rejoice  in  calling  themselves  Taoists, 
but  few  carry  out  the  true  learning  of  the  worthies  and  the  holy  genii  of  the 
past.  If  we  ask  a  Taoist  what  is  taught  in  the  Yin  Tu  King,  he  does  not 
know.  If  you  kneel  for  explanation  of  the  Tao  Teh  King,  he  cannot 
answer.  ' 

Oh!  that  one  would  arise  to  restore  our  religion,  save  it  from  errors, 
help  its  weakness,  expose  untruth  with  truth,  explain  the  mysteries,  under- 
stand it  profoundly  and  set  it  forth  clearly,  as  Roman  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tants assemble  the  masses  to  hear,  and  to  explain  the  doctrines  that  their 
^  followers  may  know  the  ends  for  which  their  churches  were  established  !  If 
the  coarse  influences  with  which  custoih  has  obscured  them  were  removed, 
the  doctrines  of  Lao-tsze,  Chang-tsze,  Yin  Hi  and  Lie-tsze  might  shine  forth 
brightly.     Would  not  this  be  fortunate  for  our  religion  ? 


THE  NATURE-RELIGION  OF  THE  NEW  HEBRIDES. 

By  John  G.  Paton,  D.D. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  New  Hebrides  in  1858  offered  human  sacrifices 
in  times  of  severest  trial,  sickness  and  danger,  and  it  was  these  that  chiefly 
formed  their  cannibal  feasts.  Those  who  fell  in  war  were  feasted  on,  but 
this  bound  the  warriors  in  blood  covenant  for  all  that  promoted  their  com- 
mon good.  Every  widow  was  strangled  that  her  spirit  might  follow  her 
husband's  into  the  spirit  world,  to  be  his  slave  there  as  here. 

To  satisfy  the  intuitive  craving  of  their  nature,  in  common  with  man 
wherever  on  earth  found,  they  make  carvtd  idols  of  stone  and  wood 
which  they  set  up  in  groves  and  sacred  spots,  through  which  to  worship 
invisible  spirit  gods.  Through  uncarved  stones,  rocks,  trees,  mountains 
and  things  of  the  sea,  their  ancestors,  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  and  every 
thing  within  the  compass  of  their  knowledge,  they  worship  and  sacrifice  to 
unseen  spirit-gods  of  every  conceivable  character,  except  a  God  of  love  and 
mercy.  They  worship  to  avert  calamities  and  sickness,  and  to  obtain  bless- 
ings or  to  prevent  them  being  taken  away.  Their  worship  is  all  propitia- 
tory, a  worship  of  slavish  fear.  All  feel  that  they  are  dependent  on  invisi- 
ble powers  beyond  self  for  help  and  blessings,  and  for  their  very  existence, 
as  they  are  liable  to  be  laid  down  in  sickness  or  taken  away  at  any  moment 
by  death  as  a  punishment  for  sins  committed  ;  for  like  Job's  comforters,  they 
look  upon  all  trials  and  sickness  as  sent  in  punishment  of  bad  conduct. 
Every  individual  family,  village  and  tribe  have  their  special  gods,  besides 
those  common  to  all,  and  each  tribe  or  district  has  its  sacred  men  or  priests, 
who  are  usually  oppressive,  and  by  their  professed  powers  and  incantations 


FATON:  RELIGION  OF  THE  NEW  HEBRIDES.        1359 

so  influence  the  people  that  they  fear  the  revenge  of  the  gods  if  they  offend 
them.  By  nature  intuitively  they  all  have  clear  ideas  of  right  and  wrong, 
which  lead  them  to  condemn  in  others  things  which  in  self-interest  or  self- 
gratification  they  do  themselves  when  opportunity  occurs,  though  they  know 
that  if  found  out  punishment  is  sure  to  follow.  I  have  lived  among  them 
and  visited  the  homes  and  villages  of  many  thousands,  but  I  never  heard  of 
one  who  lived  and  acted  up  to  the  light  of  nature. 

The  idols  representing  their  unseen  spirit  gods  are  many ;  on  some 
islands  they  are  set  up  fixed  in  the  earth  under  the  shadow  of  some  sacred 
banyan  or  other  tree,  in  the  side  of  or  near  to  their  public  meeting  ground. 
On  other  islands  they  are  in  secluded  sacred  spots,  which  all  the  natives 
except  the  priests  fear  to  approach.  On  others  they  are  placed  in  natural 
or  artificial  amphitheaters  under  some  great  tree,  wjth  a  narrow  entrance 
seldom  entered.  In  our  northern  islands  I  have  seen  large  conical  stones, 
all  nearly  the  same  shape  and  size,  fixed  in  the  earth  in  straight  lines,  and  in 
three  rows,  of  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  length,  at  short 
distances  from  each  other,  the  ground  in  front  a  battered  oval,  and  all  vege- 
tation destroyed  by  dances  and  ceremonies.  The  carved  wood  images  are 
generally  from  four  to  fifteen  feet  high.  I  have  entered  houses  where  one 
was  set  up  inside  of  the  door,  and  where  every  post  supporting  the  long, 
heavy  roof  was  a  carved  image,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  chief's  bed  an  idol 
was  fixed,  standing  some  four  feet  high,  where  it  was  the  last  thing  he  saw 
on  falling  asleep,  and  the  first  when  he  awoke. 

Heathen  islanders  do  not  use  the  new  crops  till,  with  great  ceremony, 
the  first  fruits  have,  with  singing  and  dancing,  been  consecrated  to  their 
gods.  They  also  salute  each  new  moon  by  shouting  and  dancing,  as  if 
bereft  of  reason.  A  large  party  of  wairiors  consecrated  in  prayer  a  large 
quantity  of  food,  to  the  evil  spirits,  and  asked  their  blessings  on  it.  They 
formed  a  large  oval,  in  which  all  kneeled,  with  faces  almost  touching  the 
ground,  and  the  right  hand  stretched  forward,  when,  after  muttering  their 
prayers,  they  rose  gradually,  their  voices  in  perfect  harmony,  becoming 
louder  till  they  ended  in  a  deep,  hollow  howl.  This  they  did  three  times, 
dividing  the  food  and  presents  with  manifestations  of  joy,  among  all  assem- 
bled, not  to  be  eaten  there,  but  carried  to  their  homes  and  subdivided 
between  their  relatives  and  friends.  Annually,  before  planting,  each  village 
or  district  used  to  spend  some  weeks  dancing  before  their  gods  and  in  other 
religious  ceremonies,  that  they  might  have  good  crops.  On  each  new  yam 
plantation  they  made  a  small  sacred  house  for  the  gods,  in  which  they 
placed  some  of  their  stone  representations,  and  before  which  they  made 
offerings  of  food,  knives,  axes,  and  anything  they  thought  would  induce 
them  to  give  good  crops. 

In  extreme  cases,  when  they  have  given  all  they  possess  to  avert 
drought,  or  sickness,  or  war,  or  to  get  rain,  and  have  failed,  they  will  sacri- 
fice their  most  beautiful  children  to  propitiate,  if  possible,  the  unseen  spirit- 


1360      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:  SCIENTIFIC   SECTION. 

gods,  and  to  get  the  desired  blessings.    I  never  knew  a  person  killed  simply 
for  food ;  the  cannibal  feasts  are  sacrificial  rites. 

I  believe  no  portion  of  the  h^man  race  has  ever  been  found,  or  ever 
will  be  found  who  have  not  the  innate  idea  of  their  need  of  gods  to  worship, 
and  to  help  them  in  calamities.  Some  men,  with  imperfect  knowledge  of 
their  language  and  customs,  have  been  found  to  hazard  the  declaration  that 
some  races  and  tribes  had  no  idea  of,  a  god,  or  any  form  of  worship.  Charles 
Kingsley  said  that  the  inhabitants  of  Australia  "  had  sunk  so  low  they  could 
not  comprehend  the  Gospel.  Poor  brutes  in  human  shape,  they  must  perish 
like  brute  beasts."  And  yet  at  that  very  time  there  were  Christians  among 
them !  From  my  knowledge  of  the  island  gods  and  worship,  I  discovered 
before  competent  witnesses,  as  stated  in  my  "  Auto,"  that  they  had  idols  or 
charms  representing  unseen  gods,  to  whom  they  ascribed  all  the  powers  of 
our  God,  except  his  love  and  mercy  as  displayed  in  Jesus ;  and  to  prove 
that  they  had  such  idols  and  worship  they  sold  me  some  eight  or  nine  of 
them. 

I  believe  the  man  does  not  exist  who  does  not  intuitively  worship  gods 
of  some  kind.  Even  the  missionaries  working  among  the-  aborigines  said 
they  had  no  objects  of  worship ;  but  the  natives  explained  this  by  saying 
that  the  first  white  man  who  saw  them  worshiping,  laughed  ;  so  they 
resolved  that  no  white  man  should  again  insult  them  and  their  gods,  which 
they  carried  away  and  worshiped  everywhere  in  secret.  May  it  not  .also 
be  so  elsewhere,  where  such  objects  have  not  been  seen  by  white  men  ? 

,  The  Gospel  of  Christ  is  a  blessing  to  the  women  from  every  point  of 
view.  They  are  the  down-trodden  slaves  of  their  heathen  men,  but  as 
Christians  they  are  loved  and  respected. 

The  Future  Life. — They  deify  and  worship  the  spirits  of  departed 
ancestors,  so  they  believe  in  existence  after  death,  but  so  far  as  I  know 
they  have  no  idea  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  Their  idea  of  the  future 
existence  is  very  misty.  The  spirit  exists  in  the  bush,  to  which  at  death  it 
is  carried  away  by  the  evil  spirit.  It  revisits  its  relatives  and  village  after 
death,  chiefly  to  inflict  trouble  and  sickness  in  revenge  for  past  bad  treat- 
ment ;  hence,  at  the  grave  or  sacred  spots  the  people  present  ofiFerings 
of  food,  etc.,  to  propitiate  their  departed  friends.  Generally  the  natives 
exceedingly  fear  the  dead  and  their  gods,  especially  in  the  night,  when  they 
seldom  leave  their  villages  alone.  They  leave  in  parties,  and  some  one 
will  be  constantly  sounding  on  pans,  pipes,  or  a  flute  of  bamboos,  to  frighten 
away  the  spirits  from  injuring  them. 


THE  ESTIMATE  OF  HUMAN    DIGNITY  IN  THE 
LOWER  RELIGIONS. 

By  Prof.  Leon  Marillier. 

The  study  of  the  inferior  religions  can  never  furnish  an  explicit  answer 
to  the  question,  What  is  their  estimate  of  human  dignity  ?  It  could  not  even 
be  understood  by  the  majority  of  the  non-civilized.  The  notion  of  human 
dignity  is  above  all  a  moral  notion,  and  can  take  important  place  only  in  a 
religion  where  a  leading  place  is  assigned  to  moral  conceptions.  Such  is  not 
the  case  among  non-civilized  people.  Where  religious  practices  and  traditions 
remain  distinct  from  moral  principles,  and  morality  is  not  submission  to  an 
inner  rule  subject  to  conscience,  the  part  of  human  dignity  is  limited.  The 
theology  of  savages  is  in  large  measure  independent  of  morality,  and  their 
morality  itself  is  ordinarily  not  such  that  respect  for  man  as  man  can  find 
place  in  it.  The  idea  of  human  dignity  is  bound  to  the  notion  of  duty,  but 
the  savage  classifies  acts,  not  as  good  or  bad,  but  as  useful  or  dangerous.  To 
penetrate  the  savage  idea  of  human  dignity,  it  is  necessary  to  examine  his 
idea  of  man.  " 

Among  savages  no  line  o£  demarcation  separates  man  from  other  beings. 
Often  living  men  are  deified.  As  being  gods,  they  possess  the  attributes  of 
other  gods.  Yet  it  is  not  this  endowment  that  confers  special  excellence  upon 
man,  since  he  shares  them  often  with  animals,  plants,  etc.  What  distinguishes 
one  man  from  another  is  his  supernatural  and  magic  gifts,  physical  condition, 
intelligence,  rank,  wealth  and  success  in  war.  But  this  mysterious  force  may 
be  possessed  by  other  beings,  and  be  communicated  to  a  plant  by  contact 
from  man.  The  possibility  of  losing  that  force  renders  the  contact  of  certain 
beings  dangerous,  and  the  loss  must  be  avoided  at  any  cost.  Many  men  are, 
however,  unprovided  with  this  power,  and  all  beings  not  so  endowed  are  the 
object  of  no  respect.  The  idea  that  a  feeble  bemg  can  be  worthy  of  respect 
is  absolutely  alien  to  the  savage.  He  can  indeed  treat  a  feeble  person  with 
kindness,  but  he  is  always  convinced  that  he  himself  is  the  superior.  Nor  is 
the  savage  warrior's  stoic  "courage  a  true  feeling  of  human  dignity.  The 
ceremony  of  initiation  into  the  warrior-class  is  a  magic  ceremony  conferring 
the  warrior's  power  and  self-confidence  ;  but  nothing  recalls  the  notion  of 
respect  to  every  man.  The  abstract  idea  of  man  as  a  moral  and  thinking 
being  could  not  spread  in  a  tribe  perpetually  at  war  with  neighbors.  It  is  a 
recent  and  Gneco-Latin  idea.  It  is  the  result  of  reflection  upon  theological 
concepts  and  moral  principles  in  one.  It  supposes  a  complicated  social  state. 
It  could  find  no  place  in  the  inferior  religions. 

86  1361  •  -  t 


SOME    SUPERSTITIONS    OF    NORTH    AFRICA   AND 

EGYPT. 

By  the  Rev.  B.  F.  Kidder,  Ph.D. 

Among  the  nominally  Mohammedan  races  of  North  Africa  exist  super- 
stitions akin  to  fetichism  or  shamanism.  Egyptian  Arabs  believe  that 
earth,  air  and  water  are  peopled  with  spirits  who  busy  themselves  with 
human  affairSi  Hardly  any  act  is  performed  without  asking  permission 
from  the  spirit  of  the  place.  The  Arabs  of  Barbary  have  the  greatest  fear 
of  the  enchantments  of  the  devil,  and  the  profoundest  reverence  for  idiots. 
Among  the  Moors  of  Morocco  evil  spirits  have  the  greatest  dominion  over 
the  imagination.  Every  ruin,  almost  every  natural  object  has  its  devil. 
Another  superstition,  prevalent  in  all  Mohammedan  countries,  is  the  fear  of 
the  evil  eye,  the  power  of  destruction  by  a  glance.  Among  the  Marabouts, 
a  priestly  order  which  officiates  at  mosques,  and  claims  to  prophesy  and 
work  miracles,  exist  most  striking  superstitions.  They  eat  snakes, 
scorpions,  etc.,  pretend  to  be  inspired  and  commit  the  grossest  extrava- 
gances. At  their  annual  festival  the  chief  Marabout  inspires  the  devotees, 
who  become  more  or  less  frenzied.  Whirling  round  and  round,  they  work 
themselves  into  ecstasy,  lacerate  themselves,  and  sally  forth.  The  power  of 
taking  up  scorpions  and  deadly  serpents  is  an  essential  qualification  for 
Marabouthood. 

The  most  fanatical  sects  of  Morocco  are  the  Assoui  and  the  Hamdou- 
chi.  The  founder  of  the  former  claimed  the  power  of  rendering  snake  bites 
harmless  to  his  followers ;  the  Hamdouchi  that  of  wounding  themselves 
without  injury.  The  power  of  resistance  against  bite  of  serpent  and  sting 
of  scorpion  is  obtained  by  the  Assoui  blowing  upon  the  seeker  of  immunity. 
Both  sects,  although  nominally  Mohammedan  and  akin  to  the  howling 
dervishes,  borrowed  their  peculiar  superstitions  from  a  more  ancient  and 
degraded  devil-worship.  It  has  been  surmised  that  these  sectaries  are  a 
remnant  of  the  Ophites.  Their  peculiar  tenets  and  their  custom  of  winding 
enormous  serpents  about  the  neck  and  arms  came  from  the  ancient  serpent- 
worship  of  Egypt. 


X36a 


CONDITIONS   AND    OUTLOOK    FOR   A   UNIVERSAL 

RELIGION. 

By  Albert  R^ville,  D.D.,  Professor  of  the  History  of  Religions 
IN  THE  College  of  France. 

We  have  to  do  with  elements  and  initial  conditions,  not  with  a  developed 
system.  They  comprise  ideas  on  the  universality  of  religion  ;  on  its  varieties, 
on  religion  in  itself,  and  on  its  relation  to  morality.  There  can  be  no 
attempt  at  a  universal  confession  of  faith,  for  that  is  far  distant. 

I.  Universality  of  Religion.  —  To  the  supreme  cause  of  life  must  be 
attributed  the  radical  difference  between  humanity  and  animality.  It  is 
religion  more  than  all  else  that  differentiates  man  from  the  animal.  It  is  a 
fact  whose  universality  has  been  vainly  contested,  which  is  met  as  far 
back  as  one  can  go,  as  far  as  one  can  penetrate  in  the  present,  which  is  com- 
plex, indefinable,  diverse  and  varied,  and  yet  rests  upon  something  funda- 
mental and  substantial,  since  it  bears  a  common  name.  Man  is  by  nature  a 
religious  being.  The  absence  of  religious  ideas  among  peoples  on  the  lowest 
planes  has  been  asserted,  but  profounder  observation  has  always  proven  the 
allegation  erroneous.  Religion  is  a  characteristic  of  human  nature.  Its 
continual  manifestations,  its  unceasing  action  on  nations  and  the  mind,  and 
its  terrors  and  joys,  passions  and  activities  incontrovertibly  prove  it  an  inte- 
gral part  of  our  constitution.  The  radically  irreligious  man  is  either  aborted, 
infirm  or  mutilated. 

II.  Diversities  of  Religions.  —  Religion  has  a  vast  variety  of  forms  and 
of  principles  determining  them.  But  fundamental  principles  dominate  these 
phenomena.  A  fundamental  difference  divides  them  into  two  groups  — 
monotheistic  religions  and  polytheistic  religions.  In  the  monotheistic  group 
man  conceives  of  a  single,  sovereign  Power  identical  with  the  first  and  abso- 
lute cause.  (The  principle  implies,  as  corollary,  a  central  unity  of  the  universe.) 
Monotheism  presents  itself  under  various  forms  :  Judaism,  Christianity,  Islam 
and  even  Buddhism  (Law  is  Buddhism's  supreme  god).  Polytheism  sup- 
poses the  plurality  of  the  beings  who  determine  the  mode  of  existence  and 
the  combination  of  things.  The  distinction  between  monotheism  and  poly- 
theism is  not  primitive.  Polytheism  existed  first.  The  formation  of  mono- 
theism was  due  to  circumstances  of  race,  place  and  mental  predisposition ; 
but  as  reason  grows  stronger  and  richer,  monotheism  must  finally  win  the 
first  place.  Polytheism  contains  some  sub-groups  which  in  their  world-idea 
approximate  to  that  which  is  the  basis  or  consequence  of  monotheism,  while 
others  separate  from  it  entirely.     In  turn  many  forms  of  monotheism  mani- 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H,  B. 

1363 


1364      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SCIENTIFIC   SECTION. 

fest  a  continual  tendency  to  moderattMhe  rigor  of  its  principle  of  divine  unity 
by  approximating  toward  polytheism.  In  spite  of  the  distinctions  which 
assign  religious  phenomena  to  clearly  separated  categories,  the  differences 
do  not  prevent  the  opposite  principles  from  becoming  weakened  at  numer- 
ous points  of  contact  almost  to  complete  effacement. 

Another  fact  impresses  a  very  marked  distinctive  character  upon  mono- 
theistic religions.  It  manifests  itself  in  the  religions  which  profess  to  pro- 
ceed from  a  supernatural  revelation  by  the  One  Cause.  This  fact  is  intoler- 
ance. It  says :  The  special  religion  revealed  by  God  either  through  priest 
or  book  is  alone  the  absolute  truth  to  which  every  man  is  bound  to  adhere 
under  pain  of  perdition.  Yet  intolerance  springs  from  keenest  appreciation 
of  religious  truth.  To  escape  the  indifference  which  engulfs  polytheistic 
religions  in  prolonged  stagnation  it  was  necessary  to  pass  through  intoler- 
ance. But  it  has  inflicted  terrible  evils.  At  last  human  feeling,  seconded 
by  better  understanding  of  the  principles  of  the  highest  religion,  revolted 
against  theories  justifying  such  horrors.  .       "  - 

The  great  religions  remain  separated.  Shall  irreconcilable  ant^^gonism 
be  the  last  word  of  the  .history  of  religion  on  earth  ?  May  there  not  be, 
without  denying  tl^e  superiority  that  each  attributes  to  his  own  religioi\,hope 
for  an  agreement  in  the  future,  founded  on  rational  appreciation  of; those 
elements  of  truth  which  constitute  the  substance  of  a  universal  religion  ? 
For  that,  it  is  indispensable  to  define  religion. 

Iir.  Religion  in  itself. — There  is  not  yet  unanimity  in  the  definition  of 
religion,  but  the  true  definition  should  take  account  of  four  facts  :  (i.)  Man 
experiences  the  need  of  attaching  himself  to  a  Power  dominating  the  phe- 
nomena which  fill  his  daily  life.  (2)  His  idea  of  this  Power  has  intimate 
relations  with  those  of  the  nature  of  the  world  and  of  himself.  (3)  His 
feeling  of  the  existence  and  action  of  this  Supreme  Power  is  associated  with 
his  difficulty,  if  not  inability,  in  forming  an  idea  of  this  Sovereign  Reality 
which  fully  satisfies  his  reason.  (This  reality  always  hides  itself  behind 
mystery:  the  feeling  of  mystery  is  always  inseparable  from  the  religious 
sentiment ;  and  sometimes  the  mystery  provokes  the  sentiment,  sometimes 
the  mystery  is  derived  from  the  sentiment.)  (4)  The  postulate  of  a  supra- 
mundane  power  does  not  remain  an  abstraction.  It  acts  powerfully  upon 
life.  The  religious  man  seeks  to  unite  personally,  in  feeling  and  action, 
with  the  Supreme  Being.  From  this  practical  relation  with  divinity  he 
derives  great  joys  and  tragic  terrors.  This  blending  of  terror  and  joy  is  a 
characteristic  of  religion.  From  such  fourfold  observation  religion  may  be 
defined  as  that  special  determination  of  human  nature  which  causes  man  to 
seek,  above  all  contingent  things,  union  with  a  sovereign  and  mysterious 
Power,  at  once  attractive  and  formidable,  an  J  impels  him  to  realize  this  union 
by  acts  in  keeping  with  his  idea  of  that  Power. 

Religion  is,  therefore,  the  exercise  of  the  innate  natural  tendency  of  the 
mind.     This  fact  demonstrates  the  reality  of  the  object.     No  matter  though 


1366     PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SCIENTIFIC    SECTION.' 

man  form  most  erroneous  notions  of  that  object,  or  declare  it  incomprehen- 
sible ;  there  could  be  no  tendency  without  correspondent  reality.  The 
primordial  doctrine  of  the  religions  of  the  future  is  the  consubstantiality  of 
man  with  God. 

Former  definitions  have  been  complicated  by  the  too  frequent  desire. to 
make  morality  religion's  point  of  departure  or  essential  element.  Religion 
and  morality  belong  to  distinct  fields — one  can  easily  imagine  a  moral  athe- 
ist— but  the  two  spheres  elbow  each  other  and  end  by  uniting.  When  we 
would  determine  the  place  of  religion  on  the  ladder  extending  from  the 
heavens  to  the  earth,  religion's  moral  worth  is  a  criterion  of  the  highest 
value. 

IV.  Future  of  Religion. — Religion  will  last  as  long  as  humanity! 
Will  the  diversity  and  antagonism  of  the  historic  religions  continue  indefi- 
nitely ?  Religion  began  at  a  very  low  level  of  knowledge,  feeling  and 
morality..  In  its  origin  it  manifested  itself  under  forms  everywhere  very 
similar.  Thus  unity  characterized  the  rise  of  religion.  Is  it  not  probable 
that  at  last  religion  will  recover  fundamental  agreement  if  not  absolute 
uniformity,  reflective  and  rational  unity  (scientifically  and  rnorally  founded) 
bringing  the  diversities  and  hostilities  of  the  past  into  one  harmonious  and 
pacific  point  of  view  ? 

Some  forms  of  religion  will  disappear  of  their  own  accord  as  civiliza- 
tion extends  and  in  civilized  nations  penetrates  the  deep  social  strata  which 
have  long  been  dominated  by  the  intellectual  superiority  of  the  directing 
classes  rather  than  imbued  with  their  ideas  and  principles.  Naturism,  fetich- 
ism  and  polytheism  are  doomed.  Since  there  are  several  civilizations, 
each  will  penetrate  the  other,  and  the  religions  associated  with  each  will 
mutually  interfere.  But  what  will  change  the  religious  complexion  of 
humanity  will  be  the  civilization  intellectually  and  morally  dominant  over 
the  others.  It  will  render  universal  a  mental  state  to  which  corresponds  the 
religion  sustained  and  dominated  by  that  condition.  Till  these  predictions 
be  realized  can  there  not  be  a  modus  cogitandi  preparatory  to  a  modus 
vivendi  which  would  replace  hostile  relations  by  mutual  esteem  and  good 
will?     We  may  indicate  its  elements. 

The  recognition  of  religion  as  inherent  and  universal  requires  us  to 
judge  even  its  strangest  forms  worthy  of  ail  respect.  In  the  most  uncultured 
religions  are  augustness,  venerableness  and  revelation.  Man's  attempt  to 
commune  with  ideal  Perfection  is  the  fundamental  and  loftiest  truth  of  human 
nature.  Our  duty  is  to  apply  this  truth  to  our  relations  with  every  relig- 
ion. For  the  believer  in  a  collection  of  truths  directly  revealed  by  God  it  is 
difficult  to  recognize  valid  right  in  the  beliefs  of  those  who  reject  that  reve- 
lation, oppose  another  to  it,  or  reject  all  miraculous  revelation.  Paul,  how- 
ever, admitted  a  degree  of  inferior  revelation  worthy  of  sympathetic  vener- 
ation. The  points  upon  which  religions  professing  to  arise  from  another 
revelation  accord  with  the  religion  of  a  definite  revelation  should  be  to  its 


R^VILLE:  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RELIGION.  I  367 

adherents  fragments  of  divine  truth  due  to  natural  origin.  This  is  another  ■ 
basis  for  mutual  tolerance  and  cooperation.  The  work  for  theologians  and 
scholars  is  to  seek  in  each  religion  its  essential  foundation.  Only  when  the 
principles  dominating  details  have  been  brought  out,  can  rational  religious 
comparison  be  proceeded  with,  which  shall  assign  to  each  religion  its  right 
place,  its  definite  rite,  in  the  religion  of  humanity. 

Meanwhile,  morals  furnish  a  neutral  ground  where  all  religious  friends 
of  humanity  can  meet.  Men  are  everywhere  nearer  to  an  understand- 
ing on  nuxn's  duties  toward  his  fellows  than  on  definitions  of  belief  and 
dogma.  Morality  is  the  most  active  agent  in  the  evolution  of  religion.  The 
Christian  inspired  in  his  relation  to  noi^^Christian  religions  by  the  truth  that 
purity,  integrity,  benevolence,  active  sympathy  for  every  man  suffering,  the 
triumphant  beauty  of  gentleness,  pardon  and  generosity,  are  of  universal 
morality,  renders  homage  to  a  teaching  whose  authority  he  cannot  as  a 
Christian  contest,  whose  sublimity  he  cannot  as  a  thinker  deny.  Upoh  mor- 
ality can  be  established  a  sympathetic  understanding  among  the  religions. 

At  present  it  would  be  vain  to  seek  doctrinal  accord  am^ong  the  great 
religions.  But  preparations  for  that  accord  can  be  made  by  pacifying  their 
relations.  This  pacification  can  be  obtained  by  respecting  all  forms  of 
religious  sentiment,  by  recognizing  natural  revelation,  and  by  emphasizing 
the  moral  content  and  worth  of  each  religion.  This  Parliament  marks  the 
first  step  in  the  sacred  path  that  shall  one  day  bring  man  to  the  truly  human- 
itarian and  universal  religon.  -' 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  CLASSIFICATION 

OF  RELIGIONS. 

By  Jean  R^ville,  Lecturer  at  the  Sorbonne,  Editor  of   the 
"Revue  de  l'Histoire  des  Religions." 

The  variety  of  classifications  proposed  proves  that  uncertainty  still 
exists  as  to  the  principles  of  classification.  This  arises  from  two  facts  :  our 
knowledge  is  incomplete  ;  we  come  to  no  common  understanding  as  to  the 
characteristics  of  the  several  religions. 

The  chief  hindrance  to  a  scientific  determination  of  religions  historically 
known  is  that  each  of  them  includes  under  a  single  name  the  most  widely 
different  phenomena. 

Rule  I.  Recognize  that  religions  are  not  fixed  quantities,  nor  invariable 
organic  systems,  but  living  organic  products  of  the  human  mind,  in  perpet- 
ual flux,  even  when  they  seem  fixed  ;  that  under  seemingly  like  external 
forms  they  may  include  very  different  contents  ;  that  in  each  historic  relig- 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


1368       PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:   SCIENTIFIC   SECTION., 

ious  unit  may  be  individual  manifestations  as  varied  as  individual  capacities 
in  any  modern  people.  In  an  inferior  religious  system  may  be  found  ideas, 
sentiments  and  practices  of  a  superior  order,  and  inversely.  The  science  of 
religions  is  a  moral  science,  and  its  classifications  cannot  be  rigorous  like 
those  of  natural  science.  , 

Rule  2.  Exclude  evefy  abstract  principle  of  classification  imposed  from 
without  by  a  philosophical  or  theological  system,  and  not  springing  from  the 
facts  themselves.  Discard  as  anti-scientific  any  classification  resting  upon  a 
distinction  between  revealed  religion  and  natural  religion,  primitive  mono- 
theism and  polytheism,  or  proposed  by  the  speculative  idealism  of  the 
Hegelian  school,  or  of  the  symbolic  school,  or  by  the  positivism  of  Comte,  or 
by  any  systematic  or  dogmatic  notion  of  history. 

Rule  3.  Found  the  classification  of  religions,  to  begin  with,  exclusively 
on  the  historic  analysis  of  religious  facts  and  phenomena.  Examine  inscrip- 
tions, documents,  national' poets,  historians,  philosophers  and  dramatists; 
study  cults,  rites,  practices,  popular  traditions,  usages  and  morals  ;  examine 
monuments,  plastic  representations  and  religious  utensils.  Make  this  anal- 
ysis in  chronological  order  for  each  religion  historically  known,  relyilig  on 
the  clearer  documents  to  interpret  the  more  obscure,  and  applying  the  gen- 
eral rules  of  historical  criticism.  It  is  better  that  this  should  be  done  by  a 
man  who  knows  by  experience  what  religious  thought  or  emotion  is. 

Rule  4.  In  analyzing  each  religion  never  forget  that  it  is  intiitiately 
connected  with  the  civilization  of  its  country,  and  that,  if  for  convenience  of 
exposition,  we  study  the  religion  apart  from  other  manifestations  of  that  civ- 
ilization, we  need  to  keep  constantly  in  view  its  social  environment. 

Rule  5.  In  the  most  ancient  teachings  in  regard  to  every  religion,  as 
well  as  in  the  manifestations  of  superior  religions  among  their  least  civil- 
ized adherents,  we  constantly  meet  beliefs  and  practices  just  like  those  of 
peoples  still  uncivilized.  In  order  to  understand  these  primeval  or  inferior 
manifestations  belonging  to  a  time  or  a  social  plane  that  have  no  history, 
we  must  make  a  preliminary  study  of  the  present  religions  of  uncivilized 
tribes  ;  not  in  pursuance  of  any  evolutionist  theory,  but  simply  to  explain 
facts  otherwise  unintelligible  by  like  facts  among  peoples  within  rfeach  of 
our  observation. 

Rule  6.  Complete  the  analysis  of  each  religion  by  coinparison  with  the 
analyses  of  other  religions.  Comparison  brings  out  their  common  charac- 
teristics and  specific  differences,  and  permits  classification  in  various  cate- 
gories. Such  classification  may  afford  instruction,  but  does  not  generally 
offer  scientific  exactitude  without  dissecting  the  history  of  religions  at  their 
various  stages  of  development. 

Rule  7.  Complete  thus  the  historical  criticism  by  whatever  testimonies 
the  analyses  have  brought  to  light,  clearing  up  what  is  obscure  in  one  relig- 
ion by  what  is  clear  in  others. 

Rule  8.  Make  this  comparison  with  all  the  resources  at  the  disposal  of 
science,  unaffected  by  the  spirit  of  system  or  sect. 


THE   DEV   DHARM.  1 369 

Rule  9.  The  comparison  of  results  obtained  by  the  analytico  historical 
study  of  the  several  religions  is  the  basis  of  every  scientific  classification, 
according  either  to  historic  filiation  or  to  form  of  development.  We  are  not  to 
find  htst«ric  connection  between  religious  phenomena  separated  in  time  or 
space,  excejjt  when  there  is  substantial  evidence  of  relation,  or  when  phil- 
ology shows  the  common  origin  of  names  having  a  religious  use.  Other- 
wise the  analogies  tlaay  simply  result  from  the  spontaneous  action  of  the 
human  mind  in  independent  but  like  conditions. 

The  study  of  religions  <fia^  precede  the  study  of  religion.  The  only 
scientific  classification  i;  the  histoific.  This  springs  from  the  facts  instead 
of  being  imposed  upon  them.  It  is  eflnr  to  understand  these  rules — in  the 
present  state  of  science  it  is  hard  to  apply  them. 


T^E   DEV   DHARM. 
By  a  Member  of.  the  Mission. 

1.  Sketch  of  the  Mission. — Mahamaniya  Pujniyabar  Pandit  Sattyanand 
Agnihotri,  founder  of  the  Dev  Dharm,  was  bom,  a  high-caste  Brahman,  in 
1850.  From  boyhood  he  was  rich  in  spirituality,  and  his  esu-ly  manhood 
was  devoted  to  religious  studies  and  philanthropic  work.  In  1882  an 
intense  internal  experience  culminatetl  in  his  announcement  that  he  was  an 
apostle  to  save  from  sin,  disciples  flocked  around  him,  and  he  devoted  him- 
self to  evangelization  and  pastoral  care.  His  denunciations  of  worldliness 
and  sin  awakened  persecution.  For  a  time  he  still  continued  to  work  with 
the  Brahmo-Somaj,  but  this  body  did  not  receive  his  teaching,  and  in  1887 
he  founded  the  Dev  Dharm.  After  shaping  the  principles  of  Devat-ship 
he  promulgated  the  four  mahatas  in  1892.  He  has  written  eighty  books  or 
tracts,  and  founded  two  journals.  In  1893  came  new  light  and  power,  and 
the  reorganization  of  the  mission  on  that  higher  basis. 

2.  Cardinal  Principles. — Man  is  conscious  of  his  existence  and  of  other 
existences.  He  has  no  existence  independent  of  them,  and  is  but  a  part  of 
the  universe.  Therefore  he  cannot  escape  its  influences.  His  first  duty  is 
to  adjust  each  part  of  his  organism  to  every  other  part,  and  his  whole  being 
to  every  existence.  The  means  consist  in  knowing  what  principles  can 
effect  the  adjustment,  and  what  power  can  apply  them.  In  man  and  in  his 
relation  to  others  are  permanency  and  transiency.  In  his  knowledge  of  self 
and  of  others  are  truth  and  untruth.  In  his  being  and  his  relationships  are 
harmony  and  disharmony.  In  his  higher  interests  are  self-denial  and  selfish- 
ness. The  discernment  of  permanence,  truth,  harmony  and  self-denial,  with 
love  of  them  and  hatred  and  denunciation  of  all  opposed  to  them,  consti- 
tutes complete  spiritual  life.     Absence  of  spiritual  life  and  love  of  trans- 


1370      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:  SCIENTIFIC   SECTION. 

iency,  untruth,  disharmony  and  selfishness  constitute  the  natural  life.  Only 
through  spiritual  life  can  man  attain  adjustment.  Spiritual  life  is  the  root  of 
perfection,  natural  life  the  source  of  evil.  Master-souls  save  man,  create 
spiritual  life,  and  fulfill  the  law  of  redemption.  Spiritual  life  is  no  sponta- 
neous outgrowth  from  natural  life ;  without  master-savioiJ^rs  man  feels  no 
desire  and  has  no  power  to  save  himself.  By  cultivating  spiritual  life  man 
can  effect  progressive  union  with  all.  To  attain  this  union  and  to  establish 
the  kingdom  of  union  is  the  object  of  life.  The  most  blessed  and  noblest 
man  is  he  who  attains  spiritual  life,  strives  to  spread  its  blessings,  and  strug- 
gles to  save  his  fellows.    This  is  the  mission  of  our  teacher.      ■  ■  i 

3.  The  four  fundamental  principUs. — (A)  .Love  the  eternal  interests  of 
the  spiritual  life,  but  hate  whatever  binds  the  soul  to  the  temporal. '  (6)  Love 
the  search  for  and  attainment  of  truth,  but  hate  untruth.  (C)  Love  har- 
mony and  regard  rights,  hate  and  renounce  discord.  (D)  Love  to  do  good 
and  to  sacrifice  self ;  hate  selfish  desires  and  relationships.  Then  follow 
two-score  minor  principles  representing  the  type  of  spiritual  life  developed 
in  every  soul  uniting  with  Agnihotri  in  faith,  love,  and  obedience. 

4.  Characteristics  of  the  religion  of  the  spiritual  life.' — A  religion  dis- 
pensing with  law  is  unscientific  and  unauthoritative.  The  Dev  Dharm  is 
based  on  the  laws  of  biology,  and  is  therefore  scientific,  logical  and  philo- 
sophical. It  gives  new  birth  and  makes  holy  life  and  character,  and  is  thus 
a  practical  religion.  It  raises  man  to  divinity,  brings  the  divine  kingdom 
of  spiritual  life,  and  establishes  universal  union ;  it  is  therefore  of  divine 
origin.-  ■      - 


ORIGIN  OF  SHINTOISM. 

By  Takayoshi  Matsugama.  ' 

/  Shinto  is  not  our  original  religion.     A  faith  existed  before  it,  which  was 

•  its  source.  It  grew  out  of  superstitious  teachings  and  mistaken  tradition. 
The  history  of  the  rise  of  Shinto  sects  proves  this.  I  will  therefore  trace  the 
rise  of  the  name  and  the  growth  of  Shintoism,  and  state  the  primitive  faith. 

1.  The  name  of  Shinto. — Though  Shinto  occurs  a  few  times  in  the  old 
writings  it  was  not  used  with  our  meaning.  It  signified  the  way  of  worship- 
ing, the  manner  of  reverencing  the  doctrine  that  the  gods  founded  Japan. 
Though  the  term  occurred  before  A.  D.  740,  it  signified  no  system  of  relig- 
ion.    As  the  name  of  a  faith  it  was  first  used  after  A.  D.  804. 

2.  Growth  of  Shintoism. — In  the  ninth  century  the  blending  of  two  fund- 
amental doctrines  of  Shingonese  Buddhism  with  the  primitive  Japanese 
worship  produced  Riobu-Shintoism.     About  A.  D.  930  Japanese  Buddhism 

•  taught  that  there  was  difference  between  Buddha  and. our  gods.     Shinto 

Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


THE  "GRiiAT  MANDALA," 

A  CHAKT  OF  NIOIIRBN  BUDDHISM,  DgSCIUUED  AT  PAGE  1290. 


V 


1372      PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SCIENTIFIC   SECTION. 

was  performed  in  Buddhist  temples,  and  Buddhism  seized  religious  power. 
In  1700  a  Shinto  priest  founded  "pure"  Shintoism,  declaring  that  his  cloc- 
trine  was  the  one  given  by  the  gods,  and  that  everything  relating  to  Bud- 
dhism was  but  delusion.  Pure  Shinto  differed  in  rite  and  ceremony  from 
Buddhism,  imperceptibly  in  doctrine.  Between  1776  and  1843  two  reform- 
ers endeavored  to  restore  the  original  faith.  They  taught  that  the  teachings 
:  of  existent  Buddhist  and  Shinto  sects  were  deceptions.     Their  fundamental 

doctrines  were  that  Shinto  was  transmitted  through  the  first  patents  of  the 
Japanese  to  the  progenitor  of  the  mikadtts ;  that  the  primitive  faith  should 
-.be  studied  in  the  Kojiki  and  the  Nohongi;  and   that  Buddhism  and  Con- 
*  fucianism,  while  useful  in  India  and  China,  were  man-founded,  and  useless 

.    in  Japan,  which  the  gods  had  from 'the  beginning  blessed  peculiarly. 
\  ■    ,-   •■  Shinto  lias  now  nine  sects,  each  with. many  branches,  almost  all,wor- 

-    shiping  the  gods  named  in  the  ancient  chronicles,  and  all  respecting  these 
.'    chronicles.     These  are  their  canonical  books.     The  Kojiki  was  completed 
in  712,  the  Nihongi  in  720,  and  almost  their  every  word  is  considered  unde- 
.  ...-         niable  truth.  ■-':■  '     ••  "; 

3.  The  Pre-Shinto  Religidn. — This  had  no  individual  founder  or  name 
or  book.  It  grew  with  the  growth  of  nationality.  Generation  handed  it 
down  to  generation.  To  it  are  due  whatever  power  and  purity  and  virtue 
existed  in  Japan.  It  taught  loyalty,  filial  piety  and  right  conduct.  It  was 
smothered  before  reaching  maturity,  but  Buddhism  and  Confucianism  had  to 
disguise  and  change  in  order  to  enter  Japan.  ' 

The  Kojiki  makes  these  statements  as  to  the  object  of  worship,  the 
nature  of  God,  and  the  future  of  man :  In  the  beginning  were  three  gods  in 
heaven.  They  were  persons  of  one  supreme  Creator,  the  object  of  worship, 
a  spirit  and  invisible.  He  hated  sin,  and  men  must  purify  themselves. 
They  ought  to  revere  him  and  serve  him  gladly.  In  remembrance  of  his 
moral  excellence  the  people  observed  festivals  of  thanksgiving,  offering  the 
first  fruits  of  the  harvests.  Good  and  evil  spirits  existed,  the  former  leading 
men  to  righteousness,  the  latter  trying  to  lead  them  astray.  Sin  necessitated 
sacrifice,  gave  the  evil  spirit  immediate  opportunity  to  lead  man  further  into 
wickedness,  but  could  be  removed  by  purification.  Human  spirits  went 
after  death  to  hades,  governed  separately  from  this  world,  and  hell  was  a 
place  filled  with  uncleanness.  Man  consisted  of  body  and  spirit,  the 
latter  far  superior  and  endowed  with  marvelous  powers,  and  its  acts  the 
source  of  happiness.     God  governed  all  human  spirits. 

Any  wonderful  object  was  a  god,  though  at  one  time  the  term  had  been 
limited  to  the  supreme  God.  In  one  deity  are  two  natures,  that  of  divinity 
and  that  of  humanity. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  judge  that  faith  by  its  result,  the  present  morality 
of  Japan.  Loyalty  and  patriotism  are  peculiarly  strong  because  that  faith 
teaches  that  God  inspired  the  foundation  of  the  mikadoate,  and  that  it  is 
therefore  sacred.    Our  filial  piety,  connubial  affection,  parental  tenderness 


KABURAGI:   THET  SHINTO   RELIGION.  1373 

originate  in  our  reverence  for  God.  The  relation  of  husband  and  wife 
began  in  the  first  parents  of  Japan  when  God  bade  them  "establish  and 
rule  this  unsettled  land."  His  command  implied  choice  of  them,  and  the 
achievement  of  all  work  by  the  fellow  working  of  man  and  woman. 

4.  Conclusion. — The  fundamental  doctrine  of  Confucianism  is  different 
from  that  of  our  faith.  It  is  that  "  the  fate  of  the  imperial  throne  is  not 
fixed,  that  heaven  always  hears  the  people  and  puts  down' the  king  they 
hate  ; "  ours  is  that  the  throne  is  fixed  by  God,  and  is  unchangeable.  Bud- 
dhism asserts  that  Buddha,  its  scriptures  and  its  order  are  the  most 
important  things  in  the  world,  and  that  the  mikado  deserves  only  the 
respect  accorded  to  ordinary  men.  Chri^anity  alone  can  satisfy  oar  every 
demand.  All  Shinto  sects  hate  Christianity,  but  Japan's  primitive  religion 
does  not  oppose  it,  and  is  ready  to  transfer  to  it  its  power  &nd  influence. 


THE  SHINTO  RELIGION. 

By  p.  Goro  Kaburagi. 

"  Shinto  "  means  "  the  way  of  God."  The  religion  was  formed  in  "  the 
land  of  great  peace  "  (Japan),  and  teaches  one  eternal  God,  too  honorable, 
to  receive  homage  or  prayer  directly. '  He  must  be  addressed  through  infer-.' 
ior  gods.  In  his  temple  is  neither  picture  nor  image.  The  temples  are 
extremely  simple,  standing  generally  in  some  sequestered  site.  The  booksj 
comprise  Kojiki,  compiled  A.D.  712,  Nihongi  2LnA  i)/a«j/oj/4/«,  the  latter  two 
nearly  as  old  and  valuable  as  the  first.  The  language  is  ancient  Japanese  ; 
hence  the  common  people  cannot  understand  them.  Shintoism  observes  an 
impressive  sacrifice,  but  its  god  does  not  accept  dead  animals.  There  is  a 
ceremony  called  Yu-Kagura,  i.  e.,  "  making-the-gods-pleasing  ceremony  of 
the  hot  water."  The  priest  sets  a  large  boiler  on  the  ground  filled  with 
pure  water.  When  it  boils,  he  puts  in  pure  salt,  takes  boughs  of  the  holy 
tree,  and  sprinkles  the  congregation  to  purify  their  uncleanness.  This  act 
pleases  the  gods,  and  takes  away  their  iniquities.  On  festival  days  virgins 
in  new  white  robes  dance  the  holy  dance  of  the  children  of  the  gods. 
Shinto  has  no  written  moral  code,  no  system  of  abstract  doctrine,  because 
the  laws  of  God  are  engrossed  in  the  heart.  This  indwelling  is  the  living 
law  governing  the  moral  nature.  Formal  prayer  is  not  of  much  importance, 
but  believers  observe  prayer  services.  Confession  of  sin  is  made,  and  the 
wrath  of  the  Highest  Being  averted.  The  emperor  is  the  representative  ofi 
the  entire  nation  and  must  therefore  be  its  model.  So  our  sovereigns  have 
always  worshiped  the  gods  in  person,  and  prayed  that  their  people  might 
enjoy  sufficiency.  In  the  sixth  and  twelfth  months  the  people  assemble  at 
the  rivers,  wash  and  pray,  and  by  general  purification  purge  the  nation  of 


^ 


1374        PARLIAMENT  PAPERS:  SCIENTIFIC  SECTION. 

offense  and  pollution.     This  is  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  Shinto. 
Since  the  mikado  is  the  divine  vicegerent,  it  is  the  duty  of  all  to  obey  him. 

His  words  were  originally  our  sole  law Punishment  of  evil-doers  and 

reward  for  the  just  are  strictly  observed  in  Shinto.  Yet  many  superstitions 
were  practiced.  If  Shinto  has  a  dogma,  it  is  purity.  The  very  idea  is 
carried  out  in  many  ceremonies.  The  priest  must  cover  mouth  and  nose 
with  pure  white  paper  that  his  breath  may  not  defile  the  sacrifice.  Shintoists 
must  neither  touch  nor  look  upon  dead  or  unclean  things.  Shintoism  pos- 
I  sesses  three  divine  regalia,  the  mirror,  the  sword  and  the  seal.  .  The  mirror 
/  is  the  emblem  of  the  soul  of  the  sun-goddess,  who  gave  them  to  our  first 
I  emperor.  •  The  regalia  still  receive  homage  at  the  shrine  of  Ese.  Shinto 
teaches  that  all  men  were  born  of  the  sun-goddess,  acknowledjges  a  beaten, 
but. has  no  hell.  The  soul  can  not  be  defiled.  The  flesh  can,  and  God 
punishes  sins  injtheilesh.  Death  isThe^ErgSesTpunishment,  and  through  it 
the  soul  escapes  punishment  and  pollution.  But  Shinto  has  no  theology, 
every  Shintoist  forming  his  own.  It  is  dying,  not  because  of  its  own  weak- 
ness, but  because  a  better  religion  has  appeared — ^the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
ChristianitY  is  the  rising  sim  o^  IgP-g"-  :  .       '       . 


':    THE  THREE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SHINTOISM. 

By  Nishikawa  Sugao,  Priest   amd  Vice-Adminstrator  of  the 

JiTSKOSHU. 

Three  principles  must  be  strictly  followed  that  the  state  be  well  gov- 
erned :  worship,  adminstration,  teaching.  Worship  (the  rite  or  the  spiritual 
attitude)  means  the  union  of  our  hearts  to  the  gods,  an  inseparable  union. 
Worship  occupies  the  most  important  place  in  life.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the 
national  constitution,  the  foundation  of  adminstration,  the  fount  of  morality, 
the  source  of  doctrine.  Worship  is  the  spirit  of  our  constitution,  because  the 
gods  created  and  commanded  worship;  the  foundation  of  administration, 
because  the  latter's  multitudinous  branches  are  only  adjuncts  to  the  mikado's 
duty  of  worshiping  his  ancestors  and  praying  for  his  people  ;  the  fount  of 
morality,  because  filial  piety  requires  ancestor-worship  ;  and  the  source  of 
teaching,  because  our  moral  ideas  rose  in  worship  and  the  sun-goddess 
taught  duty.  Worship  is  the  body,  administration  its  activities.  Politicians 
too  often  forget  this,  and  consider  administration  more  important  than  wor- 
ship. No  mischief  to  the  state  can  be  greater.  Teaching  signifies  pity  for 
people  ignorant  of  the  profound  meanings  and  intimate  connections  of  wor- 
ship and  administration.  Thus  they  sin.  Hidde.ii5ins_are  punished  by  the 
gods,  manifest  ones  by  the  mikado.  The  subjects  of  teaching  include  mys- 
teries and  manifest  things.    "  Mysteries  "  search  into  divine  existence,  and 


SNELL:    THE   SCIENCE   OF    RELIGION.  1 375 

communion  with  divine  spirits.     The  result  is  reform  of  conduct.      "Mani- 
fest "  things  refer  to  understanding  human  relations,  and  achieving  peace 
and  prosperity  for  the  state.     The  result  is  blessedness  of  heart.     "  Myster- 
ies "  influence  the  external  by  cultivating  the   internal;  "manifest"  things/ 
influence  the  internal  by  reforming  the  external.     Both  aim  at  human  peace' 
and  happiness. 


RELATIONS  OF  THE  SCIENCE    OF   RELIGIONS  TO 

PHILOSOPHY.  .        . 

•       '  By  Mr,  Merwin-Marie  Snell, 

Exact  knowledge  may  be  divided  into  the  metempiric  sciences,  the 
empiric,  and  the  mixed.  The  science  of  comparative  religion,  or  hierology, 
belongs  in  the  last  class.  There  are  those  who,  following  strictly  empiric 
methods,  try  to  construct  a  history  of  religion  with  religion  left  out — confin- 
ing their  attention  to  material  accessories  of  worship,  or  at  farthest  studying 
empirically  the  traditionary  epics,  the  religious  literatures  and  the  dogma, 
thinking  thus  to  cover  the  whole  field. 

But  the  science  ot  religion  may  be  extended  to  include  the  philosophy 
of  religion  in  its  application  to  the  history  pi  religions.  As  analytic  and 
comparative  processes  enlarge  and  deepen,  the  history  of  religions  trans- 
forms itself  into  a  history  of  religion,  and  ^hen  into  the  philosophy  of  relig- 
ions, which  is  a  speculative  science.  The  science  of  religions  is  compelled 
to  assume  among  its  materials  nearly  the  whole  content  of  the  history  of 
philosophy.  Every  religion  implies  a  world-conception  which  becomes  a 
philosophy  as  soon  as  clearly  thought  out.  Every  philosophy  carries  cer- 
tain religious  consequences.  Religions  are  veiled  philosophies.  Only 
when  wedded  with  the  philosophy  of  religion 'does  the  importance  of  the 
science  of  religions  become  fully  manifest. 

There  is  not  a  perfect  parallel  between  the  science  of  religions  and  that 
of  history.  The  philosophy  of  history  is  an  illumination  of  historical  sci- 
ence.    The  philosophy  of  religion  is  the  very  heart  of  religious  science. 

Of  course,  the  empiric  and  the  philosophical  sides  of  the  science  of 
religions  have  a  reciprocal  function.  When  religions  come  to  be  studied  by 
specialists  who  unite  to  a  natural  aptitude  for  scientific  analysis  and  philo- 
sophic synthesis  a  thorough  training  in  the  history  of  philosophy  and  the 
philosophy  of  religion,  hierology  will  stride  toward  a  position  in  which  it 
will  be  able  not  only  to  furnish  an  incalculable  aid  to  the  determination  of 
practical  problems  of  life  and  duty,  but  in  some  measure  to  pay  its  debt  to 
philosophy.    • 


THE  TENKALAIS'RI    VAISHNAVA,  OR   SOUTHER> 
RAMANUJA  RELIGION. 

By  S.  Parthasarathy  Aiyangar,  Madras. 

'i^'i^J     ;»  4  The  Visishtadvaiti  theology  recognizes  five  elements  in  religion  :  tht 

."•v-'',. '-''■,'■         Lord  ;  man  ;  objects  of  the  soul's  endeavor;  divine  grace,  the  means  to  the 
tit-  -  attainment  of  the  highest  goal ;  and  obstacles  to  be  overcome.     The  height 

U;  ■.•^■^.'' -.  -  i"' i^'        of  religious  knowledge  is  the  thorough  comprehension  of  these  five  ele- 
S^^"^:>  •'- iV '"■^:    mentsin  the  five  subdivisions  into  which  they  are  divided.     L  The  Lord 
"iri'     has  five  manifestations  :    Supreme  manifestation,  as  the  beautiful,  refulgent, 
->:•;      omnipresent  Lord,  "gracing  the  highest  heaven;"  operative  manifestation, 
■       as  the.  Impartial  Absorber,  as  the  Illuminator,  and  as  the  Unhindered;  dis- 
tinctive  manifestation   in   his   avatars,  as  Rama,  Krishna,  etc. ;  pervasive 
manifestation,  the  divine  presence  in^the  believer's  heart  and  soul ;  and 
worship-manifestation  in  all  existing  things.     II.  Souls  are  of  five  classes  : 
•  The  eternals,  "  the  commander  of  hosts,"  and  his  fellow  angels  or  gods  ; 
the  released,  i.  e.,  redeemed  souls  enjoying  the  blessedness  of  heaven ;  the 
bound,  I.  e.,  men  plunged  in  the  delusions  of  s6nse ;  the  selfrsatisfied,  they 
who  have  risen  to  the  perception  of  the  soul  by  means  of  knowledge-dis- 
cipline, and  are  thus  content  without  going  on  to  the  vision  of  God  ;  and 
the  god-satisfied  or  salvation-seekers,  those  who  are  desirous  of  being  saved 
~    from  selfishness  or   self-sufficiency.      III.    The  goal  of  endeavor  is  five- 
fold:  Virtue  or  duty  ;  wealth  and  its  right  use  ;  delight  in  sense-objects  and 
in  the  pleasure  of  the  celestial  worlds ;  enjoyment  of  self  in  freedom  from 
the  consciousness  of  pain,  or  in  the  consciousness  of  self  alone  ;  and  god- 
satisfaction,  which  has  eleven  stages,  culminating  in  the  enjoyment  of  God 
in  eternal  bliss.     IV.  The  means  to  the  attainment  of  the  goal  are  :  Works  ; 
knowledge ;  holy  love  ;  faith  ;  and  the  teacher's  grace.      V.  The  obstacles 
are:  Self-essence;  sovereignty;  the  soul's  goal;  means;  and  attainment. 
This  theology  looks  upon  man  as  essentially  a  mutable  spiritual  monad  dis- 
tinct from  the  body,   eternal  from  the  eternal  operation  of  divine  grace, 
having  knowledge  and  bliss,  and  intended  for  God's  service  alone. 

The  body  is  mortal  and  ever-changing,  the  breeder  of  endless  woe,  the 
source  of  endless  delusion.  The  body  and  the  material  world  fall  under 
twenty-four  categories,  spirit  constitutes  the  twenty  fifth  category,  and  the 
supreme  Deity  the  twenty-sixth  and  highest.  Relatives  and  worldly  ties 
are  obstacles  to  Godward  progress,  encourage  selfishness,  and  prevent  the 
acquisition  of  spiritual  knowledge.  Those  who  pursue  the  objects  of  sense 
or  of  any  form  of  selfish  knowledge  or  delectation  are  enemies  to  the  scrv- 

1376 


AIYANGAR:  SOUTHERN  RAMANUJA  RELIGION.        I  37/ 

ice  and  communion  of    God,  and  are   hopelessly  bound  in  the  wheel  of 
rebirth. 

Gods  other  than  the  Lord  of  All  are  merely  his  offspring,  holding  posts 
which  he  has  assigned  to  them,  and  are  to  be  regarded  as  ignorant  and 
impotent.  Through  their  pride  they  sometimes  defy  God,  and  are  bloated 
with  self-conceit  of  their  own  worth,  and  mislead  the  world.  Our  prophets 
and  saints,  who  have  known  and  joined  the  omnipresent  Lord,  are  by  the 
Universal  Mother  (Lakshmi)  sent  in  mercy  as  guides  to  the  aspiring  soul. 
They  are  the  fosterers  of  divine  wisdom,  who  have  left  all  else,  loving  God 
alone.  For  them  alone  the  devout  soul  should  live ;  they  are  his  brethren 
in  faith,  and  mark  the  goal  of  aspiratioi^.  Our  apostles  and  sages  have  by 
reasoning  and  preaching  fostered  and  preserved  for  all  ages  the  glorious 
light  of  divine  truth  brought  into  the  world  by  the  prophets.  Their  histories 
are  given  in  the  Guru-parain-para-prabhava.  ■  ■ 

The  teacher  is  th'e  object  of  special  reverence.  The  disciple  should 
serve  him  most  faithfully  as  lord  and  master,  from  gratitude  for  conversion, 
instruction  and  guidance.  God  is  only  to  be  reached  through  the  teacher. 
The  stages  of  growth  are  :  serving  God  through  the  teacher,  serving  saints 
on  earth  according  to  the  will  of  the  Lord,  and  serving  the  teacher  accord- 
ing to  the  will  of  the  saints.  The  teacher  should  be  loved  with  exclusive 
love  and  devotion,  being  identified  with  every  other  goal.  God's  uncondi- 
tional election  includes  that  of  a  teacher  who  is  divinely  chosen  to  be  pro- 
tector and  mediator.  The  teacher  himself  is  to  take  no  glory,  but  attribute 
all  to  his  own  teacher. 

Ramanujacharya  is  venerated  as  a  saviour,  and  still  more  is  Krishna, 
identical  with  Rama  and  an  incarnation  of  God.  Faith  consists  in  trusting 
him  ;  it  has  no  limits.  It  is  the  true  method  of  salvation,  for  which  all  other 
means  should  be  abandoned.  He  who  trusts  in  the  Saviour,  simply  abandon- 
ing himself  to  him  without  effort  of  his  own,  will,  by  God's  free  grace, 
without  regard  to  merit,  be  led  through  all  stages  of  progress,  from  the 
abandonment  of  hatred  to  the  service  of  God  and  the  godly.  The  good 
deeds  of  him  who  does  not  so  trust  appear  sins  to  God,  while  the  very  sins 
of  him  who  trusts  may  appear  as  virtues. 

The  Vedanta,  in  teaching  other  ways  of  salvation,  is  simply  prescribing 
God  hidden  under  these  other  ways.  They  are  prescribed  to  those  who  have 
not  risen  high  enough  to  be  able  or  willing  to  use  faith. 

The  Universal  Mother,  Lakshmi,  the  Sakta  or  personal  energy  of  Vishnu 
(the  latter  identified  with  the  Supreme  Deity),  is  lady  and  goddess  of  the 
worlds,  and  the  mediatrix  between  God  and  the  soul.  She  checks  sin  and 
stirs  up  divine  mercy  and  love  for  sinners.  In  her  incarnation  as  Sita,  the 
bride  of  Rama,  she  is  especially  to  be  venerated  as  our  lady  of  mercy  and 
grace.  She  is  the  beloved  of  the  Lord,  incarnate  in  Rdma.  She  converts 
the  soul  by  her  mercy  and  the  Lord  by  her  beauty. 

The  God  of  all  is  the  universal  Creator  who  pervades  and  sustains  the 

87 


1378       PARLIAMENT   PAPERS:   SCIENTIFIC   SECTION. 

whole  universe.  He  is  the  God  of  life,  causes  enmities  to  cease,  awakens 
love  and  dispenses  salvation  at  his  own  good  pleasure  and  by  his  sovereign 
free  grace. 

The  Veda  is  the  Word  of  God,  and  of  binding  authority.     Its  meaning 
is  determined  by  the  law  books,  the  sacred  biographies,  the  sacred  histories. 
The  most  authoritative  are  the  sacred  biographies.     The  greatest  of  these  is 
the  Ramayana,  which  sets  forth  the  glory  of  Sita ;  the  other  sacred  biog- 
raphy is  the  Bh&rata,  which  sets  forth  the  glory  of  Krishna  the  Saver,  who 
1        went  as  ^aessenger.     The  Krishna  Yajur-Veda,  and  the  works  of  Rim4- 
:•      ;•   nujachaiya,  the  founder  of  our  religion,  are  especially  venerated.     Among 
--      our  chief  "sacred  books  are  the  text  and  Telugu  commentaries  of  the  Dra- 
'<"      .  midupanishad,  the  PancharStra,  •  the  Periya  Tiru-Mali,  the  Perunial  Tiru- 
..Mali,  and'theS'rt  Vachana  Bhiishana,  the  masterpiece  of  Pillai  Lokasha- 
i-^ri-^'.- v  •     ,.  raya.-;pur  metropolis  is  in  S'ri  Rangoon.     The  Tengalai  form  of  Vaishna- 
^>;;itvv•.c=,      vism,'  with  which  this  paper  deals,  is  widely  prevalent  in  Southern  India, 
;■  while,its  other  division,  called  the  Vadagalai,  which  differs  in  its  doctrine  of 

grace  and  other  particulars,  is  princip'ally  confined  to  the.  North. 


■«-r 


'    .:WHY  PROTESTANT   MISSIONARIES  IN  CHINA 
SHOULD  UNITE  IN  USING  "TIEN-CHU"  FOR  GOD. 

"^  "By  Henry  Blodgett,  D.D.,  Peking,  China. 

'   \\Firsi. — ^The  entire   Christian  Church  would   be   at  one   in  China   as 
regards  the  word  for  God.   ,    • 

Sec(md. — Protestant  missions  in  China,  Corea  and  Japan  would  be  at 
one  among  themselves  on  this  point.  At  present  there  are  three  ways  of 
representing  the  word  God  in  translations  of  the  Scriptures  into  Chinese, 
and  large  editions  are  published  with  each.  One  has  used  Sken,  which 
many  Protestants  and  all  Roman  and  Greek  missionaries  use  for  Spirit  when 
speaking  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Another  uses  Shang-  Ti,  which  the  Roman 
Catholics  after  long  controversy  rejected  as  inconsistent  with  doctrinal  purity, 
and  to  which  many  Protestant  missionaries  object  on  the  same  ground,  and 
which  the  Greek  Church  does  not  use.  The  third  way  is  to  use  Tien-Chti, 
which  is  used  by  the  Latin  and  Greek  Churches.  The  variation  is  not  only 
embarrassing  to  Bible  societies,  but  is  a  source  of  serious  difficulty  in  mission 
work. 

Third. — The  experience  of  eighty-five  years  has  proven  that  Shen  is 
insufficient  as  a  translation. 

Fourth. — Christian  charity  requires  concession  on  the  part  of  those  who 
use  Shang-Ti  to  brethren  who  cannot  conscientiously  use  the  word,  and  have 
adopted  Tien-Chu.     Between  the  two  terms  lies  a  deep  doctrinal  difference. 

Copyiight,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B. 


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.-^ 


1380      PARLIAMENT    PAPERS:    SCIENTIFIC   SECTION. 

Is  it  safe  to  teach  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God  in  the  use  of  the  term 
Shang-Ti,  which* has  always  been  the  name  of  the  chief  object  of  worship 
in  the  national  cult,  standing  at  the  head  of  a  multitude  of  other  objects  of 
worship,  and  intimately  associated  with  them  ?  To  this  question  many  have 
always  given   a  negative  answer. 

Fifth. — This  way  out  of  the  controversy,  by  the  use  of  Tien-Chu,  is  not 
new  to  the  thoughts  of  Protestant  missionaries ;  nor  has  it  wanted  the  con- 
sent and  advocacy  of  conspicuous  names  on  both  sides. 

No  word  in  Chinese  language  has  more  of  religious  reverence  attached 

to  it  than  Tien  (Heaven).     To  Ihfs  Chii  (Lord)  has  been  added  by  Chris- 

''tianity   to   make   it  persona],  and  to  show  that  not   the   creature,  but   the 

Creator   of  all   is   to  be   worshiped.     Thus   Tien  Chu  will   ever  stand   in 

Chinese  as  a  protest  against  nature  worship,  and  significant  of  the  true  God 


THE  DOCTRINE  AND  LIFE  OF  THE  SHAKERS. 
By  Daniel  Offord,  Mount  Lebanon,  N.  Y. 

-  Ann  Lee  found  the  root  of  sin  to  be  lust.  She  purged"  her  spirit.  She 
proclaimed  the  Motherhood  of  God,  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  community  of 
interest,  virginity  of  life,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Second  Pentecostal 
Church  in  America  in  1774.  Thus  the  Shaker  community  is  an  outflow  of 
the  divine  in  man.  The  desires. are  antagonistic  to  the  divine  form  of  soci- 
ety, and  the  natural  man  cannot  attain  that  social'  life.  A  community  open 
to  all  can  be  sustained  only  upon  Christ,  upon  the  divine  life.  In  the  divine 
order  not  one  propensity  can  have  place,  though  generation  is  right  in  its 
place  when  not  corrupted. 

Our  organization's  have  demonstrated  the  practicability  of  Christian 
communism.  Equality  has  solved  the  labor  problem.  Poverty  is  abolished ; 
war  done  away.  Having  no  creed,  dogma  or  forms.  Shakers  accept  new 
truth  and  make  improvements  when  imperfections  are  revealed  and  a  better 
way  shown.  We  condemn  none  who  differs.  When  the  worldly  obey  the 
law  of  God  in  nature,  we  shall  have  the  new  earth  and  two  orders.  These 
comprise  the  natural  order,  for  the  worldly ;  and  the  spiritual  order,  for  those 
worthy  to  attain  the  resurrection.  Shakers  are  freed  from  passion,  and  obe- 
dience to  the  laws  of  our  being  will  free  them  from  disease.  At  present 
earth's  spiritual  horizon  is  illumined  from  above. 

Our  object  is  to  enfold  all  who  would  rise  above  their  propensities  and 
develop  the  superior  Hie.  Such  have  reached  the  end  of  the  world,  and  are 
ripe  for  harvesting  into  heavenly  garners.  This  divine  life  is  attained  by 
confession  of  sin  before  a  witness  of  Christ-like  life  and  spirit;  by  chastity; 
by  community  of  property;  by  debt-paying;  by  peaceableness  and  non- 
resistance;  by  diligence  and  manual  labor;  and  by  equality  between  the 
sexes. 


PART   FOURTH. 

THE    SEVERAL    RELIGIOUS 
CONGRESSES. 


PART   FOURTH. 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL    CONGRESSES. 


PRESENTATION  OF  THE* ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 

By  the  Rev.  Thomas  Richey,  S.T.D.,  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical 
History  in  the  General  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 

Deliveied  before  the  Parliament  of  Religions,'  September  2sth. 

When  Augustine,  the  Italian  monk  and  missionary,  sent  out  by  Gregory 
the  Great  to  convert  the  Angles  of  Britain,  reached  the  sphere  of  his  mission 
in  597,  he  found  in  hiding  there  a  regularly  organized  church,  with  its  own 
distinctive  characteristics  and  its  own  peculiar  rites  and  ceremonies. 

In  the  year  12 15,  the  three  Estates  of  the  realm  of  England  drew  up  at 
Runnymede,  in  defiance  of  the  base  betrayal  of  their  liberties  by  the  king, 
the  Magna  Charta,  the  first  article  of  which  reads,  "  The  Church  of  England 
shall  be  free,  and  her  rights  and  liberties  respected." 

Three  hundred  years  after,  the  English  Parliament,  following  up  the 
petition  of  convocation  to  the  king,  passed  an  act  in  1533,  declaring  that 
"  the  Crown  of  England  was  imperial,  and  the  nation  a  complete  body  in 
itself,  with  full  power  to  give  to  all  manner  of  folk  justice  in  all  cases,  spirit- 
ual as  well  as  temporal,  without  restraint  or  appeal  to  any  foreign  power  or 
potentate :  the  body  spiritual  having  power  when  any  cause  of  the  law 
divine  happened  to  come  into  question  to  declare  and  interpret  by  that  part 
of  the  body  politic  called  the  spiritual,  now  being  usually  called  the  English 

Church, all  doubts,  without  the  intermeddling  of  any  exterior 

power." 

In  complying  with  the  request  to  presen  the  claims  of  the  Church  of 
England  before  the  Parliament  of  Religions,  I  have  selected  these  three 
great  critical  epochs  in  her  history  as  best  calculated  to  illustrate  in  a  prac- 
tical way,  within  the  short  time  allotted  me,  the  principles  for  which  the 
English  Church  has  always  contended,  and  on  the  maintenance  of  which  she 
rests  (i)  her  historic  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  faithful  witness  to  the  tradi- 
tions and  teachings  of  the  apostolic  age;  (2)  her  claim  as  a  national  church 
to  be  the  defender  of  civil  and  religious  liberty;  and  (3)  her  claim  to  be 
Copyright,  1893,  by  J.  H.  B.  . 

I3«3 


13^4  THE    DENOMtPJATlONAL   CO^fGRE55StS. 

providentially  called  to  be   the  "healer  of   the   breach"   for  a  divided 
Christendom. 

I.   The  historical  claim  of  the  English  Church  as  a  faithful  witness  of  the 
traditions  and  teaching  of  the  apostolic  age. 

When  Augustine  landed  in  Britain  he  found,  as  I  have  already  said,  an 
ancient  church  existing  there,  in  hiding  through  the  violence  of  its  enemies. 
It  was  a  church  which  had  already  vindicated  its  claim  to  catholicity  by  the 
part  which  it  had  taken  at  the  Council  of  Aries,  in  314,  against  the  schism  of 
the  Donatists ;  and  had  received  imperial  recognition  at  the  Council  of  Arimi- 
.'  J    -  num  in  359,  where  British  bishops  were  present,  and  because  of  their  poverty 

A.c  tn.  .i       had  been  compelled  to  accept  the  aid  of  the  Emperor  to  enable  them  to  reach 
<5^t-'r:''»^    the  council.    '         .       ,    .  -.  ... 

■f^i^^ji'r-'  '■  ••  When,  in  the  year  603,  Augustine  first  came  into  direct  personal  contact 
*-r^;?3^>.>  with  the  British  Church,  he  fouiid  it  differing  from  the  Roman.  Church  in  its 
'■f^^^^.'r:  .  ■  time  for  observing  the  Easter  festival,  in  its  mode  of  administering  the  rite  of 
''^^r^.-'i:  ■'^baptism,  in  its  fomr  of  tonsure,  and  in  consecrating  to  the  Episcopate  by  one 
■'^i^*- .  bishop  only.    None  of  these,  it  will  be  noted,  were  points  of  difference  which 

1?:^'^^!".  .  troubled  the  faith :  they  were,  without  exception,  questions  of  rites  and  cere- 
monies, and  are  all  capable  of  easy  explanation.  '  ;  ■'■'''. 
%f'', :  .  It  may,  as  a  rule,  be  taken  for  granted  that  when  the  divisions  of  a 
family  come  to  an  open  rupture,  the  reasons  given  for  the  breaking  of  the 
bond  of  peace  are  not  a  fair  representation  of  the  matter  at  issue.  It  is 
^ct"-'"*  manifest,  on  the  very  face  of  it,  that  no  one  of  the  points  of  difference  between 
the  Roman  and  the  British  and  Scoto-Celtic  churches  was  in  itself  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  be  regarded  as  a  ground  of  separation.  It  is  absurd  to 
imagine  that  either  St.  Peter  or  St.  John  (as  was  maintained  by  the  contend- 
ing parties  at  the  Council  of  Whitby  in  664)  furnished  an  ecclesiastic  model 
for  cutting  hair.  It  is  equally  absurd  to  argue  that  there  is  anything  beyond 
the  proper  method  and  the  proper  form  essential  to  a  valid  baptism.  While 
it  is  true  that  in  order  to  ensure  the  integrity  of  the  succession  the  canon  of 
the  Council  of  Nice  requires  three  consecrators,  it  is  equally  true  that  the 
validity  of  the  rite  depends  not  upon  the  number  of  consecrators,  but  upon 
the  fact  that  the  grace  conferred  shall  be  conveyed  through  the  channel  of  a 
successor  of  the  apostles.  The  real  question  at  issue  was  not  the  form  of 
tonsure,  nor  the  difference  between  the  new  and  old  way  of  keeping  Easter, 
nor  the  choice  between  one  or  three  immersions  in  baptism,  or  the  use  of 
chrism  in  connection  with  the  rite  ;  nor  the  number  of  consecrators  necessary 
to  a  valid  consecration,  but  the  right  to  differ  in  things,  not  essential,  as 
claimed  by  the  Churches  of  Asia  Minor  in  the  apostolic  age  upon  the  one 
side,  and  the  claim  to  absolute  authority  and  conformity  on  the  other.  This 
the  Church  of  England  has  always  refused  to  acknowledge,  as  opposed  to 
the  practice  and  teaching  of  the  apostolic  age,  and  at  variance  with  the 
liberty  which  Christ  himself  bestowed  upon  the  church,  when,  in  view  of  the 
exigencies  of  the  future,  he  neither  established  a  form  of  polity,  nor  provided 
for  an  unvarying  ritual. 


rkOF.  THOMAS   RICMKV,  U.D.,  NEW  YORK;. 

"  I  THINK  THIS  r.\RI.IAMKNT  OK  KICI.IOIONS  KEI'KliSENTS  ONE  GREAT  IKIVCIl'LE.  IT  IS  THE 
I'RINCII'LE  THAT  RELIGION  IS  NATURAL  TO  MANAS  MAN,  ANU  MAKES  THE  HIMAN  RACE  ONE. 
WE  CHRISTIAN  MEN,  THEN,  CAN  HAVE  No  HESITATION  IN  WELCOMING  MERE  ANV  MAN  WHO  IS 
MADE  IN  THE  IMAGE  OK  HIS  MAKER,  ANO  HAS  THE  THIRST  THAT  RICI.IGION  I'.IV  ES  nUKNING  IN 
HIS  HEART.  IT  IS  NOT  KOR  CHRISTIANITY'  TO  LAV  AGAIN  THE  lOUNDATION  WHICH  GOO  HIMSELF 
HAS  LAID  IN  THE  HEARTS  OK  MEN." 


1386  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

II.  The  Church  of  England  as  the  defender  and  maintainer  of  the 
principle  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

Mr.  Green  in  his  "  Making  of  England  "  has  observed  that  it  was  a 
happy  circumstance  that  the  Council  of  Whitby,  when  the  controversy  came 
to  a  final  issue,  decided  to  adopt  the  new  and  not  the  old  style  of  keeping 
Easter.  I  think  so  too.  It  is  ^schylus,  if  I  remember  rightly  who  in  his  play- 
ing upon  the  word  Helen  says,  "  A  providence  rules  in  the  gift  of  a  name." 
If  the  British  Church  and  her  sister,  the  Scoto-Celtic  Church,  were  in  the 
good  providence  of  God  separated  for  a  time  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  and 
used  their  time  of  separation  well  for  the  work  given  them  to  do,  it  is  of  faith 
-4.'  also  to  believe  that  the  fair  faces  of  the  Saxon  children  which  stirred  the 
•  sympathies  of  Gregory  the  Great  in  the  slave  market  at  Rome,  were  in 
.the  providence  of  God  of  the  natilre  of  a  divine  call  to  open  the  door,  which 
the  violence  of  the  barbarian  had  so  long  closed,  and  to  lead  the  virgin  bride 
into  the  "  ivory  palaces."  .  -  :'    ,      " 

Nor  was  it  by  accident  we  may  believe  that  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  educated 
under  the  influence  of  the  same  Greek  schools  which  made  Saint  Paul  the 
chosen  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  was  the  man  selected  for  the  work  of  fusing 
a  mere' collection  of  missions  among  a  few  scattered  tribes  into  a  national 
church,  under  one  head ;  and  united  together  by  the  points  and  bands  of  a  prop- 
erly arranged  system  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction.  Guizot  in  his  lectures  on 
civilizatioa  tells  us  that  it  was  not  Christianity  as  a  moral  influence,  affecting 
-  '  the  individual,  but  the  Christian  Church  as  an  organization,  which  saved  the 
world  when  society  was  broken  up  by  the  inroads  of  the  barbarians.  So  it 
is  now  acknowledged  by  all  who  are  familiar  with  the  making  of  England, 
that  it  was  the  Church  of  England  which  first  laid  the  foundations  of  national 
unity  and  paved  the  way  for  uniting  the  Heptarchy  into  a  solidarity  under  one 
head.  What  Augustine  failed  to  do,  Theodore  accomplished  ;  and  he  accom- 
plished it  without  any  compromise  of  principle,  either  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other.  Then,  as  now,  the  Church  of  England  was  afflicted  with  a  disease 
which  may,  for  the  lack  of  a  better  word,  be  called  the  Roman  itch.  When 
Wilfred  of  York  refused  (as  bishops  now-a-days  are  also  prone  to  do)  to  con- 
sent to  the  division  of  his  vast  diocese,  and  made  the  new  condition  of  things 
a  ground  of  excuse  for  an  appeal  to  Rome,  Theodore  refused  to  obey  the 
summons  to  leave  the  country  and  attend  a  Council  at  Constantinople.  He 
set  at  naught  the  anathema  against  any  one  who  should  resist  the  decree  for 
the  remstating  of  Wilfred.  As  Theodore  refused  to  acknowledge  the  undue 
influence  of  authority  from  without,  so  also  he  sought  to  harmonize  into  one 
the  conflicting  elements  within.  He  took  occasion  to  unite  together  the 
Roman  and  the  British  lines  of  succession,  by  making  the  saintly  Chad 
Bishop  of  Litchfield  as  a  reward  for  his  meekness,  in  not  turning  his  previous 
ordination  into  a  bone  of  contention  ;  and  accepting  the  more  canonical  ordi- 
nation of  the  Nicene  canon,  to  make  surety  more  sure.  The  ground  taken 
by  Theodore  in  the  matter  was  sustained  by  the  Council  of  Clovesham  in  747, 


ANGLICAN.  1387 

which,  when  Cuthbert,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  proposed  to  refer  difficult 
questions  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  refused  to  compromise  the  dignity  of  their 
church,  and  declared  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  be  its  supreme  head. 
The  action  of  the  Council  was  one  which  had  already  been  taken  by  the  North 
African  Church,  and  the  Churches  of  Cappadocia,  Galatia  and  Bithynia, 
which  refused  to  acknowledge  the  excommunication  of  Stephen,  when  he 
insisted  upon  making  the  law  of  the  Roman  Church  the  rule  of  the  Church 
Universal  in  the  matter  of  baptism.  St.  Cyprian  in  Africa,  as  well  as  Fir- 
milian  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia,  maintained  the  independence  of  the 
churches  of  North  Africa  and  Cappadocia.  He  is  truly  the  schimastic,  Fir- 
milian  said,  who  by  his  act  of  excomm^unication  has  cut  himself  off  from  the 
communion  of  the  unity  of  the  (Church. 

But  it  is  to  Runnymede  and  to  the  events  connected  wHh  the  passing 
of  the  Magna  Charta,  we  must  turn  for  the  most  noteworthy  illustration  of 
the  English  Church  as  the  defender  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  John,  the 
basest  king  that  ever  sat  upon  the  throne  of  England,  was  guilty  of  the 
double  sin  of  betraying,  for  his  own  personal  aggrandizement,  both  the  civil 
and  religious  liberty  of  the  people  of  England.  When  he  failed  to  have  his 
own  creature  appointed  to  the  throne  of  Canterbury,  he  compromised  with 
Innocent  the  Third,  and  in  order  to  gain  him  over  to  his  side,  he  consented 
to  hold  his  crown  and  kingdom  as  a  fief  of  the  Roman  See.  The  answer  of  the 
English  Church  people,  headed  by  Stephen  Langton,  was  in  effect  :  "  No 
Italian  priest  shall  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominions." 

III.  The  Church  of  England  as  providentially  called  to  be  the  "healer 
of  the  breach  "for  a  divided  Christendom. 

There  is  one  great  principle  which  the  Parliament  of  Religions  repre- 
sents,— Religion  is  natural  to  man  as  man. 

Christianity  does  not  seek  to  lay  anew  the  foundations  of  religion  in 
the  soul  of  man.  As  the  Ma$ter  came  not  to  do  his  own  will,  but  the  will  of 
his  Father  who  sent  him,  so  it  is  the  work  of  the  church  not  to  destroy,  but 
to  supplement,  restore,  correct  and  renew,  the  law  at  the  first  written  on  the 
heart.  And  if  it  be  the  duty  of  the  church,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Master,  to  reverence  the  image  of  his  maker  in  every  man,  and  to  seek,  by 
the  aid  of  divine  grace,  to  renew  and  restore  it,  it  is  no  less  her  duty  in 
ministering  to  the  nations  of  the  earth  to  acknowledge,  not  only  that  their 
metes  and  bounds  are  appointed  them  of  God,  but  that  the  varied  gifts  also 
which  have  been  given  to  them  are  the  gift  of  God,  and  determine  for  each 
the  mission  assignedjo  it  in  the  scheme  of  divine  providence.  Who  so 
blind  as  not  to  recognize  the  claim  of  ancient  Egypt  to  be  the  oldest  among 
the  civilized  nations  of  the  earth  ?  Who  that  has  ever  read  the  charming 
story  of  Herodotus  is  not  grateful  to  the  father  of  history  for  tracing  back 
the  stream  of  civilization  to  its  proper  source  ?  Where  was  there  ever  a 
people  so  endowed  with  intellectual  gifts  as  the  ancient  Greeks?  Who 
would  refuse  to  Alexander  of  Macedonthe  name  of  Great,  not  because  he 


I3S8  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

overcame  by  the  sword,  but  because  he  introduced  among  the  barbaric  races 
he  conquered  the  Greek  idea  of  the  city  ?  Who  would  rob  the  Roman  of 
his  strong  sense  of  duty,  "  stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God,"  or  refuse  to 
acknowledge  that  wondrous  gift  of  practical  administration  which  made 
great  Rome,  the  mother  of  cities,  the  center  of  the  civilized  world  ?  But  it 
was  not  to  Egypt,  gazing  wistfully  upon  the  river  she  worshiped  as  God, 
and  musing  in  silence  upon  the  awful  mystery  of  being;  nor  to  Greece, 
with  its  intense  love  of  beauty  And  its  unsurpassed  power  of  logical  analy- 
sis ;  nor  to  Rome,  with  its  practical  wisdom  and  its  power  of  material  con- 
quest, to  which  the  sovereign  Disposer  of  events  has  given  in  our  day  the 
foremost  place  in  the  march  of  progress  and  the  advance  of  Christian  civil- 
ization. The  Christian  world  owes  a  debt  to  Greek  and  Roman  Christian- 
ity which  it  can  never  repay.  We  can  never  allow  ourselves  to  forget  that 
the  six  ecumenical  councils  mark  the  epoch  of  Greek  ascendency  before 
the  decline  of  the  Grseco-Roman  empire.  '        . 

To  Rome  and  to  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  in  like  manner,  the  Chris- 
tian Church  to-day  owes  a  debt  which  it  can  never  repay.  We  can  never 
forget — we  never  want  to  forget — that  the  Eternal  City,  ground  to  dust 
beneath  the  heel  of  the  barbarians,  rose  like  the  phoenix  anew  from  its  ashes, 
transformed  and  renewed,  to  be  the  head  of  the  empire  which  saved  the 
world  from  ruin,  and  fashioned  it  anew  into  a  Holy  Roman  Empire  by  the 
transforming  power  of  a  new  life. 

I  But  if  such  memories  are  sacred  to  us — and  surely  never  more  sacred 
than  now,  when  we  have  among  us  representatives  of  the  two  great  historic 
churches  which  have  so  nobly  fulfilled  their  mission  in  the  past — we  cannot, 
as  a  nation,  allow  ourselves  to  forget  that  it  was  the  new  life  which  the 
Germanic  peoples  brought  with  them,  as  they  poured  into  the  ancient  seats  of 
the  world's  civilization,  which  gave  new  vigor  to  the  paralyzed  limbs  and 
quickened  into  new  warmth  the  feeble  pulsations  of  the  exhausted  heart  of 
a  dying  world. 

While  the  Huns  and  Vandals  were  used  by  God  for  a  besom  of  destruc- 
tion, the  Gothic  races  settled  down  amid  the  nations  which  they  conquered, 
and  gave  them  more  than  they  received,  wherever  they  fixed  their  habita- 
tions. Three  things,  more  especially,  the  modern  world  owes  to  the  Ger- 
manic peoples:  1st.  We  owe  to  them  that  strong  sense  of  personal  freedom 
which  is  the  most  notable  feature  of  modern,  when  contrasted  with  ancient, 
civilization.  2d.  We  owe  to  them  the  respect  for  woman  and  the  love  of 
home  which  make  marriage  among  us  to  be  an  honorable  estate.  3d.  We 
owe  to  the  Germanic  races,  and  more  especially  to  the  Saxon  race,  the 
Witenagemote  and  parliamentary  representation. 

Nowhere,  not  even  in  Germany  to-day,  can  the  elements  introduced  by 
the  Germanic  peoples  into  modern  civilization  be  found  to  live  and  flourish 
as  they  do  in  England  to-day.  Where  is  personal  freedom  so  free  as  in 
England  ?     Where   are    the    rights   of    the    individual   so    protected    and 


z 

c. 


1390  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

secured  ?  If  the  Church  of  England  has  never  by  any  act  of  her  own  recog- 
nized the  name  of  Protestant,  it  is  because  the  maxim  ciijus  regio  est,  illius 
reltgio  est,  has  ever  been  a  cherished  principle,  as  we  have  seen,  of  her 
national  life  ;  but  in  carrying  it  into  effect,  she  has  not  been  forced,  as  on  the 
continent  of  Europe,  to  substitute  the  civil  ruler  for  the  bishop  as  head  of 
the  church.  Before  the  Diet  of  Spires,  the  Church  of  England  in  her  acts 
of  Provisors  and  Praemunire  resisted  the  claims  of  any  foreign  temporal  or 
spiritual  power  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  her  national  life.  Her  English 
Bible  and  her  Book  of  Common  Prayer  bear  witness  to  her  recognition  of 
the  fact,  that  in  the  providence  of  God  the  time  had  come  for  her 
children  to  be  no  longer  treated  as  in  a  state  of  pupilage,  to  act  as  mere 
spectators  at  a  religious  drama,  but  are  to  be  allowed  to  take  a  part  in  the 
action,  which  as  grown  men  they  are  now  able  to  understand. 

Nowhere  in  all  the  world  is  the  priesthood  such  a  moral  power  as  it  is 
in  England  today ;  and  it  is  a  moral  power  because  the  clergy  in  their 
homes  and  the  sanctity  of  their  domestic  life  are  not  only  "  the  light  of  the 
world,"  but  are  as  fertilizing  "salt  "  scattered  abroad  upon  the  barren  earth. 

The  Church  of  England  in  her  relation  to  the  state  has  kept  before  the 
minds  of  men  the  fact,  that  the  magistrate  on  the  bench  is,  in  his  own 
sphere,  just  as  divine  as  the  priest  at  the  altar  ;  and  that  society  is  at  its 
best  estate  when  church  and  state  recognize  each  other  as  necessary  to  a 
properly  constituted  social  state.  There  is  an  absolutism  of  the  state  which 
is  just  as  despotic,  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten,  as  the  absolutism  of  the  church  ; 
each  is  necessary  to  the  other's  well-being,  and  it  is  only  by  mutual  coopera- 
tion and  support  that  the  social  fabric  m  all  its  varied  relations,  natural  and 
supernatural,  can  be  sustained.  The  family,  the  church,  and  the  state — these 
are  the  three  fundamental  institutions  on  which  the  well-being  of  human 
society  depends  ;  and  it  is  the  glory  of  the  Church  of  England  that  she 
teaches  her  children  to  give  to  each  the  honor  which  rightly  belongs  to  it  as 
ordained  by  God.  Bound  to  the  past  by  an  unbroken  link  of  succession 
from  the  apostles,  in  sympathy  with  the  present  by  her  relation  to  the  races 
to  which  the  future  destiny  of  the  world  is  for  the  time  being  committed, 
indebted  to  the  Greek  Church  for  the  formulating  of  the  faith,  and  to  the 
Latin  for  her  gift  of  order  and  administration,  the  Church  of  England  may 
surely  recognize  in  this  ordering  of  divine  providence  a  providential  call  to 
be  (as  she  alone  can  be)  "  the  healer  of  the  breach,"  in  the  midst  of  a 
divided  and  distracted  Christendom. 


THE  ADVENT  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

The  Advent  Christian  Church,  representing  the  branch  of  Adventists, 
known  as  the  "Advent  Christian  Association  and  General  Conference  of 
America,"  assembled  in  Hail  VII  at  10  o'clock  A.M.  on  September  14,  1893. 

The  chair  was  taken  by  the  Rev.  D.  R.  Mansfield,  in  the  absence  of  the 
Rev.  E.  R.  Stockman,  of  Boston,  editor  of  The  World's  Crisis,  whose 
message  to  the  Congress  was  as  follows : 

"I  profoundly  regret  that  I  cannot,b€  with  you.  My  confidence  in  the 
code  of  inspired  truths,  which  we  represent,  is  unabated  and  unlimited.  Our 
views  are  Biblical.  Our  cause  is  of  God.  Our  position  is  impregnable  ;  it 
will  stand  the  tests  of  all  assaults,  and  the  shock  of  dissolving  worlds. 
Hoping  the  great  occasion  will  be  gloriously  successful,  I  am  your  brother 
in  Christ,  weary,  but  not  discouraged." 

The  chairman  addressed  the  meeting  as"follows :  As  chairman  of  the 
local  committee,  it  becomes  my  happy  privilege  to  announce  the  opening  of 
this  congress  in  connection  with  the  World's  first  Parliament  of  Religions. 
The  eyes  of  the  religious  world  are  turned  toward  this  great  and  important 
occasion.  The  final  outcome  of  it  all  will  be  watched  by  them,  and  the 
event  is  destined  to  stand  upon  the  pages  of  history  as  the  greatest  of  the 
century.  Have  we  not  all  longed  for  such  a  day  as  this,  when  believers 
from  every  sect,  and  from  every  land,  could  meet  in  one  vast  body,  and  in 
friendly  relations"  give  to  the  world  a  reason  of  their  hope  ?  We  shall 
endeavor  to  place  our  people  in  a  true  light  before  this  great  Parliament, 
and  before  the  world.  Our  denomination  has  a  history  peculiar  to  itself ; 
and  although  we  cannot  boast  of  age  or  numbers,  an  open  Bible  and  a  stu- 
dious and  spiritual  people  furnish  us  an  impregnable  tower  of  strength.  We 
are  not  wanting  in  richness  of  theme  or  theory,  and  surely  we  have  both 
men  and  women  second  to  none  in  eloquence  and  native  talent.  Let  the 
good  news  sound  out  to  the  "  regions  beyond  "  that  the  Christian  people 
still  stand  on  the  solid  rock  which  cannot  be  shaken.  And  may  this  Jittle 
branch  which  we  represent  here  to-day,  so  deport'themselves  that  our  cause 
shall  be  commended  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  and  the  good  news  of  our 
Lord's  return  be  carried  to  earth's  remotest  bounds,  and  the  gospel  of  the 
kingdom  be  preached  in  all  the  world  for  a  witness  unto  all  men,  and  the 
long  absent  King  of  Glory  return. 

A  paper  prepared  by  the  secretary  of  the  joint  committee  giving  briefly 
the  Origin  and  History  of  the  Advent  Christian  Church,  was  placed  on  file 
with  the  "presentation  papers"  of  that  church.  Seven  carefully  prepared 
papers,  setting  forth  the  distinctive  faith  of  this  church,  were  delivered  by 
the  respective  authors,  in  the  following  order  : 

I.  Presentation  Paper,  Basis  of  Faith,  by  the  Rev.  Warren  J.  Hobbs,- 

i39» 


1392  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES.      ^ 

Minneapolis,  Minn.;  II.  The  Kingdom  of  God,  by  the  Rev.  James  W.  Davis, 
Bridgeport,  Conn.;  Ill,  Conditional  Immortality,  by  the  Rev.  Miles  Grant, 
Boston,  Mass.;  IV.  The  Resurrection,  by  the  Rev.  A.  W.  Sibley,  Haverhill, 
Mass.;  V.  Extinction  of  Evil,  by  the    Rev.  VVm.  Shelden,  Brodhead,  Wis.; 

VI.  Restitution — Paradise,   by  the   Rev.  Elvira  S.  Mansfield,  Chicago,  111.; 

VII.  Proximity,  by  the  Rev.  Asaph  J.  Wheeler,  Concord,  N.  H. 

By  unanimous  vote  provision  was  made  for  the  publication  of  the  essays 
in  full,  through  the  Eastern  Advent  Christian   Publication  Society,  Boston. 

The  following  is  a  brief  abstract  of  the  papers  by  the  Rev.  Miles  Grant, 
of  Boston, on  "Conditional  Immortality." 

The  term,  conditional  immortality,  is  used  to  express  a  belief  that  only 
holy  persons  will  live  eternally.  Edward  White  declares  that  "it  is  the  one 
form  of  evangelical  faith  which  seems  likely  to  win  the  sympathy  of  modern 
Europe  ;"  and  he  gives  a  long  list  of  distinguished  scholars,  including  the 
Dean  of  Peterborough,  Prof.  Sabatier,  Dr.  Bushnell  and  Prof.  Schultz,  who 
have  accepted  it. 

Science  declares  on  the  subject  that  from  our  knowledge  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  brain  it  is  difficult  to  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  personal 
consciousness,  for  there  is  no  consciousness  without  a  brain  whereby  to  think. 

What  does  the  Bible  say  upon  the  subject  ?  Olshausen  declares  that 
"  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  the  name,  are  alike 
unknown  to  the  entire  Bible."  It  is  a  fact  that  nowhere  in  the  Bible  is 
the  word,  soul,  qualified  by  the  words  immortal,  everlasting,  eternal,  or  any 
equivalent  words  ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  word,  spirit,  when  applied  to 
man.  But  we  have  no  knowledge  of  a  future  existence  beyond  what  is 
revealed  by  the  Most  High  in  the  sacred  Scriptures.  All  else  is  mere 
guesswork. 

We  call  to  witness  some  Biblical  passages:  (i)  Gen.  ii.  17  ;  v.  5.  Adam 
was  punished  for  his  sin  by  death,  (2)  The  word,  soul,  in  the  Bible  is 
the  rendering  of  three  Hebrew  words  and  one  Greek  word,  the  chief 
Hebrew  word  being  nephesh.  This  latter  term  has  three  meanings, 
(a)  life,  (b)  living  creature,  (c)  desire.  A  careful  study  of  the  passage 
proves  that  it  is  impossible  for  any  soul  to  exist  without  an  organic  material 
body,  and  that  It  is  impossible  to  have  an  immortal  soul  without  an  immor- 
tal body.  (3)  Passages  like  Eccles.  ix.  5  ;  Ps.  vi.  5  ;  i  Cor.  xv,  16,  18 
indicate  that  personal  consciousness  is  not  immortal.  When  life  departs 
from  a  body  all  consciousness  and  intelligence  cease. 

Immortality,  then,  is  not  a  natural  endowment,  *  Is  it  a  conditional 
gift  ?  The  Bible  answers  :  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death ;  but  the  gift  of 
God  is  eternal  life."  The  Bible  teaches  most  plainly  that  only  holy  ones 
can  have  eternal  life.  Rev.  v.  13;  Ps.  clxv.  20;  Matt.  vii.  13,  14;  2 
Thess.  i,  8,  9 ;  Rev,  ii.  22,  etc.  After  a  careful  study  of  the  Bible  for 
nearly  fifty  years,  I  am  compelled  to  believe  that  it  uniformly  teaches  that 
only  the  righteous  will  live  eternally,  and  the  necessary  conclusion  is  that 
conditional  immortality  is  a  Bible  doctrine. 


Al'UlCAN   MICTHODIST  EPISCOPAL  HISHOPS. 

ALKXANDKR  \V.  WAVMAN,  WD.  M.  1'.  WARD,  UAK 

DAN'I,  A.  PAVNi:,  U.L).,  U.AK 
JOHN  M.  BROWN,  D.I).  BENJAMIN'  T.  TANNEK,  D.l). 


THE  AFRICAN    METHODIST    EPISCOPAL  CHURCH 

CONGRESS. 

This  church  is  the  oldest  and  largest  religious  organization  among  the 
negroes.  It  originated  on  account  of  the  ill-treatment  of  the  negro  members 
of  St.  George's  M.  E.  Church  in  Philadelphia  by  the  white  members  in  the 
years  1785-1787.  After  some  years  of  nominal  connection  with  the  church 
certain  colored  members  called  a  convention  of  all  persons  and  churches 
having  grievances  on  account  of  ill-treatment  in  the  M.  E.  Church;  it  was 
held  in  18 16,  and  the  outcome  was  an  independent  organization  adopting 
the  doctrines  and  polity  of  the  M.  E.  Church  except  the  presiding  eldership. 
Philadelphia  artd  Baltimore  conferences  were  formed  and  Richard  Allen 
was  elected  Bishop.  Thus  began  the  African  M.  E.  Church,  which  now 
numbers  12  bishops,  4,125  ministers,  497,327  members,  4,150  churches; 
pays  $682,421  for  pastors'  support,  an  average  of  $141.19  per  man,  and 
values  its  property  at  $8,001,200.  Under  its  direction  are  five  universities, 
five  colleges,  one  theological  seminary  and  twenty-eight  academies,  high 
schools  and  secondary  or  industrial  schools. 

In  the  Parliament  of  Religions  this  church  was  represented  by  a  long 
list  of  members  of  the  Advisory  Council,  and  its  representatives,  Bishops 
Payne  and  Arnett,  presided  over  two  sessions  of  the  Parliament.  Preceding 
the  regular  sessions  of  the  congress  of  the  church,  given. under  the  auspices 
of  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary,  a  Missionary  Congress  was  held  on 
Tuesday,  September  19th,  continuing  till  Thursday  the  21st.  Addresses 
and  responses  were  given  by  Right  Rev.  J.  A.  Handy,  D.D.,.and  President 
Bonney,  Rev.  \V.  B.  Derrick,  D.D.,  superintendent  of  missions.  Right  Rev. 
Drs.  Halsey, Turner,  Arnett,  Grant;  by  Drs.  Lampkin,  Williams,  Heard,  Hen- 
derson and  others.  On  the  closing  day  a  reception  was  held  in  the  Bethel 
A.  M.  E.  Church,  presided  over  by  Bishop  Wayman,  at  which  addresses  and 
responses  were  delivered  by  Drs.  Thomas,  Graham,  Armstrong,  CoUett, 
Mayor  Harrison,  of  Chicago,  Messrs.  Moore,  Williams  and  Gibson. 

The  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  Congress  convened  in  the 
Hall  of  Washington,  September  22,  1S93,  Bishop  Daniel  A.  Payne  presiding. 
After  introductory  and  congratulatory  addresses  by  Hon.  C.  C.  Bonney, 
Prince  Wolkonsky,  of  Russia,  Mrs.  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker,  Rev.  L.  P. 
Mercer,  of  Chicago,  and  response  by  Bishop  Payne,  the  regular  exercises  of 
the  Congress  began  with  a  "  Hymn  "  composed  by  Bishop  Payne,  and  an 
address  on  the  "Origin,  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  African- Methodist 
Church,"  by  Bishop  J.  A.  Handy,  D.D.  Addresses  followed  on  "The 
Philosophy  of  the  Episcopacy  of  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church," 

1394 


AFRICAN    METHODIST    EPISCOPAL.  1 395 

by  Rev.  J.  C.  Embry,  D.D.;  "The  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Sunday 
School  Work,"  by  C.  S.  Smith,  M.D.,  D.D.;  "  The  Heroes  Before  the  War," 
by  Bishop  H.  M.  Turner,  D.D.,  LL.D.;  "  The  Heroines  of  Methodism 
Before  the  War,"  by  Bishop  W.  J.  Gaines,  D.D.;  "  The  Religious  Press :  Its 
Power  and  Influence,"  by  Rev.  H.  T.  Johnson,  A.M.,  D.D.,  Ph.D.;  "The 
Literature  and  Authors  of  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,"  by 
Rev.  L.  J.  Coppin,  D.D.;  "  Watchman,  What  of  the  Night  ?  "  by  Bishop  T. 
M.  D.  Ward,  D.D.;  Poem,  "America  anc^  the  Future  Races,"  by  J.  Madison 
Bell ;  "  What  are  the  Demands  of  the  Hour,  both  in  our  Ministry  and  in 
our  Church  ?  "  by  Bishop  B.  T.  Tanner,  D.D.;  "  Relation  of  the  Pulpit  to 
the  Pew,"  by  Rev.  John  M.  Henderson ;"  The  F"uture  Church,"  by  Rev.  A. 
M.  Green,  D.D.,  A.M.;  "  Prisons  and  Prison  Reforms  ;  Have  we  Done  our 
Duty  to  the  Negro  Prisoners  ?  "  by  Rev.  W.  H.  Mixon,  P.E.;  "Our  Girls; 
their  Responsibilities  and  their  Possibilities,"  by  Miss  Hattie  Q.  Brown,  M.  S.; 
"A  Woman's  Observations  on  Four  Continents,"  by  Mrsr-Amanda  Smith; 
"  Women's  Education,  Organization  and  Denominational  Cooperation 
Essential  to  the  Redemption  and  Elevation  of  the  Race,"  by  Anna  J.  Cooper, 
A.M.;  "Our  Women  and  their  Work,"  by  Mrs.  Fanny  J.  Coppin,  A.M.; "The 
Women  of  the  East,"  by  Mrs.  L.  M.  Mountford  ;  "  The  Relation  of  the  Home 
to  Christian  Temperance,"  by  Mrs.  S.  J.  Early ; "  Elementary  Education  :  How 
may  it  best  be  promoted  to  Meet  the  Wants  of  the  Negro  in  the  Rural  Dis- 
tricts ?"  by  Mrs.  Landohia  Williams;  "The  Pioneer  Builders,"  by  Bishop  A. 
Grant,  D.D.;  "  The  Genesis  of  the  Work  of  Christian  Education  by  the  A.M.E. 
Church,"  by  Rev.  W.  D.  Johnson,  D.D.;  "  The  Broadest  Facilities  for  Higher 
Education  The  Duty  of  the  Church,"  by  S.  T.  Mitchell,  A.  M.,  LL.D.; 
"The  Normal  School  :  its  Relation  to  the  Future  Teacher,"  by  W.  H.  Coun- 
cil, A.M.;  '  Christian  Cooperation  Essential  to  Race  Elevation,"  by  Prof. 
H.  T.  Keahng,  A.M.;  -'The  Ideal  in  Education,"  by  B.  W.  Arnett,  Jr.,  B.A.; 
"Ought  the  American  Negro  to  Study  the  Classics?  If  so.  Why?"  by  J.  W. 
Morris,  A.M.,  LL.B.;  "The  Church  and  Temperance  Reform,  and  especially 
Scientific  Temperance  Instruction  in  Schools  and  Colleges,"  by  J.  R.  Scott, 
B.D.;  "The  Obligation  of  the  Church  in  the  Relation  to  the  Social  Condi- 
tion of  the  People  ;  especially  as  it  relates  to  Child  Training  and  Home  Cul- 
ture," by  Rev.  J.  H.  Jones,  A.M.,  B.D.;  "The  place  of  Richard  Allen  in 
History,  by  Hon.  Fred.  Douglas,  LL.D.;  "  Our  Country's  Defenders  in 
Camp,  at  Sea,  in  School,  and  in  Prison  ;  What  can  we  do  for  them  ?"  by 
Rev.  W.  H.  Veocum,  D.D.;  "  What  can  the  Church  do  toward  Securing 
Land  for  the  Landless,  and  Homes  for  the  Homeless  ?"  by  Hon.  I.  T. 
.Montgomery;  "The  Possible  and  Probable  Relation  of  the  American  Negro 
to  the  African  Continent  from  a  Christian  Standpoint,"  by  Rev.  W.  T.  Hen- 
derson, D.D.;  "The  True  Relation  of  the  Ministry  to  the  State  and  Society," 
by  Rev.  James  M.  Townsend,  D.D.;  "  The  Place  and  Power  of  Lay 
Agency  in  the  Church,"  by  Bishop  M.  B.  Salter,  D.D.;  "The  Theological 
Seminary ;  Its  Place  in  the  Education  of  the  Negro,"  by  Rev.  John  G.  Mitchell, 


1396  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

A.M.,  D.D.;  "  The  Distinctive  Features  of  our  Theology  ;  What  has   been 
their  Modifying  Influences  upon  other  Denominations  ?"  by   Thomas   H 
Jacltson,  D.D.;  "The  Music  of  Our  Fathers:  lis  Use  and  Abuse,"  by  Rev 
Evans  Tyree  ;  "The  Financial  Department  of  A.  M.  E. Church  ;  Its  Organ 
ization  and  Development,"  by  Rev.  J.  H.  Armstrong,  D.D.;  "The  A.  M.  E 
Church  in  the  West  Indies,"  by    Rev.   Jno.   Hurst;    "Church    Extension 
What  can  we  do  to  help  our  needy  Churches  ?"  by  C.  T.  Shaffer,  M.D.,  D.D. 
Address,  by  Rev.  D.  A.  Graham  ;  "  An  Intelligent  Ministry  and  a   Benevo 
lent  Pew,  the  generating  Power  of  Reform,"  by  Prof.  J.  P.  Shorter,  A.M., 
LL.D.;"The  Demands  of  an  Industrial  Education  upon  our  Young  men,"  by 
Prof.  J.  R,  Hawkins  ;  "The  Superiority  of  the  Christian   Education  to  the 
Grecian  Education,"  by  Prof .  St.  George  Richardson;  "  What  has  been  the 
Intellectual,  Moral,  and  Financial  Progress  of  the  Negro  in   Georgia  since 
the  War  ?"  by  Rev,  E.  W.  Lee  ;  "The  Mission  of  the   A.  M.  E.  Church  to 
the  Darker  Races,"  by  Rev.  W.   B.   Derrick,  D.D.;    Poem—  "  The   Bond- 
man's Triumphant  Song,"  by  Rev.  A.  A.  Whitman;    "The  Outlook  from 
the  lo6th  Milestone,"  by  Bishop  B.  W.  Amett,  D.D. 


THE   PRESENTATION  OF  THE  BAPTIST  CHURCHES. 
By  Rev.  George  C.  Lorimer,  D.D.,  of  Boston. 

Delivered  before  the  Coag'ress  of  Religions  September  27. 

Greatness  is  not  to  be  determined  by  bulk  or  by  numbers,  but  rather  by 
aim,  ambition  and  achievement.  It  is  not,  therefore,  likely  that  the  merit 
and  meaning,  or  the  place  and  power  of  a  religious  body  in  the  world,  can 
be  adequately  determined  by  its  size  and  girth.  During  these  memorable 
gatherings  several  denominations  have  been  heard  whose  deserved  renown 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  numbers.  And  certainly  the  Baptists  cannot 
advance  a  claim  to  recognition  in  this  Parliament  grounded  in  the  immensity 
of  their  fraternity.     Their  hosts  are  neither  huge  nor  overwhelming. 

At  the  most,  their  regular  enrolled  army,  the  wide  world  over,  is  only 
something  more  than  4,000,000  strong,  with  a  possible  7,000,000  to  10,000,000 
of  sympathetic  followers.  If,  then,  they  have  not  justified  their  existence  by 
things  attempted  and  attained,  and  if  what  they  represent  is  not  intrinsically 
precious  to  the  race,  they  have  no  sufficient  reason  for  being  here  to-day,  nor 
indeed  for  being  anywhere.  They  must,  therefore,  be  judged,  if  judged  at 
all,  by  the  richness  and  fertility  of  their  possessions,  and  not  by  the  extent 
of  their  borders. 

That  the  Baptists  are  among  the  oldest  of  the  non-liturgical  and  non- 
prelatical  branches  of  Christ's  Church,  and  more  than  likely  are  in  reality 
the  oldest,  is  generally  conceded  and  grows  more  certain  with  the  progress 
of  scholarly  investigation.  It  is,  however,  to  be  admitted  that  their  origin 
is  obscure.  The  beginnings  of  some  of  the  post-Reformation  denominations 
are  easily  determined  and  are  marked  by  national  upheavals  and  crises; 
but  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  Baptists,  and  seems  to  indicate  that  they 
belong  to  the  pre-Reformation  period  and  are  identical  with  the  anti-ecclesias- 
tical thought,  feeling  and  aspiration  which  steadily  flowed  through  the 
middle  ages  as  the  gulf  stream  penetrates  and  courses  through  the  Atlantic. 

The  Baptists  from  the  beginning  and  through  all  the  centuries  have 
stood  for  individuality  in  the  religious  life;  for  the  enlargement  and  eman- 
cipation of  the  individual,  for  the  rights  and  responsibilities  of  the  individ- 
ual, and  for  the  autonomy  and  authority  of  the  individual.  To  them  there 
are  two  great  factors  in  religion,  the  Creator  and  the  creature  ;  the  former 
comprehending  all  that  is  supernatural,  the  latter  including  all  that  is  nat- 
ural ;  the  first  being  absolutely  sovereign  and  supreme  over  the  second,  but 
the  second  in  its  individuality  being  supreme  over  self  as  far  as  every  other 
fellow-creature  is  concerned. 

They  believe  that  Christianity,  like  the  Sabbath,  was  made  for  man,  not 

»397 


1398  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

man  for  Christianity  ;  made  not,  of  course,  for  him  to  ignore,  pervert  or 
destroy,  but  for  him  to  respect,  preserve  and  honor ;  and  not  made  to  efface 
his  personality,  enslave  his  reason,  circumscribe  his  intelligence  and  subvert 
his  conscience,  but  for  the  development  of  all  the  faculties  and  resources  of 
his  being  and  for  the  deliverance  of  his  soul  from  spiritual  slavery  of  every 
kind. 

The  Baptists  believe  that  man's  supreme  allegiance,  so  far  as  earthly 
powers  are  concerned,  is  not  to  the  church,  but  to  himself,  to  his  own  reason 
and  conscience,  to  his  own  dignity  and  destiny.  As  all  societies,  whether 
secular  or  spiritual,  are  but  aggregations  of  brings  like  himself,  how  can 
the  aggregates,  taken  together,  be  more  important  or  more  sacred  than  the 
units  of  which  they  are  composed  ? 

The  Baptists  admit  that  there  is  a  place  for  churches  in  the  Christian 
economy ;  but  they  insist  that  they  are  not  for  the  suppression  of  the  indi- 
vidual, but  for  his  unfolding  and  perfection.  Organized  ajid  visible  churches 
are  means  to  an  end  ;  they  are  not  themselves  the  end.  They  are  temporal, 
but  man  is  eternal ;  hence  they  shall  at  last  decay  and  disappear,  whether 
gorgeous  ecclesiastical  monarchies  or  modest  democracies  —but  man  is 
immortal.  This  is  the  Baptist  idea,  and  he  is  persuaded  that  it  is  the  idea 
of  the  New  Testament.  God  was  incarnate,  not  in  humanity  at  large,  but 
exclusively  in  the  man,  Jesus,  to  teach  that  in  coming  to  dwell  in  his  chil- 
dren by  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  does  not  abide  in  them  as  a  whole  without 
taking  up  his  abode  in  each  separate  child.  "  Ye  are  the  temples  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  "  was  affirmed  of  every  Christian  as  weil  as  of  a  numerous  com- 
munion. And  it  is  written  that  "  Christ  is  the  head  of  every  man  "  as  well 
as  being  "the  head  of  his  body,  the  church."  So,  likewise,  "every  man 
must  render  an  account  of  himself  to  God,"  and,  to  emphasize  more  fully 
the  place  of  individuality  in  religion,  it  is  written  that  Jesus  "tasted  death 
for  every  creature." 

It  was  belief  in  these  scripture  representations  that  led  the  Anabaptists 
to  teach  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  every  Christian  has  in  himself  a  divine 
guide  whom  he  must  follow  at  any  cost.  These  sturdy  men  were  more  than 
satisfied  to  sacrifice  and  suffer  for  man,  that  the  individual,  instead  of  becom- 
ing unconscious  in  God,  might  become  fully  conscious  of  the  perfection  of 
God  in  the  individual. 

This  is  very  apparent  in  their  loyalty  to  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  the 
supreme  authority  in  personal  faith  and  moral  conduct.  They  are  people  of 
one  book,  one  that  is  "quite  sufficiently  called,"  as  Heine  has  it,  "The 
Book."  Nature,  they  concede,  has  manifold  disclosures  of  the  Infinite,  and 
they  are  far  from  indifferent  to  its  teachings,  whether  embodied  in  science 
or  in  the  unvarying  and  harmonious  operation  of  its  laws.  They  recognize 
reason  also  as  related  to  belief  and  practice  ;  not,  however,  as  in  itself,  an 
original  revelation,  but  as  the  subject  and  interpreter  ot  all  revelations, 
whether  they  proceed  from  without  or  are  due  to  the  illuminating  ministra- 
tions of  the  Comforter  within. 


BAPTIST.  1399 

But  for  all  the  important  purposes  of  religious  thought  and  life,  the 
Bible  is  their  ultimate  guide,  as,  in  addition  to  its  own  messages,  it  furnishes 
a  criterion  by  which  the  messages  from  other  sources  may  be  judged.  The 
Baptists  have  never  formally  acknowledged  the  binding  obligation  of  creeds. 
Their  confessions,  from  that  of  1527  to  the  one  of  most  recent  date,  that 
called  the  New  Hampshire,  including  Smyth's,  l6ll,  and  the  London  confes- 
sion, 1646,  were  not  promulgated  to  secure  uniformity  of  belief  nor  as  stand- 
ards to  which  subscription  is  imperative  ;  but  rather  as  defenses  and  apol- 
ogies forced  from  them  by  the  abuse  and  calumnies  of  enemies,  eras  succinct 
and  convenient  expositions  of  their  opinions. 

These  symbols  all  have  their  value  as  religious  literature,  but  they  are 
not  necessarily  final  statements  of  truth,  nor  are  they  endued  with  any  coer- 
cive power.  No  documents  of  this  kind  are  permitted  by  the  Baptists  to 
rival  in  authority  the  Sacred  Writings,  nor  to  fix  by  arbitrary  rule  what  they 
are  designed  to  commuijicate  to  each  soul.  The  Bible  is  divine  thought 
given  to  every  man,  and  every  man  ought  to  give  human  thought  to  the 
Bible,  and  ecclesiastical  bodies  do  their  entire  duty  when  they  bring  these 
two  thoughts  into  immediate  communion  and  commerce  with  each  other. 

From  this  representation  it  can  easily  be  seen  how  large  a  part  individ- 
uality plays  in  our  simple  ecclesiastical  system.  Infants  are  not  baptized, 
because  that  ordinance  would  mislead  them  as  to  their  standing  before  God, 
would  tend  to  diminish  their  sense  of  personal  resposibility,  and  would  fin-' 
ally  establish  an  unconverted  church  in  a  corrupt  world.  If  the  Kingdom 
of  Christ  is  really  not  radically  different  from  the  Kingdom  of  Satan,  and  is 
only  visibly  separate  and  distinct  by  a  few  ceremonies,  professions  and  the 
solemn  invocation  of  holy  names,  of  what  particular  use  is  it  to  society,  and 
how  can  it  ever  hope  to  subdue  its  rival  ?  To  guard  against  this  deplorable 
confusion,  this  deadly  fellowship  between  light  and  darkness,  the  Baptists 
have  adhered  to  their  Bible  that  requires  a  heart  difference  between  him 
that  serveth  God  and  him  that  serveth  Him  not,  with  the  appropriate  out- 
ward expression  of  the  change. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  ground,  both  in  Scripture  and  reason,  for  the 
baptism  of  believers  only,  and  a  baptism  that  shows  reverence  for  the  divine 
will  in  form  and  purpose  as  immersion  manifestly  does.  But  conscious  indi- 
viduality is  necessary  to  all  this,  and  is  emphasized  by  it.  Before  a  human 
being  has  came  to  realize  selfhood  with  all  that  it  implies,  he  cannot  act  of 
his  own  volition  in  these  high  matters  ;  but  when  he  is  competent  to  do  so 
there  will  be  developed  capabilities  for  further  duties.  These  will  find  their 
sphere  of  action  in  the  church ;  for  its  government  being  such  as  I  have 
described,  it  opens  a  field  for  the  exercise  of  every  personal  talent,  attain- 
ment and  grace. 

That  the  significance  of  the  Baptists  in  history  lies  mainly  in  the  direc- 
tion I  have  indicated,  is  demonstrated  beyond  a  doubt  by  their  persistent 
advocacy  of  soul  freedom  and  by  hearty  and  practical  sympathy  with  almost 


1400  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

every  movement  on  behalf  of  civil  liberty.  The  first  amendment  to  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  was  inspired  by  them,  and  in  no  other 
country  can  such  a  provision  be  found.  It  reads  as  follows  :  "  Congress 
shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion  or  prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof." 

The  Baptists  of  former  times  evidently  perceived  the  disastrous  effect  of 
enforced  formalism.  They  were  not  opposed  to  communities  of  Christians, 
but  they  realized  that  their  efficiency  depended  on  the  voluntary  nature  of 
the  fellowship.  In  proportion  as  they  became  mere  aggregations  of  human 
particles,  having  little  in  common,  and  held  together  by  external  pressure, 
they  necessarily  impaired  their  own  power  aod  wrecked  the  society  to  whose 
well-being  their  compulsory  membership  was  deemed  indispensable. 

Independence  is  inseparable  from  the  highest  type  of  individuality,  and 
the  individuality  of  the  highest  type  is  necessary  to  vital  and  vigorous 
organization.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  explanation  of  the  long  struggle  for 
religious  liberty.  Apart  from  the  Divine  Word,  to  whose  teachings  the 
entire  movement  is  primarily  due,  it  must  be  ascribed  to  that  recognition  of 
each  man's  personal  dignity  and  worth  as  a  creature  made  in  the  image  of 
God  which  has  been  so  distinguishing  a  note  of  Baptist  history. 

The  practical  profitableness  of  the  root  principle  out  of  which  the  his- 
torical significance  of  the  Baptists  has  grown,  very  frequently  has  been 
challenged,  and  is  even  now  admitted  in  some  circles  only  with  evident 
reluctance.  Unquestionably  it  has  been  abused,  and,  like  other  precious 
things,  may  be  made  a  source  of  incalculable  mischief. 

We  may,  I  believe,  without  hesitancy,  appeal  to  our  own  denomination 
for  proofs  of  its  expediency  and  excellency.  These  are  furnished  in  the 
contributions  made  by  its  leaders  and  churches  toward  the  evolution  of  mod- 
ern society,  with  its  liberty  and  progress,  its  inventions  and  discoveries,  its 
reforms  and  charities.  Much  has  already  been  suggested  on  this  point,  and 
yet  something  more  remains  to  be  added. 

The  Baptists  have  been  conspicuous  for  their  devotion  to  education, 
and  to-day  they  have  more  money  invested  in  property  and  endowments  for 
educational  interests  than  any  other  religious  body  in  the  land.  They  have 
consecrated  in  America  to  the  cause  of  human  enlightenment  over  $32,000,- 
000,  and  have  in  the  main  given  it  unhampered  by  sectarian  conditions. 
Manifestly,  in  this  instance,  individualism  in  religion  has  wrought  no  ill  to 
the  community  but  only  good. 

The  Baptists  have  been  equally  prominent  in  founding  foreign  missions 
to  the  heathen,  and  are  everywhere  acknowledged  as  the  heroic  leaders  in 
an  enterprise  which  means  the  salvation  and  unification  of  races  in  Christ, 
and  without  which  this  Parliament  of  Religions  would  never  have  been 
dreamt  of,  much  less  so  wonderfully  realized. 

But  in  addition,  in  the  domain  of  letters  they  have  given  to  the  world 
a  Foster  and  a  William  R.  Williams  ;  to  the  domain   of    heroism   a   long 


SEVENTH-DAY    BAPTIST.  I4OI 

line,  including  Arnold  of  Brescia,  a  Ilavelock,  and  a  Carey;  to  that 
of  theology  a  GUI,  a  Haldane, and  many  others;  and  to  that  of  philanthropy 
a  John  Harvard,  who  was  a  member  of  Samuel  Stennett's  congregation  in 
London,  and  an  Abraham  Lincoln,  who,  though  not  himself  a  Baptist,  was 
born  of  Baptist  parents,  and  attributed  all  that  he  was  to  his  Baptist  mother. 

Nor  should  we  forget  the  influence  they  have  exerted  on  the  devotional 
life  of  the  people  at  large.  They  have  taught  us  to  sing  "Blest  Be  the  Tie 
That  Binds,"  "Did  Christ  o'er  Sinners  Weep?"  "Majestic  Sweetness  Sits 
Enthroned  upon  the  Saviour's  Brow,"  "How  Firm  a  Foundation,  Ye 
Saints  of  the  Lord,"  "'Mid  Scenes  of  Confusion  and  Creature  Complaints," 
"They  are  Gathering  Homeward  From  Every  Land,"  "All  Hail  the 
Power  of  Jesus'  Name,"  "  Saviour,'  Thy  Dying  Love,"  "  I  Need  Thee 
every  Hour,"  "  Lo,  the  Day  of  God  Is  Breaking,"  "My  Country,  'Tis  of 
Thee,"  and  they  have  given  us  many  other  hymns  by  which  faith  has  been 
strengthened,  sorrow  comforted,  duty  glorified,  patriotism  stimulated,  and 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  rendered  more  precious  and  endeared  to  the  souls  of 
men. 

They  who  have  thus  sung ;  they  who  have  thus  thought ;  yea,  they  who 
have  thus  wrought — for  holy  ideas  are  kindred  to  holy  deeds — are  in  them- 
selves the  best  witnesses  to  the  wholesome  influence  of  a  doctrine  that  seeks 
to  make  out  of  every  human  creature  a  man,  out  of  every  man  a  saint,  and 
out  of  every  saint  a  special  and  individual  confessor  for  Christ. 


THE  SEVENTH-DAY  BAPTIST  CONGRESS. 

The  Seventh-Day  Baptists  are  one  of  the  older  denominations  of  the 
Protestant  group.  They  claim  connection  with  the  New  Testament  Church 
through  an  actual,  though  not  always  organized,  line  of  "Sabbath-keeping" 
dissenters.  Scattered  groups  of  "Sabbath-keeping  Baptists"  appear  on  the 
continent  of  Europe  at  the  dawn  of  the  reformatory  movement.  The  pro- 
genitors of  the  present  Seventh-Day  Baptists  were  organized  in  England 
early  in  the  "  English  Reformation."  They  were  a  strong  factor  in  the  agi- 
tation of  the  Sabbath  question  during  the  "  Puritan  period."  Their  contro- 
versial writings  called  forth  specific  replies  from  both  Churchmen  and 
Puritans,  and  contributed  much  valuable  literature  to  the  Sabbath  contro- 
versy. On  the  one  hand  their  radical  demand  for  a  return  to  the  Sabbath  of 
the  fourth  commandment,  and  on  the  other,  the  dominant  Roman  Catholic 
view  compelled  the  Puritan  leaders  to  the  compromise  which  sought  to 
transfer  the  authority  of  the  fourth  commandment  from  the  seventh  d.iy  of 
the  week  to  the  first.  In  making  this  compromise  the  Puritan.s  adopted  the 
Seventh-Day  Baptist  platform,  excepting  the  day  of  the  Sabbath. 

The  opening  address  of  the  Seventh-Day  Baptist  Congress  was  made 


1402         ,    THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES.  •     ". 

by  the  Chairman,  Professor  William  A.  Rogers,  Ph,D.,  LL.D.,  of  Colby 
University,  Waterville,  Me.  His  topic  was,  "  The  Limitations  of  Christian 
Fellowship."     He  said  :  The  proper  aim  of  a   religious  organization  is   the 

.  application  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Gospel  to  our  daily  life. 
Seventh-Day  Baptists  can  do  more  good  in  the  world  by  remaining  a  separ- 
ate organization,  than  they  could  if  merged  in  the  regular  Baptist  denomin- 
ation. We  believe  that  there  are  excellent  Christians  in  all  evangelical 
denominations.  We  ought  not  to  make  the  mistake  of  believing  that  a  strict 
adherence  to  a  single  commandment,  regardless  of  moral  conduct,  will  make 
us  any  the  more  accepted  of  God  or  respected  of  men. 

*  A  sermon  presented  by  the  Rev.  Stephen  Burdick,  of  West  Hallock, 
111.,  asserted  that  "  Loyalty  to  the  Truth  "  is  the  one  and  only  common  bond 
between  religious  people.  It  is  only  in  a  union  thus  formed  that  there  is 
strength.  "The  Sabbath  truth  "  is  the  particular  truth  that  binds  us  together 
in  our  relations  to  God.  By  keeping  the  Sabbath  we  call  the  attention  of 
the  world  to  the  fact  that  the  Bible  is  the  source  of  all  revealed  truth. 

The  Rev.  Boothe  C.  Davis,  pastor  at  Alfred  Centre,  N.Y.,  followed  with 
a  paper  on  "  Faithfulness  to  Our  Cause."  He  said  :  "  Our  cause  should  be 
considered  as  embracing,  in  general,  all  religious  truth  and,  specifically. 
Sabbath  truth.  Faithfulness  requires  a  diligent  search  after  such  truth,  new 
as  well  as  old,  and  an  unhesitating  acceptance  of  it  when  found.  Our  cause 
is  God's,  not  ours  alone  ;  therefore  faithfulness  to  it  is  faithfulness  to  Him. 
We  believe  that  God  has  revealed  religious  truth  to  men,  and  that  the  Bible 
is  a  history  of  that  revelation,  which  is  the  sole  arbiter  in  determining  the 
truth  on  which  our  cause  is  based.  -  We  are  forbidden  to  make  an  appeal  to 
traditional  or  man-made  standards." 

The  Rev.  L.  E.  Livermore,  editor  of  The  Sabbalh  Recorder,  Alfred  Cen- 
tre, N.  Y.,  presented  a  "Review  of  Our  Tract  Work,"  giving  a  history  of 
the  publishing  interests  of  Seventh-Day  Baptists.  He  showed  that  special 
publications  upon  the  Sabbath  question  were  issued  by  this  people  in 
England  during  the  sixteenth  century  and  greatly  increased  in  America  in 
the  latter  half  of  the  last  century.  Their  publishing  house,  under  the  man- 
agement of  the  American  Sabbath  Tract  Society,  is  now  located  at  Alfred 
Centre,  N.  v.,  and  from  it  various  periodicals  and  numerous  "tracts"  are 
issued.  The  Sabbatli  Outlook,  formerly  a  quarterly,  is  now  a  weekly — The 
Eziangel  and  Sabbalh  Oullook  —  which  has  pursued  the  work  of  original 
investigation  concerning  the  history  of  Saturday  and  Sunday. 

"The  Future  of  the  Sabbath,"  a  paper  by  the  Rev.  L.  C.  Rogers,  D.D., 
of  Alfred  University,  states  that  the  future  of  God's  Sabbath  is  to  be  deter- 
mined by  its  character  as  God's  sign-manual.  The  Creator,  after  making 
the  world,  rested  on  the  seventh  day  and  commanded  it  to  be  kept  as  the 
Sabbath,  thus  appointing  it  his  sign.  This  sign  is  still  seen  in  the  perdur- 
ance  of  the  week  period,  which  is  a  promise  of  future  Sabbath  keeping. 
God's  rest  of   the   seventh   day  is  also  a  type    of   the  heavenly  rest  that 


SlivKMIt  U.W   UAi'ilST  CONC.RKSS. 
RRV.  O.  U.  WHITl'ORD.  RKV.  K.  M.  OrNX. 

RKV.  w.c.  wiinidkn.  pRok.  wii.ii  \m  a.  Rcir.F.RS. 

M  U.IRA  J.  oKliU  AV.  RKV.  I.,  li.  1,1  VKRMi  iRK. 


1404  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

remaineth.  A  type  continues  until  its  antitype  appears.  Sunday  cannot 
be  tliis  type,  as  it  is  the  first  day  of  the  weelc.  The  Sabbath  day  is  the  true 
type,  because  it  is  always  God's  appointed  seventh  day. 

A  sermon  was  delivered  by  the  Rev.  E.  M.  Dunn,  D.D.,of  Milton,  Wis., 
upon  "  The  Education  of  the  Conscience  in  Christian  Culture,"  from  Acts 
xxiv.  16,  emphasizing  these  means:  Have  the  word  of  God  behind  con- 
science, and  allow  no  bias  of  self-interest  to  interfere  with  its  decision. 

The  Rev.  Nathan  Wardner,  D.D.,  of  Milton  Junction,  Wis.,  presented  a 
paper  on  "The  Contradictions  in  the  Sunday  arguments."  Some,  assert  that 
God  in  saying  "/Ae  seventh  day"  meant  "a  seventh  day;"  that  Christ  sub- 
stituted the  first  day  to  commemorate  his  resurrection ;  and  that  God's 
sanctifying  the  seventh  day  means  sanctifying  the  first  day,  and  his  com- 
mand to  work  on  the  first  day  and  hallow  the  seventh  becomes  a  command 
to  work  on  the  seventh  and  hallow  the  first. 

Rev.  O.  U.  Whitford,  D.D.,  General  Secretary  of  the  Seventh-Day 
Baptist  Missionary  Society,  presented  a  "  Review  of  Our  Mission  Work," 
showing  that  mission  work  has  engaged  the  attention  of  the  denomination 
through  all  their  history.  At  the  present  time  they  are  prosecuting  the  home 
work  in  about  twenty-five  different  states,  enlarging  that  work  year  by  year. 
The  Sabbath  reform  work  of  the  American  Sabbath  Tract  Society  is 
closely  associated  with  home  missions,  and  new  fields  are  opened  by  that 
work  faster  than  the  missionary  society  can  fill  them.  The  foreign  work 
at  Shanghai  was  begun  about  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  now  in  a  very  flour- 
ishing condition.  It  is  carried  on  under  three  departments  :  General  evan- 
gelization, educational,  and  medical.  The  first  includes  work  in  both  city 
and  country,  preaching,  Bible  reading,  tract  distributing,  etc.  The  second' 
includes  both  day  schools  and  boarding  schools  for  boys  and  for  girls  ; 
the  third  includes"  private  practice  and  extensive  dispensary  and  hospital 
departments. 

The  following  papers  were  presented  in  a  symposium  on  practical 
evangelical  work  :  Where  Set  the  Battle,  in  City  or  Country  ?  by  the  Rev. 
Lester  C.  Randolph,  Chicago  ;  How  to  Keep  the  Spirit  of  t;vangelism  in 
the  People,  by  the  Rev.  E.  A.  Witter,  Albion,  Wis.;  How  to  Use  Students  in 
this  Work,  by  the  Rev.  G.  M.  Cottrell,  Nortonville,  Kan.;  The  Element  of 
Personal  Work  in  Evangelism,. by  the  Rev.  Frank  E.  Peterson,  New  Market, 
N.  J.;  How  to  Use  the  Business  Men,  by  W.  H.  Ingham,  Milton,  Wis. 

The  "Missionary  Session,"  as  a  whole,  especially  the  various  details 
given  in  Secretary  Whitford's  paper,  impressed  the  listener  with  the  fact 
that,  according  to  their  numbers,  and  through  a  history  of  more  than  two 
centuries  in  America,  the  Seventh-Day  Baptists  have  been  and  now  are 
among  the  foremost  in  the  work  of  Evangelical  missions. 

The  presentation  session  of  the  Seventh-Day  Baptists  was  held  in  the 
Hall  of  Washington  on  Sunday  morning,  September  16.  A  paper  was  pre- 
sented  by  W.  C.  Whitford,  D.D.,  President  of  Milton   College,  on   The 


SEVENTH  DAY    BAPTIST.  I  405 

Growth  of  Our  Church  in  America.  It  showed  that  the  denomination  now 
has  100  churches,  iio  active  ministers,  and  about  10,000  church  members, 
and  that  it  has  had  a  history  of  222  years  in  this  country.  Its  churches 
had  their  origin  in  Rhode  Island,  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey.  The  same 
idea  was  dominant  in  them  ail,  that  the  fourth  commandment  is  immutable, 
and  still  requires  the  Sabbath  to  be  observed  on  the  seventh  day  of  the 
week.  Some  of  the  churches  grew  slowly  at  first,  some  rapidly,  especially 
those  of  Rhode  Island,  one  of  which  had  nearly  nine  hundred  members  by 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 

The  Seventh-Day  Baptists  in  this  country  have  increased  their  number 
and  influence  by  their  staunch  advocacy  of  absolute  religious  toleration. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  war  of  the  Revolution  greatly  retarded  the  progress 
of  their  churches,  as  they  were  located  in  the  theater  of  tlie  struggle,  and  all 
their  members  ardently  supported  the  American  cause.  As  a  people,  they 
have  always  manifested  the  colonizing  spirit,  and  have  thus  founded  other 
churches  in  the  West  and  South.  By  this  means,  more  than  any  other,  they 
had  propagated  their  distinctive  views  up  to  fifty  years  ago.  Since  that 
time,  the  General  Conference,  the  Associations,  the  Missionary,  Tract  and 
Publishing  Societies  and  the  educational  institutions  have  been  the  princi- 
pal agencies  in  the  growth  of  the  denomination. 

Edwin  H.  Lewis,  Ph.D.,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  spoke  on  "  Our 
Work. for  Education."  He  said:  There  are  three,  colleges  controlled  by 
Seventh-Day  Baptists — Alfred  University,  at  Alfred  Centre,  Alleghany  Co., 
N.  Y.;  Milton  College,  at  Milton,  Rock  Co.,  Wis.;  Salem  College,  at  Salem, 
Harrison  Co.,  W.  Va.  These  schools  have  produced  their  ratio  of  able 
public  men,  who  have  held  places  in  the  President's  cabinet  and  on  the 
Supreme  Bench  of  various  states.  The.  influence  of  such  men  as  Kenyon, 
Allen  and  Whitford  upon  the  students  of  these  colleges  has  been  wide- 
spread, lasting,  and  in  the  highest  sense  potent  for  good. 

A  third  paper  was  by  the  Rev.  A.  H.  Lewis,  D.D.,  of  Plainfield,  N.  J., 
upon  "Our  Attitude  on  the  Sabbath  Question."  He  said:  The  closing 
decade  of  this  century  marks  an  important  epoch  of  transition  touching  the 
Sabbath  question.  Two  prominent  streams  ot  influence  have  aided  in 
hastening  the  epoch.  One,  the  widespread  advocacy  of  the  claims  of  the 
Sabbath  (Saturday),  as  against  the  claims  of  Sunday ;  the  other,  the  rapid 
decline  of  regard  for  Sunday,  and  the  inability  of  Sunday  legislation — 
municipal,  state  or  national — to  check  this  growing  disregard. 

We  oppose  the  whole  system  of  Sunday  legislation,  because  it  is  for- 
bidden by  the  nature  and  purposes  of  Christ's  kingdom,  as  enunciated  by 
him.  It  has  no  existence  in  earlier  Christianity,  apostolic  or  sub-apostolic. 
It  was  the  product  of  pagan  influence. 

From  a  "  Sabbath  Souvenir,"  which  was  distributed  at  their  Congress, 
we  extract  the  following  : 

Seventh-Day  Baptists  are  necessarily  reformers.    In  all  the  great  moral. 


1406  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

social  and  political  reforms  they  have  been  identified  with  temperance,  pur- 
ity, freedom  and  equality  on  all  occasions.  Their  record  from  the  pulpits, 
platforms,  editors'  chairs,  authors'  libraries,  in  legislative  halls  and  on  the 
nation's  battlefields,  is  one  which  they  do  not  hesitate  to  ask  the  world  to 
read. 
•  We  are  Seventh-Day  Baptists,  first,  because  we  believe  that  the  Bible  is 

the  only  rule  of  faith  and  practice'  for  Christians.  Because  we  believe  that 
the  laws  contained  in  the  Decalogue  are  universal  as  to  application  and 
eternal  as  to  obligation,  although,  like  all  the  Bible,  they  were  given  to  the 
world  through  the  Hebrew  nation.  We  believe  that  Christ  "fulfilled"  and 
enlarged  these  laws,  thus  Christianizing  them.  We  do  not  believe  that  any 
man  has  the  power  or  liberty  to  abrogate  or  disregard  what  Christ  thus 
established.  We  believe,  as  Christ  and  Paul  both  teach,  that  there  can  be 
no  sin  where  there  is  no  law,  and  hence  that  the  Gospel  of  salvation  for  sin, 
through  Christ,  is  a  mockery,  unless  the  Decalogue  remains  in  force  for  all 
times  and  for  all  people.  Second:  We  believe  that  "sacred  time"  is  an 
essential  result  of  man's  relations  to  God.  Eternity  is  an  attribute  of  God. 
"Time"  is  the  measured  portion  of  eternity  within  which  man  exists  as 
God's  child.  Hence  God  is  in  constant  touch  with  men  on  their  spiritual 
side,  through  time.  The  Sabbath  is  God's  special  representative  in  human 
life.  The  idea  that  it  simply  "commemorates  creation"  is  narrow  and 
incomplete.  It  stands  for  God,  and  is  another  name  for  his  presence,  at 
once  making  provision  and  demand  for  worship  and  religious  culture.  Phys- 
ical rest  is  the  lowest  element  in  the  Sabbath.  It  is  necessary  only  as  a 
means  to  far  higher  ends.  The  Sabbath,  like  time  and  space  and  air  and 
sunlight,  is  the  common  inheritance  of  all  men,  all  places.  It  is  not  national, 
it  is  not  dispensational.  It  is  not  a  "civil  institution."  It  is  as  truly  relig- 
ious in  its  origin,  purpose  and  nature  as  is  prayer,  and  the  keeping  of  it  is 
an  expression  of  loyalty  to  God,  than  which  none  can  be  greater. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CONGRESS. 

The  Catholic  Congress  held  its  sessions  from  Monday,  September  4th,  to 
Saturday,  September  9th,  in  the  Hall  of  Columbus,  the  Art  Institute,  Chicago. 
A  remarkable  interest  in  its  sessions  was  manifested  from  the  first,  and  the 
halls  were  thronged  with  men  and  women,  eager  listeners  to  the  utterances 
of  distinguished  members  of  the  church.  It  was  called  to  order  by  W.  J. 
Onahan,  the  secretary  of  the  congress,  who  for  two  years  had  devoted  him- 
self to  its  organization.  Addresses  of  welcome  were  delivered  by  Archbishop 
Feehan,  President  Bonney,  and  Thos.  B.  Bryan.  The  archbishop  declared  the 
purpose  of  the  congress  to  be  not  the  questioning  of  the  Catholic  faith  or 
discipline,  but  the- discussion  of  some  of  the  great  problems  of  life  and  of  the 
time  intimately  connected  with  the  Catholic  faith.  He  emphasized  the  respon- 
sibilities of  a  gathering  so  representative,  and  declared  the  loyalty  of  the 
assembly  to  the  Catholic  Church,  and  to  its  head  Leo  XHI.  President  Bonney 
rejoiced  in  the  change  of  relations  between  Catholics  and  Protestants,  trac- 
ing it  to  the  benign  spirit  of  the  age,  to  the  noble  work  of  Catholicism  in 
practical  social  reform  and  education,  and  to  the  able  and  enlightened  Leo 
XHL  He  observed  a  similar  spirit  in  Protestantism  as  illustrated  in  the 
calling  of  the  great  religious  congresses.  In  response,  Cardinal  Gibbons 
asserted  the  importance  of  discussions  to  follow  in  shaping  public  opinion, 
and  urged  charity  and  courtesy  in  all  the  proceedings.  He  referred  to  a 
letter  from  Pope  Leo  XIII.  to  himself  bestowing  upon  the  congress  his  apos- 
tolic paternal  benediction.  The  letter  was  read  by  Mr.  Onahan.  The  con- 
gress was  then  organized  by  the  appointment  of  Morgan  J.  O'Brien  of  New 
York,  as  temporary  chairman,  and  other  officers.  After,  came  address  by 
Mr.  O'Brien  in  which  he  justified  the  calling  of  this  congress  by  referring  to  the 
impulses  from  Catholic  sources  and  the  activity  of  Catholic  explorers  in  the 
discovery  and  evangelization  of  America.  This  country  is  dear  to  Catholics 
because  of  the  first  discovery  and  because  of  their  participation  in  its  struggles 
for  unity  and  liberty.  Therefore,  when  they  see  evils  menacing  the  nation, 
from  the  social  inequalities  of  classes,  from  the  conflicts  of  labor  and  capital, 
they  are  anxious  that  the  right  remedy  be  found.  Hence  their  assembly  in 
this  congress. 

Letters  were  read  from  prominent  Catholics,  and  a  brief  address  given 
by  Archbishop  Redwood,  of  New  Zealand,  who  noted  among  other  things 
that  social  reforms  contemplated  in  this  country  were  in  some  cases  already 
in  operation  in  New  Zealand.  Mgr.  Nugent,  of  Liverpool,  presented  and 
read  a  letter  from  Archbishop  Vaughan  of  Westminster,  expressing  his  admir- 
ation and  appreciation  of  the  efforts  made  in   the   organization  of  this  con- 

1407 


1408  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

gress,  and  declared  his  intense  interest  in  the  high  mission  of  the  congress 
to  help  in  elevating  the  social  position  of  the  people. 

A  paper  was  then  presented  by  Richard  A.  Clarke,  LL.D.,  of  New 
York,  on  "  Christopher  Columbus:  his  Mission  and  Character."  The  mis- 
sion of  Columbus  was  to  discover  a  new  world.  Providence  and  his  own 
inmost  conviction  united  to  send  him  on  that  mission.  Some  elements  in  the 
pieparation  for  and  carrying  out  of  this  mission  are:  his  humble  origin,  his 
poverty,  his  maritime  education,  his  studies,  his  correspondence  with  learned 

# 

men,  his  personal  bearing,  appearance  and  magnetism,  his  profound  sense 
and  practice  of  religion,  the  broaching  of  his  new  theory  of  the  earth,  his 
appeals  to  nations,  his  inflexible  mamtenance  of  it,  his  prophecy  of  the 
result,  the  prophecies  of  sacred  Scripture,  the  apostolic  character  which  he 
infused  in  the  enterprise,  his  dedication  of  all  to  the  conversion  of  heathen, 
and  the  redemption  of  Jerusalem,  his  poverty  in  the  midst  of  grandeur,  his 
wrongs  and  his  sorrows,  the  bestowal  of  another's  name  upon  the  world  he 
had  discovered,  the  ingratitude  of  his  king,  and'  now,  the  contrast,  the 
reverse  current  of  honor  and  praise  which  the  world  unites  in  bestowing 
upon  his  memory. 

Hon.  Martin  F.  Morris,  of  Washington,  D.  C,  spoke  on  "  The  Inde- 
pendence of  the  Holy  See  :  its  Origin  and  the  Necessity  for  its  Continuance 
in  the  Cause  of  Civilization."  He  denied  the  authenticity  of  the  supposed 
donations  of  Constantine,  Theodosius  and  others,  claiming  that  in 
subordination,  of  course,  to  the  divine  ordination  from  which  all  power 
originates,  to  the  will  of  the  Roman  people  is  immediately  due  the  temporal 
power  of  the  popes.  At  what  precise  time  this  occurred  cannot  b*;  stated, 
but  the  formal  establishment  of  it  is  referred  to  the  pontificate  of  Hildebrand 
of  Siena  or  Pope  Gregory  VII.  This  power  was  justly  acquired  and,  while 
it  is  not  a  necessity,  and  while  its  possession  is  in  its  nature  injurious  to 
the  purity  of  the  church's  existence,  yet  there  are  certain  advantages  and 
benefits  in  it.  A  freedom  from  the  undue  influence  of  the  state,  a  measure 
of  temporal  authority  as  will  secure  its  independence  of  action,  the  church 
is  entitled  to.  Such  an  independent  position  would  benefit  the  world  in 
making  the  papacy  again  the  supreme  arbiter  between  nations  as  it  was 
in  earlier  times.  The  workl  will  be  the  gainer  in  securing  anew  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Holy  See. 

After  an  admirable  analysis  of  the  character  and  services  of  "  Isabella 
the  Catholic,"  by  Miss  Mary  J.  Onahan,  of  Chicago,  addresses  were  delivered 
by  Walter  G.  Smith,  of  Philadelphia,  on  "Civil  Governn-.ent  and  the  Cath- 
olic Citizen,"  and  by  Edgar  II.  Gans,  of  Baltimore,  on  "The  Relation  of  the 
Catholic  Church  to  the  Social,  Civil  and  Political  Institutions  of  the  United 
States."  Both  speakers  noted  the  distrust  which  pervades  no  small  section 
of  the  people  respecting  the  attitude  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  Catholic  cit- 
izens toward  republican  institutions.  They  sought  to  allay  and  remove  it  by 
presenting  the  true  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the  church  to  society 


CATHOLIC,  1409 

ami  civil  government.  The  church  has  no  direct  relations  with  any  form  of 
civil  government.  Vet  she  does  not  look  with  indifference  on  the  state.  She 
adapts  herself  to  all  forms  of  government,  maintaining,  however,  that  civil 
government  is  no  mere  social  contract  between  men,  but  is  ordained  of  God 
and  depends  upon  him.  There  is  a  law  transcending  any  that  may  emanate 
from  human  government.  With  the  church  God  is  the  only  true  sovereign 
and  the  source  of  all  power.  The  sovereignty  of  the  people  comes  from 
him  as  a  sacred  trust,  and  they  must  use  this  trust  for  the  common  weal.  The 
government  called  into  being  by  them,  in  framing  and  executing  laws,  is  but 
echoing  the  voice  of  the  King  of  kings,  and  obedience  to  it  is  obedience  to 
God  himself.  Here  is  the  ultimate  sanction  for  human  liberty.  "  We  claim 
that  a  man  may  not  only  be  a  Catholic  and  a  true  American  citizen,  but  that 
if  he  is  a  good  Catholic  he  is  the  best  and  most  loyal  of  citizens."  The  Cath- 
olic church  has  been  the  only  consistent  teacher  and  supporter  of  true  liberty. 
Instead  of  finding  in  the  potent  moral  influence  which  the  church  exerts  over 
the  people  anything  hostile  to  American  institutions,  the  candid  inquirer 
will  discover  in  her  teaching  and  tendencies  the  strongest  safeguards  for  their 
permanence  and  stability.  Among  other  statements  on  this  subject  made 
during  this  Congress  may  be  mentioned  those  of  Bishop  Foley,  of  Detroit, 
who  said  :  It  is  the  most  foolish  thing  in  the  world  for  people  to  say  that 
the  aim  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  to  try  to  subvert  the  nation  and  bring  back 
again  a  papal  hierarchy.  We  ask  no  change  now  that  we  are  growing 
stronger  year  by  year.  But  we  do  ask  one  thing,  and  that  is  that  there  shall 
be  no  law  passed  by  Congress  that  will  in  any  way  unite  the  church  and  the 
state,  or  any  law  that  will  tend  in  any  way  to  prevent  any  human  being  from 
worshiping  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience. 

Dr.  G.  P.  Lathropgavea  paper  on  "Consequences  and  Results  to  Relig- 
ion of  the  Discovery  of  the  New  World,"  in  which  he  remarked  that  one  of 
the  most  important  results  was  that  the  Catholic  Church  has  attained  in  a 
single  century  of  freedom  a  growth  never  paralleled  in  modern  history.  The 
complete  separation  of  church  and  state  which  exists  here  has  been  of 
immense  advantage  to  religion,  and  will  continue  to  be  so  by  assuring  it  of 
entire  independence  in  the  pursuit  of  its  spiritual  aims. 

Two  days  were  given  to  the  consideration  of  the  "Social  Question,"  and 
the  crowded  audiences  testified  to  the  deep  interest  in  the  subject.  The 
presence  of  Mgr.  SatoUi,  the  apostolic  delegate  from  the  Holy  See  to  the 
Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States,  gave  peculiar  importance  to  the  pro- 
ceedings. In  his  address  he  said  that  the  ideal  social  congress  was  that 
held  by  Christ  when  he  delivered  his  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  When  Christ 
brought  to  earth  the  great  truths  from  the  bosom  of  his  Father,  humanity 
was  lifted  up  and  entered  upon  a  new  road  to  happiness.  He  brought  to 
nature  the  additional  gift  of  the  supernatural.  To  follow  him  in  this  work 
is  the  duty  of  Catholics.  Let  us  restore  among  men  justice  and  charity. 
Here  in  America  is  a  field  especially  blessed  by  Providence.     "Go  forward, 

89 


14 10  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES.     ■ 

in  one  hand  bearing  the  book  of  Christian  truth,  and  in  the  other  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States.  Christian  truth  and  American  liberty  will 
make  you  free,  happy  and  prosperous." 

"Pauperism:  the  Evil  and  the  Remedy,"  was  considered  by  Thomas 
Dwight,  M.D.,  of  Boston.  The  pauper  is  a  fairly  distinct  type,  one  who 
habitually  lives  in  a  state  of  destitution  without  recognized  means  of  sup- 
port, without  purpose  or  nope  of  bettering  his  condition.  He  is  usually  a 
pauper  morally  as  well  as  physically.  The  remedy  is  to  make  the  pauper  a 
Christian.  There  must  be  prevention  of  the  type,  and  cure  of  the  already 
•diseased.  The  Catholic  must  do  this.  All  the  details  of  the  saving  work 
must  be  in  his  hands.  The  pauper  must  be  taught  by  object  lessons.  The 
body  and  soul  must  both  be  cared  for.  The  work  is  pressing.  A  crusade 
against  pauperism  should  be  preached.  M.  J.  Elder,  of  New  Orleans,  dwelt 
upon  the  causes  of  this  evil,  the  fundamental  one  of  which  he  regarded  as 
the  urban  tendency  coupled  with  .the  lack  of  a  rural  tendency.  People  pour 
into  cities,  but  none  return  to  the  country.  If  country  poverty  can  be  cured, 
city  poverty  can  be  alleviated.  All  other  causes  of  pauperism  go  back  to 
this  cause  as  their  root.  Let  attention  be  directed  to  the  problem  in  the 
country. 

On  the  subject  of  "  Public  and  Private  Charities,"  Thomas  F.  Ring,  of 
Boston  urged  "cooperation,"  and  pointed  to  the  good  results  of  the  frank 
and  cordial  co-working  of  Catholics  and  Protestants  in  Boston  in  the  case  of 
destitute  children.  C.  A.  Wingerter,  of  West  Virginia,  commended  the 
Elberfeld  system  of  charity,  and  summed  up  his  suggestions  as  follows  :  (i) 
All  charity  work  must  be  done  along  the  line  of  moral  consideration,  if  it  is 
to  be  lasting,  and  therefore  we  must  strengthen  the  moral  forces.  We  have 
a  duty  to  the  poor  and  should  appreciate  it  fully.  We  have  not  appreciated 
it  fully,  if  we  have  not  realized  the  grounds  on  which  that  duty,  rests.  We 
have  not  appreciated  it  fully  unless  we  recognize  its  tangibleness,  unless  we 
learn  to  remember  always  that  a  certain  portion  of  our  income  is  owed  as 
a  debt  of  honor  to  the  Master  and  to  the  poor,  his  pensioners.  (2)  After 
these  two  lessons  have  been  well  learned  and  put  into  practice,  there  must 
be  personal  sacrifice  of  time  and  service  to  the  cause  of  our  less  fortunate 
brethren.  (3)  Our  work  must  be  organized,  discriminating,  with  no  waste 
of  time  or  labor  or  money.  (4)  It  must  be  human,  done  in  the  spirit  of 
fraternal  sympathy.  A  good  Samaritan  is  wanted  and  not  a  charity 
machine.  (5)  It  must  be  educative,  elevating  the  helpers  and  the  helped. 
(6)  It  must  be  continuous.  Every  individual  case  must  be  carried  to  recov- 
ery. We  must  keep  fast  hold  of  our  stumbling  brother's  hand  until  we 
have  helped  him  to  the  ground  where  he  can  advance  alone.  In  a  word, 
our  charity  must  be  thorough  and  it  will  be  effective.  ■ 

"The  Rights  of  Labor  and  Duties  of  Capital,"  received  attention  in  an 
address  by  E.  O.  Brown,  of  Chicago,  who  asserted  that  it  was  not  labor  and 
capital  which  were  at  variance,  l)ut  hotli  capital  and  labor  against  monopoly. 


AMKRICAX  CATHOLIC  IllSllOl'.S. 


Kl'.  \i\:V.  DKNIS  M.  l;U ADM-'.V, 
I!i>liiip  -,f  MaiicliosltT,  N'.  II. 

UT.  KKV.  ANTHONY  DL'RIKK, 
I'.islidp  ol  Naiclillochcs,  l,n. 

K  r.  KEY.  SKHASTIAN  M  KS.SMKK, 
I'-isliop  oi  Grcon  l!nv.  Wis. 


RT.  Ui:V.  N'.  CIIRVS(\sroM  M.VIV.. 

I'.ishop  of  Denver,  Col. 
RT.  RKV.  CAMILLAS  I'ACL  .MAK.S, 

Ilishop  of  Co\  Iiii^tnii.  K>'. 

RT.  RKV.  .STEPHKN  V.  RVAN 
IJishop  ol  ISiiffalo.  N.  y. 


141  2  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Capital  is  a  subdivision  of,  a  result  of  labor.  The  rights  and  duties  of  labor 
and  of  capital  are  the  same — the  right  to  liberty,  the  duty  so  to  use  and 
limit  that  liberty  as  to  preserve  the  equal  freedom  of  all  others.  Both  labor 
and  capital  must  unite  against  monopoly.  The  same  subject  was  discussed 
by  John  Gibbon,  LL.D.,  of  Chicago.  H.  C.  Temple,  of  Alabama,  discussed 
and  commended  the  pope's  encyclical  on  the  labor  question.  The  "  Duties 
of  Capital"  were  thought  by  Rev.  Dr.  Barry,  of  England,  to  be,  (i)  to 
allow  these  workpeople  the  Sunday  rest,  (2)  not  to  interfere  with  the  work- 
ingman's  right  to  combine,  (3)  not  to  take  advantage  of  the  distress  of 
human  being  by  beating  down  the  price  of  labor,  (4)  not  to  lay  upon  their 
workmen  inhuman  tasks,  (5)  pay  wages  enough  to  enable  the  worker  to 
fulfill  the  ordinary  duties  of  humanity,  to  keep  God's  law,  and  to  provide 
against  sickness  and  old  age.  There  is  imperative  need  of  a  constitution 
for  capital.  Religion  furnishes  the  ideal,  morality  the  grounds,  and  law 
and  custom  the  methods  on  which  this  task  is  to  be  achieved. 

"  Catholic  Societies  and  Societies,  for  Young  Menj"  was  the  subject 
presented  by  Rev.  F.  J.  Maguire,  of  Albany,  N.  Y.,  and  by  Warren  E. 
Mosher,  of  Youngstown,  Ohio,  who  urged  the  formation  of  such  societies 
and  suggested  methods  on  which  they  could  be  organized.  In  the  same 
line  of  action  Frank  J.  Sheridan,  of  Dubuque,  la.,  suggested  a  plan  and 
reasons  for  the  establishment  of  an  organization  to  be  known  as  the  Catho- 
lic Association  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Con- 
ciliation and  Voluntary  Arbitration.  "  Trade  Combinations  and  Strikes," 
were  regarded  by  R.  M.  Douglas,  of  North  Carolina,  as  twin  children  of  an 
advancing  civilization  in  which  the  individual  is  being  merged  into  the 
aggregate,  not  only  as  to  his  rights  of  property,  but  too  often  as  to  his  man- 
hood and  his  conscience.  Unjust  corporation  laws  are  largely  responsible 
for  many  difficulties  between  labor  and  capital  by  which  extraordinary 
powers  are  given  corporations.  We  should  have  remedial  legislation  and 
bureaus  of  investigation  maintained  by  the  state  to  examine  into  the  work- 
ings of  corporations  and  to  hear  complaints  against  them.  Great  dangers 
threaten  us,  and  the  essential  principle  of  remedy  lies  in  a  just  recognition 
of  the  rights  of  all  classes  of  our  people.  Rev.  J.  M.  Cleary,  of  Minneapolis, 
found  a  great  danger  in  "  Intemperance,"  the  crying  sin  of  our  land.  There 
exists  a  lamentable  apathy  among  Catholic  people  concerning  this  dread- 
ful evil.  Catholic  public  opinion  is  not  outspoken  and  rigorous  as  it  should 
be  against  the  saloon  and  the  drink  curse.  The  Church  by  its  decrees 
warns  against  the  intemperance,  but  children  of  the  Church  withhold  their 
support  from  the  influences  that  help  to  realize  relief.  A  man  cannot  be  a 
good  Catholic  and  be  a  good  friend  of  the  saloon,  much  less  be  a  saloon- 
keeper. It  is  not  inconsistent  with  being  a  good  Catholic  to  be  a  political 
prohibitionist.  In  any  and  every  way  possible  we  should  take  our  stand,  and 
labor  in  behalf  of  the  alleviation  and  ultimate  removal  of  the  drink  curse. 

In  the  further  discussion  of  organization  E.  M.  Sharon,  of  Davenport, 
Iowa,  spoke  of  "  Life  Insurance   and    Pension   Funds  for  Wage-Workers," 


CATHOLIC.  141 3 

calling  attention  to  the  German  compulsory  system  of  insurance,  in  which, 
out  of  a  population  of  less  than  fifty  million  over  thirteen  and  one-half 
million,  are  insured  against  accident,  not  to  speak  of  the  sick,  invalid  and 
old  age  insurance  associations.  This  is  a  duty  of  society  to  itself,  and  the 
provision  for  these  pensions  and  benefits  should  come  from  the  industries  in 
which  the  wage-workers  labor,  t.  e.,  the  wage  fund  and  the  employer's  lia- 
bility expense.  J.  P.  Lanth,  of  Chicago,  extolled  the  value  of  "Guilds  and 
Fraternal  Benefit  Societies,"  holding  that  their  influence,  when  they  have 
been  properly  conducted,  has  been  salutary.  He  commended  especially  the 
insurance  feature  of  these  societies  as  tending  to  compensate  for  the  negli- 
gence of  the  workman  in  caring  for  himself  and  his  family,  and  showed  its 
advantages  over  the  compulsory  pension  system  of  Germany.  The  "  Society 
of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  "  was  described  by  Joseph  A.  Keman,  of  New  York. 
It  was  founded  in  1843  as  the  result  of  the  labors  of  Frederic  Ozanam,  the 
brilliant  and  devout  Frenchman,  and  took  the  name  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul, 
who  was  the  founder  of  the  order  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  Its  fundamental 
work  is  that  of  relieving  the  poor  by  personal  visits  and  direct  assistance, 
but  it  is  ready  also  to  engage  in  all  kinds  of  charity  and  helpfulness.  It  has 
branches  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  In  the  United  States  are  about  500  con- 
ferences and  an  active  membership  of  9,000.  In  the  whole  world  the  con- 
ferences number  5,000,  the  total  membership  90,000. 

A  symposium  on  Colonization,  Immigration,  and  the  Catholic  Church 
called  forth  a  number  of  important  papers.  .  Dr.  A.  Kaiser,  of  Detroit, 
showed  how  the  German  Catholic  immigrants  were  numerous  and  effective 
in  church  work  ;  2,700  of  the  9,000  priests  in  this  land  are  of  German  birth 
or  descent,  and  are  distinguished  for  zeal,  uprightness  and  culture.  The 
German  Catholics  are  candid,  sincere,  devout,  earnest,  and  they  deserve 
special  mention  for  their  energy  in  establishing  and  maintaining  parochial 
schools.  The  "  Irish  Immigration  "  was  presented  by  Rev.  M.  Callaghan, 
who  felt  justified  in  asserting  that  twenty  millions  of  our  population  now 
have  Irish  blood  in  their  veins,  and  Irishmen  have  been  in  no  small  num- 
bers among  the  leaders  in  our  history.  It  was  also  held  respecting  immi- 
gration in  general  that  precautions  should  be  taken  in  Europe  to  prevent 
undesirable  emigrants  from  embarking  ;  the  advantages  of  agriculture  and 
country  life  for  the  immigrant  were  also  emphasized.  Attention  was  called 
to  the  Catholic  Mission  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Rosary  at  Castle  Garden,  which, 
since  its  establishment,  has  protected  40,000  young  girl  immigrants  until 
they  obtained  employment.  Rev.  J.  L.  Andries  spoke  of  Italian  Immigra- 
tion. The  cause  of  this  immigration  is  the  exhorbitant  and  unjust  taxation  of 
the  Italian  government,  and  the  false  representations  of  sharpers  concerning 
the  ease  of  life  in  this  country,  who  practically  enslave  the  immigrants  by 
advancing  them  money  on  hard  conditions.  The  greater  number  are 
unskilled  workmen,  but  are  generally  law-abiding.  They  crowd  into  cities, 
live  in  colonies,  their  moral  condition  is  not  as  good  as  it  should  be.  They 
soon   learn  the   language,  receive  the  American  spirit,  many  desert  their 


14 1 4  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

religion  or  turn  Protestant.  Rev.  James  W.  McGolrick,  Bishop  of  Duluth, 
discussed  the  "  Present  and  Future  Prospects  of  the  Indians  in  the  United 
States."  Of  the  249,273  Indians,  80,891  are  CathoMc.  When  the  Indian 
peace  policy  was  inaugurated  in  1870,  eight  out  of  the  seventy  agencies 
were  assigned  to  the  church.  The  work  of  the  Sisters  among  them  has 
been  full  of  beneficence.  Only  within  the  last  few  years  has  a  systematic 
effort  been  made  by  Catholics  to  'convert  and  preserve  the  faith  among 
them.  The  active  cooperation  of  the  religious  orders  is  needed.  Now  that 
nomadic  life  has  ceased  it  is  the  critical  period  for  religious  work  among 
the  Indians.  Agents  are  often  hostile  ;  yet  in  1892,  2,000  Indians  embraced 
the  faith. 

"The  Relation  of  the  Church  to  the  Negro  Race"  was  considered  by 
Charles  H.  Butler,  of  Washington,  D.  C,  who  traced  the  race  of  the  negroes 
in  culture  and  wealth  since  their  emancipation  and  urged  the  complete  recog- 
nition of  their  civil  equality  leaving  their  social  equality  to  adjust  itself.  He 
agreed  with  Rev.  J.  R.  Slattery,  who  spoke  on  the  same  subject,  that  the 
Catholic  Church  had  been  remiss  in  her  duty  towards  the  negroes ;  the  latter 
added :  "  We  think  that  Protestantism  may  in  part  be  held  responsible  for 
the  present  irreligious  and  immoral  condition  of  the  negroes.  The  widely 
spread  race  prejudice,  as  powerful  in  the  North  as  in  the  South,  though  shared 
by  Catholics  as  well  as  by  others,  is  truly  a  Protestant  instinct." 

In  this  connection  Mr.  M.  T.  Elder,  of  New  Orleans,  spoke  of  the  losses 
sustained  by  the  church  in  this  country,  placed  by  a  conservative  estimate  at 
twenty  millions  of  people.  He  laid  the  responsibility  for  this  upon  neglect 
of  immigration  and  colonization,  /.  e.  neglect  of  the  moral  population. 
From  this  results  a  long  train  of  losses.  The  country  Catholics  starve  spiri- 
tually, and  are  easy  prey  to  Protestant  propaganda.  So  long  as  a  Catholic 
peasantry  is  uncared  for,  the  great  men  of  this  country  will  be  Protestant, 
for  the  great  men  come  from  the  country — whether  political  or  religious 
leaders.  It  is  strange  that  Catholics  indulge  in  such  eulogy  of  themselves 
in  view  of  certain  facts  which  cannot  be  denied.  The  speaker  added : 
"  When  I  see  how  largely  Catholicity  is  represented  among  our  hoodlum 
element,  I  feel  in  no  spreadeagle  mood.  When  I  note  how  few  Catholics 
are  engaged  in  honestly  tilling  the  honest  soil,  and  how  many  Catholics  are 
engaged  in  the  liquor  traffic,  I  can  not  talk  buncombe  to  anybody.  When  I 
reflect  that  out  of  the  70,000,000  of  this  nation,  we  number  only  9,000,000, 
and  that  out  of  that  9,000,000  so  large  a  proportion  is  made  up  of  poor  fac- 
tory hands,  poor  mill,  and  shop,  and  mine,  and  railroad  employees,  poor  gov- 
ernment clerks,  I  still  fail  to  find  material  for  buncombe,  or  spreadeagle  or 
taffy-giving.  And  who  can  look  at  our  past  history  and  feel  proud  of  our 
present  status  ?  Consider  the  presidency,  for  instance.  Have  we  ever  had 
a  Catholic  president  ?  Ever  come  near  having  one  ?  Ever  even  had  a 
Catholic  candidate  ?  Ever  likely  to  have  one  ?  Oh,  never  !  We  lack  that 
element  from  which  our  worthiest  presidents  come — a  sturdy,  intelligent 
rural  class."    He  advocated  as  a  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  a  movement 


CATHOLIC.  141 5 

toward  colonization  with  especial  attention  to  extension  of  educational  advan- 
tages for  rural  Catholics  and  instruction  of  urban  Catholics  in  the  advantages 
of  rural  life.  For  so  long  as  the  rural  South,  the  pastoral  West,  the  agricul- 
tural East,  the  farming  Middle  States  remain  solidly  Protestant,  as  they  now 
are,  so  long  will  this  nation,  this  government,  this  whole  people  remain 
solidly  Protestant. 

Other  means  for  bringing  America  into  the  Catholic  fold  were  offered 
by  Rev.  F.  G.  Lentz,  who  recognized  that  America  was  the  land  pro- 
videntially discovered  and  prepared  for  the  revelation  of  the  truth,  and 
urged  earnest  prayer  on  the  part  of  all  that  "  our  separated  brethren  "  might 
be  brought  back  to  the  faith.  W.  F.  Markoe  told  of  the  practical  efforts  of 
the  "  Catholic  Truth  Society,"  whose  aiiy  is  to  make  America  Catholic.  Its 
principal  methods  are  :  (i)  The  publication  of  short,  timely  articles  in  the  sec- 
ular press  (to  be  paid  for  if  necessary)  on  Catholic  doctrines.  (2)  The  prompt 
and  systematic  correction  of  misrepresentations,  slanders  and  libels  against 
Catholicity.  (3)  The  promulgation  of  reliable  and  edifying  Catholic  news 
of  the  day,  as  church  dedications,  opening  of  asylums  and  hospitals,  the 
workings  of  Catholic  charitable  institutions,  abstracts  of  sermons  and  any- 
thing calculated  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  the  vast  amount  of  good  being 
accomplished  by  the  Catholic  church.  (4)  The  publication  of  pamphlets, 
tracts  and  leaflets ;  the  circulation  of  pamphlets,  tracts,  leaflets  and  Catholic 
newspaf>ers.  (5)  Occasional  public  lectures  on  subjects  of  Catholic  inter- 
est. (6)  Supplying  jails  and  reformatories  with  good  and  wholesome 
reading  matter.  • 

Catherine  E.  Conway  described  the  new  "  Catholic  Summer  School  and 
the  Reading  Circle,"  which  promise  so  much  for  the  education  of  the  laity  in 
good  knowledge.  There  are  now  150  reading  circles  organized  under  the 
Catholic  Educational  Union  with  an  aggregate  membership  of  nearly  5,000, 
and  100  circles  under  the  Columbian  Reading  Union  with  5,000  aggregate 
membership. 

Catholic  women  were  represented  by  a  long  and  brilliant  array  of  papers, 
F.  M.  Edselas  eulogized  the  "  Work  of  Woman  in  Religious  Communities," 
showing  that  such  loving,  self-sacrificing  activity  is  the  proper  sphere  of 
womankind.  The  success  and  value  of  these  religious  communities  were 
found  in  the  admirable  system  which  throws  the  individual  on  her  own 
resources,  and  thus  cultivates  her  character  while  she  does  the  work  of  Christ. 
Merit  and  ability  are  the  sources  of  advancement,  and  that  means  larger  ser- 
vice. The  sisters  train  children  in  their  schools  not  merely  to  be  wise  but 
to  be  goodj  thus  solving  the  problem  of  true  education.  "  Mediaeval  Chris- 
tian Women"  received  honorable  mention  from  Anna  T.  Sadlier,  of  New 
York,  while  "  Woman's  Work  in  Art"  and  "Woman's  Work  in  Literature" 
were  treated  by  Eliza  Allen  Starr,  of  Chicago,  and  Eleanor  C.  Donnelly 
respectively.  Mrs.  Rose  Hawthorne  Lathrop  called  women  up  from  the 
low  plane  of  personal  vanity  to  the  high  position  of  purity  and  generosity 
in  a  stirring  paper  on  "  Woman  and  Mammon." 


14^6  THE   DENOMINATIONAL  CONGRESSES. 

"  Education  and  the  Catholic  Church  "  received  full  and  able  considera- 
tion from  distinguished  scholars  of  the  church.  Bishop  Keane,  Rector  of 
the  Catholic  University  at  Washington,  spoke  on  Higher  Education,  empha- 
sizing especially  the  need  of  university  education  in  the  highest  sense  of 
that  word.  The  character  of  the  present  age  presents  reasons  of  special 
importance  in  this  direction.  Human  society  is  passing  through  the  agonies 
of  a  very  deep  and  wide  reconstruction.  Social  conditions  are  being  leveled 
upward.  Privileged  classes  are  passing  away.  And  how  is  that  leveling 
up  to  be'safely  accomplished  ?  Through  education  ;  by  making  elementary 
education  more  and  more  universal,  and  steadily  elevating  its  level ;  by 
lifting  larger  and  larger  numbers  from  elementary  into  secondary  education, 
till  the  multitudes  in  the  schools  be  rivaled  by  the  multitudes  in  the  col- 
leges ;  and,  in  a  special  manner,  by  bringing  the  advantages  of  the  very 
highest  education  within  the  reach  of  every  child  of  the  masses  to  whom 
God  has  given  the  highest  qualities  of  brain.  Place  these  advantages 
bounteously  within  reach  of  every  one  whom  God's  providence  has  made  fit 
for  them ;  let  the  offspring  of  the  sons  of  toil  mount  to  that  degree  of  learn- 
ing, and  of  consequent  respectability  and  influence  to  which  their  Creator 
by  their  endowments  calls  them — thus,  better  than  by  any  or  all  other  means, 
shall  the  social  problem  of  the  future  be  solved.  But  wise  intellectual 
power  may  be  wrongly  directed.  Hence  the  natural  relationship  of  the 
Church  of  God  to  education.  Hence  especially  her  relation  to  the  higher 
education.  Having  in  her  custody  both  the  philosophy  of  human  exper- 
ience in  all  ages,  and  the  far  higher  philosophy  of  divine  revelation,  being 
the  divinely  established  power  for  the  world's  moral  and  spiritual  improve- 
ment, hers  is  naturally  the  influence  which  perfects  education,  which 
breathes  a  living  soul  into  it,  which  insures  its  tending  toward  heaven's 
appointed  ends,  and  its  being  used  for  the  temporal  and  eternal  welfare  of 
mankind.  The  founding  of  the  Catholic  University  as  the  topstone  of  the 
Catholic  educational  system  was  made  the  occasion  of  large  thanksgiving. 
In  spite  of  pessimists,  who  maintain  that  the  university  is  aiming  to  destroy 
the  Catholic  school  system,  it  has  received  the  approbation  of  prelates  and 
Pope  and  has  permanently  established  itself,  thanks  to  the  beneficence  of 
the  members  of  the  church,  and  it  is  to  prove  the  noblest  seat  of  learning  the 
world  has  yet  beheld. 

Dr.  M.  F.  Egan,  of  Notre  Dame,  Ind.,  pointed  out  some  defects  of 
Catholic  colleges.  Their  slavish  adherence  to  tradition  makes  them 
content  with  an  inferiority  of  instruction  and  education.  They  must  be 
broadened  to  enable  them  to  secure  our  Catholic  young  men  who  go  to  secular 
or  Protestant  institutions.  We  need  a  system  of  discipline  which  will  lay  more 
stress  on  the  honor  of  the  youth,  and  less  on  the  subtle  distinctions  between 
venial  and  mortal  sin.  More  students  are  needed,  men  who  want  to  be 
students,  and  more  ambitious  and  persevering  ones.  Above  all,  endowments 
are  needed,  especially  in  the  form  of  scholarships,  to  enable  earnest  but 
poor  students  to  get  a  Catholic  education  in  a  Catholic  college.    Rev.  J.  T. 


CATHOLIC.  1417 

Murphy,  of  Piltsburg,  Pa  ,  made  a  plea  for  free  Catholic  high  schools.  He 
pointed  to  a  gap  here  in  the  educational  system  of  the  church.  He  claimed 
that  this  defect  made  the  system  no  system  at  all.  Private  academies  do 
not  meet  the  want,  nor  do  the  half-way  substitutes  of  parochial  schools.  Sug- 
gesting ways  for  the  establishment  of  these  free  high  schools,  he  mentioned 
private  endowment  where  possible,  but  also  as  more  feasible  the  organization 
of  the  Catholic  people  in  every  important  center  for  the  purpose  of  founding 
and  supporting  such  a  school.  It  is  an  indispensable  link  in  any  educational 
system  worth  the  name.  The  value  of  "  Convent  Alumnae  Associations " 
was  treated  by  Elizabeth  A  Cronyn,  of  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  while  Dr.  McGinniss, 
of  Scotland,  urged  the  benevolent  to  found  bursaries.  The  paper  of  the 
late  Brother  Azarias  mainlairied  that  the  one  unifying  purpose  of  the  Catho- 
lic school  system  was  "  to  impart  a  thorough  Catholic  training  to  our 
Catholic  children,"  and  inquired  whether  the  system  could  not  be  extended 
to  the  founding  of  Catholic  commercial  colleges  and  Catholic  night  schools. 
It  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  the  Catholic  university  should  supply 
Catholic  specialists  in  all  branches  of  knowledge,  a  Catholic  normal  school 
fit  Catholic  teachers  for  parochial  schools,  holding  that  the  state  normal 
schools  were  un-Catholic  in  spirit  and  methods.  Brother  Ambrose  summed 
up  the  whole  discussion  by  calling  attention  to  the  fruits  of  the  system  in 
the  Catholic  educational  exhibit  at  the  Worid's  Columbian  Exposition, 
the  pride  of  Catholics  and  the  admiration  of  all,  proving  the  power  and 
usefulness  of  the  idea  of  the  union  of  pure  religion  with  education. 

The  various  evening  sessions  of  the  congress  partook  of  a  more  infor- 
mal character,  giving  to  members  of  the  church  opportunity  to  meet  and  hear 
the  distinguished  visitors  and  speakers  at  the  congress.  Among  other  utter- 
ances at  these  gatherings  may  be  mentioned  those  of  Archbishop  Ryan  on 
Christian  union,  when  he  said  :  "  If  there  is  any  one  thing  more  than 
another  upon  which  people  agree  it  is  respect  and  reverence  for  the  person 
and  the  character  of  the  founder  of  Christianity.  How  the  Protestant  loves 
his  neighbor,  how  the  Protestant  eye  will  sometimes  grow  dim,  when  speak- 
ing of  our  Lord.  In  this  great  center  of  union  is  found  the  hope  of  human 
society,  the  only  means  of  preserving  Christian  civilization,  the  only  point 
upon  which  Catholic  and  Protestant  may  meet.  As  if  foreseeing  that  this 
should  be,  Christ  himself  gave  his  example  of  fraternal  charity,  not  to  the 
orthodox  Jew  but  to  the  heretical  Samaritan,  showing  that  charity  and  love, 
while  faith  remains  intact,  can  never  be  true  unless  no  distinction  shall  be 
made  between  God's  creatures."  Archbishop  Ireland  declared  that  only  a 
church  which  showed  by  its  fruits  that  it  believed  in  God  and  righteousness 
could  command  the  attention  of  the  age.  "  The  age  is  an  age  of  humanity. 
It  has  caught  up  some  of  the  lofty  aspirations  of  the  Christian  soul  in  its 
great  love  for  humanity,  in  the  very  profession  of  this  love.  The  age  demands 
charity,  love  for  all  of  every  language,  every  race  and  every  color  —  love  of 
man  as  he  came  forth  from  the  hands  of  his  creator.  Our  country  is  filled 
with  good  works,  charities  of  all  kinds.    Asylums  are  built  for  the  poor  and 


14  I  8  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

the  blind,  and  the  mute  and  the  imbecile.  Tlie  American  state  is  essentially, 
in  its  instincts  and  aspirations.  Catholic.  1-et  us  then  take  hold  of  these 
instincts  and  aspirations  and  show  that  they  have  all  been  born  of  the  Gos- 
pel, that  they  have  all  been  perpetuated  by  our  church  in  the  past."  Rev.  P. 
Cronin  eulogized  the  present  epoch  of  the  church's  life  in  the  country  as  the 
age  of  Satolli,  which  means  justice,  hbme  rule,  loyalty  to  American  ideas  and 
institutions.  Archbishop  Corrigan  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  was 
under  the  banner  of  the  Holy  Inquisition  that  Columbus  discovered  America, 
the  institution  which  had  for  its  main  object  the  defense  and  protection  of  the 
Catholic  faith.  This  is  the  true  spirit  of  Catholicism  to-day.  Bishop  Phelan, 
of  Pittsburg,  said  :  "We  are  bound  to  assist  everybody,  without  distinction 
of  creed.  The  more  the  teachings  of  Uie  church  are  brought  before  the  peo- 
ple, the  more  they  will  recognize  the  truth  of  these  teachings,  if  they  are  not 
blinded  by  prejudice.  They  will  recognize  that  we  Catholics  are,  as  we  ought 
to  be,  true  to  our  govemmetit ;  and  good  fellow  citizens,  because  we  are  bound 
by  our  religion  to  love  our  neighbor  and  show  true  charity  to  all." 

At  the  final  session  of  the  congress  resolutions  were  adopted  in  which 
it  was  declared  that  no  remedies  for  labor  troubles  can  be  approved  save 
those  which  recognize  the  right  of  private  ownership  of  property  and  human 
liberty;  conciliation  and  arbitration  as  practical  means  are  urged;  the  teach- 
ings of  Pope  Leo  XIII.  are  recommended  for  widespread  distribution;  the 
organization  of  Catholic  societies  favored  ;  the  settling  of  poor  families  in 
agricultural  districts  encouraged  ;  Catholics  are  urged  everywhere  to  get  out 
and  keep  out  of  the  saloon  business ;  Catholic  education  is  steadfastly  upheld; 
the  Catholic  summer  school  and  the  Catholic  Truth  Society  commended; 
Sunday  is  to  be  kept  sacred  in  accordance  with  the  precepts  and  traditions 
of  the  church;  arbitration  in  national  disputes  favored,  and  love  and  venera- 
tion for  the  republic  declared,  and  an  emphatic  denial  given  to  the  assertion 
that  any  antagonism  can  exist  between  a  Catholic's  duty  to  the  church  and 
his  duty  to  the  state.  The  congress  was  then  adjourned,  after  a  brief  address 
by  Cardinal  Gibbons,  in  the  spirit  of  the  resolutions  adopted.     . 

On  September  12  the  presentation  of  the  Catholic  church  was  made  in 
the  Hall  of  Washington.  Bishop  J.  J.  Keane  presided,  and  addresses  were 
made  on  points  of  Catholic  faith,  doctrine  and  practice  by  leaders  in  the 
church.  The  Very  Rev.  W.  Byrne,  of  Boston,  presented  "The Catholic  Idea 
of  Dogmatic  Truth,"  in  which  he  claimed  infallibility  for  the  church  which 
authenticates  the  Script\ires  and  thus  avoids  false  teaching.  "The  Catholic 
Idea  of  Worship  and  Grace"  was  treated  by  Rev.  Dr.  O'Gorman,  of  Wash- 
ington, who  asserted  that  worship  is  man's  part  in  forming  a  union  with 
Divinity,  which  is  a  necessity  for  religious  life.  Rev.  Thos.  E.  Sherman, 
S.  J.,  of  St.  Louis,  discussed  "The  Catholic  Idea  of  Holiness  and  Perfec- 
tion," and  Bishop  Keane  made  an  address  on  "Jesus  Christ  the  Fountain  of 
Truth,  Grace  and  Holiness."  He  was  followed  by  Archbishop  Watterson, 
of  Ohio,  who  indicated  how  the  church  is  the  organ  of  the  Saviour  in  the  dis- 
pensation of  truth,  grace  and  holiness. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  CONGRESS. 

Held  !n  the  Art  Institute  September  aoth. 

President  Bonney,  in  opening  the  Congress,  said :  "  When  science 
becomes  Christian,  then  the  world  indeed  advances  toward  the  millenial 
dawn.  No  more  striking  manifestation  of  the  interposition  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence in  human  affairs  has  come  in  recent  years,  than  that  shown  in  the 
raising  up  of  the  body  of  people  known  as  Christian  Scientists,  who  were, 
called  to  declare  the  real  harmony  between  religion  and  science,  and  to 
restore  the  waning  faith  of  many  in  the  verities  of  the  sacred  Scriptures. 
The  common  idea  that  a  miracle  is  done  in  contravention  of  law  is  wholly 
ignorant  and  vn-ong.  As  Christian  Science  teaches,  every  miracle  recorded 
in  the  Bible  was  wrought  in  perfect  conformity  to  the  laws  which  the  divine 
Creator  established.  Your  mission  is  to  restore  "a  living  faith  in  the  fervent 
and  effectual  prayer  of  the  rigjiteous  man  which  availeth  much,  and  to  teach 
everywhere  the  supremacy  of  spiritual  forces,  In  the  presence  of  which  all  other 
forces  are  weak  and  inefficient.  Catholics  and  Protestants  may  all  thank 
God  for  the  new  energy  and  life  contributed  to  the  world,  and  especially  to 
Christendom  by  you  and  those  whom  you  represent." 

Address  by  Rev.  Mary  Baker  G.  Eddy,  Discoverer  and  Founder  of 

Christian  Science. 

Read  by  Judge  S.  J.  Hanna,  editor  of  the  Christian  Science  Journal  before 
the  Parliament  of  Religions  of  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary  of  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition  of  1893. 

Reverend  Mary  B.  G.  Eddy,  the  Discoverer  and  Founder  of  Christian 
Science,  was  born  in  the  little  town  of  Bow,  among  the  hills  of  New  Hamp- 
shire. Her  family  tree,  taking  root  in  illustrious  ancestry,  spread  its  branches 
from  London  and  Edinburgh,  Great  Britain,  to  the  United  States.  The  fam- 
ily crest  and  coat  of  arms  bear  these  mottoes  :  "  Vincere  aut  mori,"  victory  or 
death,  and  "  Tria  juncta  in  uno"  three  joined  in  one.  In  her  work,  "Sci- 
ence and  Health  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures,"  the  textbook  of  Christian 
Science,  the  author  writes:  In  this  revolutionary  period  the  voice  of  God  in 
behalf  of  the  African  slave  was  still  echoing  in  our  land,  when  this  new  Chris- 
tian crusade  sounded  the  keynote  of  universal  freedom,  asking  a  fuller 
acknowledgment  of  the  rights  of  man  as  a  Son  of  God,  demanding  that  the 
fetters  of  sin,  sickness,  and  death,  be  stricken  from  the  human  mind  and 

Copyrighted  by  Mary  Baker  G.  Eudy. 


1420  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

body,  and  their  freedom  should  be  won,  not  through  human  warfare,  not 
with  bayonet  and  blood,  but  through  Divine  Science. 

God  has  built  a  higher  platform  of  human  rights,  and  built  it  on  diviner 
claims.  These  claims  are  not  made  through  code  or  creed,  but  in  demon- 
stration of  "  peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to  men."  Human  codes  of  theol- 
ogy, medicine,  and  hygiene  cramp  the  ihind,  which  needs  freedom.  Christ, 
Truth,  rends  asunder  these  fetters,  and  man's  birthright  and  sole  allegiance 
to  his  Maker  go  on  undisturbed  in  Divine  Science. 

I  saw  before  me  the  sick,  wearing  out  years  of  servitude  to  an  unreal 
master,  in  the  belief  that  the  body  governed  them,  rather  than  the  Divine 
^Mind.  The  lame,  the  deaf,  the  dumb,  the  blind,  the  sick,  the  sensual,  the 
sinner,  I  wished  to  save  from  the  slavery  of  their  own  beliefs,  and  from 
the  educational  systems  which  to-day  hold  the  children  of  Israel  in  bon- 
dage. I  saw  before  me  the  awful  conflict,  the  Red  Sea,  and  the  wilderness ; 
'  but  I  pressed  on,  through  faith  in  God,  trusting  Truth,  the  strong  deliverer, 
to  guide  me  into  the  land  of  Christian  Science,  where  fetters  fall,  and  the 
rights  of  man  to  freedom  are  fully  known  and  acknowledged.  Christian 
Science  derives  its  sanction  from  the  Bible ;  and  its  divine  origin  is  demon- 
strated through  the  holy  influence  of  its  Truth,  in  healing  sickness  and  sin. 
The  healing  power  of  Truth  must  have  been  far  anterior  to  the  period  in 
which  Jesus  lived.  It  is  as  ancient  as  the  Ancient  of  Days.  It  lives 
through  all  Life,  and  extends  through  all  space.  Science  is  not  the  shib- 
boleth of  a  sect,  or  the  cabalistic  insignia  of  a  philosophy.  Science  is 
Mind,  not  matter,  and  because  Science  is  not  human  it  must  be  Divine. 
In  1867  I  commenced  reducing  this  latent  power  to  a  system,  in  a  form 
comprehensible  by  and  adapted  to  the  thought  of  the  age  in  which  we 
live.  This  system  enables  the  devout  learner  to  demonstrate  anew  in  some 
degree  the  divine  Principle  upon  which  Jesus'  healing  was  based,  and  the 
sacred  rules  for  its  present  presentation  and  application  to  the  cure  of 
disease. 

The  Principle  of  Christian  Science  is  God.  Its  practice  is  the  power  of 
Truth  over  error ;  its  rules  demonstrate  Science.  The  first  rule  of  this  Science 
is,  "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  Me."  The  second  is  like  unto  it, 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  To  demonstrate  these  rules  on 
any  other  than  their  divine  Principle  is  impossible.  Jesus'  sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  the  essence  of  the  morale  of  this  Science.  In  1893,  for  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  these  rules  have  been  submitted  to  the  broadest  practi- 
cal tests;  and  everywhere,  when  honestly  applied,  under  circumstances  which 
made  demonstration  possible,  they  have  shown  that  Truth  has  lost  none  of  its 
divine  and  healing  efficacy,  even  though  centuries  have  passed  away  since 
Jesus  practised  these  rules  on  the  hills  of  Judea  and  in  the  valleys  of  Galilee. 
Jesus  said  :  "These  signs  shall  follow  them  that  believe  :  they  shall  take  up 
serpents;  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing,  it  shall  not  hurt  them.  They 
shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and  they  shall  recover."     This  promise  is  per- 


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1422  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

peliial.  Had  it  been  given  only  to  his  immediate  disciples,  the  scriptural 
passage  would  read  you,  not  they.  The  purpose  of  his  great  life-work 
extends  through  time,  and  touches  universal  humanity;  its  Principle  is  infinite, 
extending  beyond  the  pale  of  a  single  period  or  a  limited  following.  His 
miracles  illustrate  an  ever-operative  divine  Principle,  scientific  order  and  con- 
tinuity. Within  one  decade  this  Science  has  stopped  the  illicit  clamor  and 
advancing  trend  of  "  free  love ; "  it  has  opened  dungeon  doors  to  the 
captives  of  sin,  sickness  and  death ;  given  impulse  to  honest  inquiry  and 
religious  liberty;  moderated  the  appetites  and  passions  of  men;  reformed 
thousands  of  inebriates ;  healed  over  one  million  cases  of  disease  considered 
hopeless,  and  advanced  the  race  physically,  morally  and  spiritually. 

I  learned  that  all  real  Being  is  in  the  immortal,  divine  Mind,  whereas  the 
five  material  senses  evolve  a  subjective  state  of  mortal  mind,  called  mortality 
and  matter,  thereby  shutting  out  the  true  sense  of  immortality  and  Spirit. 
Christian  Science  explains  all  cause  and  effect  as  mental  and  not  physical. 
It  lifts  the  veil  from  Soul,  and  silences  the  false  testimony  of  sense.  It  shows 
the  scientific  relation  of  man  to  God,  disentangles  the  interlaced  ambiguities 
of  Being,  and  sets  free  the  imprisoned  mind  to  master  the  body.  The  first 
commandment  of  the  Hebrew  decalogue  unfolds  the  fact  of  universal  broth- 
erhood ;  since  to  have  one  God,  is  to  have  one  Mind  and  one  Father,  and  this 
spiritually  and  scientifically  establishes  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Also,  God 
being  the  only  Mind,  it  is  found  impossible  for  God's  children  to  have  other 
minds,  or  to  be  antagonistic  and  war  one  with  another.  Mind  is  one,  includ- 
ing noumena  and  phenomena,  God  and  His  thoughts.  Mind  is  the  center  and 
circumference  of  all  Being,  the  central  sun  of  its  own  universe  and  infinite 
system  of  ideas.  Therefore  Mind  is  divine  and  not  human.  To  reduce  inflam- 
mation, dissolve  a  tumor,  or  cure  organic  disease,  I  have  found  Mind  more 
potent  than  all  lower  remedies.  And  why  not,  since  Mind  is  the  source  and 
condition  of  all  existence? 

Christian  Science  solves  the  problem  of  the  relative  rights  and  privileges 
of  man  and  woman  on  their  diviner  claims.  It  finds  in  scriptural  Genesis, 
that  Eve  recorded  last  is  therefore  first,  she  is  a  degree  higher  than  Adam 
in  the  ascending  intelligence  of  God's  creation.  Woman  neither  sprang 
from  the  dust  of  which  adamah  was  formed  nor  from  an  ovum  ;  she  was 
the  first  discoverer  of  human  weakness,  and  the  first  who  acknowledged  error 
to  be  error.  Woman  was  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  the  first  to  perceive  a 
risen  Saviour.  Woman  first  apprehended  divinely  man's  spiritual  origin  ; 
and  first  relinquishes  the  belief  in  material  conceptions.  It  is  a  woman 
that  discovered  and  founded  the  Science  of  Christianity. 

The  Revelator  had  not  passed  the  transitional  stage  in  human  experi- 
ence called  death,  but  he  already  saw  in  prophetic  vision  woman  "crowned 
with  twelve  stars,"  types  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  and  the  spiritual 
enlightenment  of  primal  religion. 

If  brain,  blood,  bones  help  constitute  a  man,  when  Adam  parted  with 


CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE.  1 423 

his  rib  he  lost  a  portion  of  his  manhood.  Man  is  the  generic  term  for  God's 
children,  made  in  his  own  image  and  likeness,  and  because  they  are  thus 
made,  reflected,  the  male  and  female  of  His  creating  are  equipoised  in  the 
balances  of  God.  So  let  it  be.  To  the  sore  question  "  What  are  the  work- 
ing men's  rights  ?"  Science  answers,  justice  and  mercy,  wherein  the  finan- 
cial, civil,  social,  moral  and  religious  aspect  of  all  questions  reflect  the  face 
of  the  Father.  And  this  question  will  not  rest  till  both  employer  and 
employ^  are  actuated  by  the  spirit  of  this  saying  of  the  meek  and  mighty 
Son  of  God  :  "Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them." 

The  following  are  the  tenets  of  the  Christian  Science  Churches  : 

1.  As  adherents  of  Truth,  we  take  the  Scriptures  for  our  guide  to  eternal 
Life. 

2.  We  acknowledge  and  adore  one  Supreme  God.  We  acknowledge 
his  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  man  in  the  Divine  image  and  likeness. 

3.  We  acknowledge  God's  forgiveness  of  sin,  in  the  destruction  of  sin, 
and  His  punishment  of  "  Whatsoever  worketh  abomination  or  maketh  a  lie." 
We  acknowledge  the  atonement  as  the  efficacy  and  evidence  of  Divine 
Love,  of  man's  unity  with  God,  and  of  the  great  merits  of  the  Way-shower. 

4.  We  acknowledge  the  way  of  salvation  demonstrated  by  Jesus,  as  the 
power  of  Truth  over  all  error,  sin.  sickness  and  death,  and  the  resurrection  of 
human  faith  to  seize  the  great  possibilities  and  living  energies  of  the  Divine 
Life. 

5.  We  solemnly  promise  to  strive,  watch  and  pray  for  that  Mind  to  be 
in  us  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus.  To  love  one  another^  and,  up  to  our 
highest  understanding  to  be  meek,  merciful  and  just. 

Dr.  E.  J.  Foster  Eddy,  President  of  the  National  Christian  Scientist 
Association,  in  his  address  said:  "The  ages  have  had  their  prophets, 
revel^.tors  and  discoverers,  who  foresaw  and  foretold,  by  whom  the  down- 
trodden and  oppressed  have  been  bidden  to  rise  and  go  forth  from  the 
thraldom  of  evil  into  the  "liberty  of  the  sons  of  God."  Jesus  proved  his 
words  by  his  deeds,  and  his  life  was  a  constant  demonstration  of  the  Princi- 
ple he  taught,  showing  that  he  was  the  "one  sent  of  God  "  to  do  his  work 
among  men,  for  their  example.  This  work  was  the  destruction  of  sin,  sick- 
ness and  death,  but  too  soon  his  precept  and  example,  his  spiritual  religion 
and  his  healing  power  of  Truth  became  lost  to  a  sensual,  sinful  world.  Now 
there  has  gone  up  a  cry  to  God  for  deliverance.  In  America  has  sprung  up 
the  "great  light,"  again  conceived  and  brought  forth  by  woman,  who  has 
made  it  possible  for  all  men  to  come  to  it  and  be  freed  from  sin,  disease, 
death — the  enslavement  of  personal  material  sense — and  be  renewed  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  Spirit,  Good.  This  greater  light  is  scientifically  Chris- 
tian or  Christian  Science,  a  religion  with  "signs  following."  Wise  ones 
are  being  guided  to  it,  and  it  is  found  to  be  of  divine  origin,  begotten  of  the 
Father,  his  voice  of  love  to  men.  This  is  proved  by  the  thousands  of  hopeless 
invalids  raised  to  health  by  its  saving  Principle,  and  by  the  many  who  have 
i)een  lifted  from  the  misery  of  sin  and  its  consequences,  into  a  knowledge  of, 


1424  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

and  obedience  to,  God.  This  is  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  Christian  Science. 
Our  beloved  cause  and  Leatler  liave  been  accorded  a  more  deserving  place 
in  history.  Many  misconceptions  whicii  iiave  obscured  the  real  sense  of 
Science  from  the  people  are  disappearing,  and  its  holy,  beneficent  mission 
is  being  manifested  to  sick  and  stricken  humanity.  People  who  are  search- 
ing for  the  Truth  are  turning  more  generally  to  Christian  Science  because  it 
reveals  the  natural  law  and  power  of  God,  available  to  mortals  here  and 
now,  as  a  saviour  from  sickness  and  sin.  As  a  denomination  of  Christians 
our  growth  has  been  rapid  and  widespread,  and  now  presents  in  a  large 
degree  all  the  external  aspects  of  successful  and  useful  operation." 

Addresses  were  read  by  Rev.  D.  A.  Easton,  Rev.  A.  E.  Stetson,  Rev.  J. 
F.  Linscott,  Rev.  E.  M.  Buswell,  Rev.  I.  M.  Stewart,  Mrs.  R.  B.  Ewing,  Mrs. 
A.  M.  Knott,  Mr.  E.  P.  Bates,  Mr.  A.  Farlow,  Gen.  E.  N.  Bates,  Judge  S.  J. 
Hanna. 

The  substance  of  these  papers  is  condensed  and  compiled  as  follows: — 
Nearly  all  men  believe  in  God.  At  least  they  believe  in  a  being  or  power 
or  force,  which  they  call  God.  But  who  or  what  God  is,  or  whether  he  is  per- 
sonal or  impersonal,  corporeal  or  incorporeal  are  questions  concerning  which 
there  is  great  diversity  of  opinion,  and  little  scientific  understanding.  The  great 
need  of  the  world  to-day  is, "  to  ^mcto  Him  whom  to  know  aright,  is  life  eternal," 
and  this  need  is  not  met  by  the  substitution  of  human  opinion,  dogma  and 
belief.  Man  knows  nothing  of  himself  without  this  knowledge,  for  he  is 
made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God.  Eye  hath  not  seen  God  and  material 
Sense  can  never  inform  us  concerning  the  nature  and  attributes  of  the  Infinite 
One.  Through  the  belief  of  life  and  intelligence  in  matter,  mortals  become 
self-worshipers,  and  this  opens  the  way  for  all  the  various  ramifications  of 
evil,  as  a  substitute  for  God. 

The  definitions  of  God  as  found  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Article  of 
Faith,  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  and  our  text-book,  "Science 
and  Health,"  page  556,  incontrovertibly  establish  God  as  all,  as  infinite  Prin- 
ciple, eternal  Individuality,  supreme  Personality,  "  incorporeal  Being,  without 
body,  parts  or  passions."  Upon  this  common  definitional  platform  we  are 
content  to  stand,  and  to  the  contemplation  and  worship  of  this  God  we  invite 
all  mankind.  The  "  Scientific  statement  of  Being  "  on  page  452  of  "  Science 
and  Health,"  gives  this  primary  postulate  of  Christian  Science — "  There  is  no 
life,  substance,  or  intelligence  in  matter.  All  is  Mind."  If  it  be  a  fact  that  all 
is  Mind,  it  precludes  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  matter  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  universe,  or  as  having  any  real  existence.  All  agree  that  Mind  is 
Intelligence.  There  can  be  no  intelligence  apart  from  Mind.  Mind  or  Intel- 
ligence must  be  Life.  Non-intelligent  Life  is  an  impossibility.  It  is  admitted 
that  matter  is  not  intelligent ;  but  while  this  is  admitted,  it  is  maintained 
that  it  is  substance  and  contains  life.  If  mankind  is  the  offspring  of  matter, 
— matter  being  non-intelligent — inert  matter  must  be  the  parent  of  mankind. 
As  Christian  Scientists  we  look  for  the  origin  of  i-ife  in  the  living  God  rather 


CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE.  1425 

than  in  dead  matter.  We  accept  the  scriptural  definition  of  his  character 
and  refer  ail  Life  to  him.  The  Bible  distinctly  declares  him  to  be  Spirit.  If 
he  is  Spirit,  he  cannot  be  matter  either  in  whole  or  in  part. 

It  is  in  the  discernment  of  the  real  nature  and  infinity  of  Spirit,  and  its 
absolute  non-relationship  to  matter,  that  the  originality,  truth  and  efficacy 
of  Christian  Science  consists,  and  it  is  this  which  confers  upon  it  the  distinc- 
tion of  a  great  discovery.  Not  that  Truth  included  in  the  scientific  state- 
ment is  new.  Its  presentation  is  by  way  of  discovery,  not  of  creation;  a 
fresh  discernment  and  apprehension  in  the  human  consciousness  of  things 
which  are  eternal ;  and  this  is  the  greatest  joy,  wonderment  and  glory  that 
can  ever,  by  any  possible  means,  appear  unto  us, — the  revelation  and  true 
knowledge  of  God. 

Christian  Science  separates  clearly,  distinctly  and  entirely  between 
Spirit  and  matter.  Divine  Mind  and  carnal  mind.  Truth  and  all  evil.  This 
new  statement  of  Truth  comes  not  to  ddstroy,  but  to  fulfill  every  jot  and  tittle 
of  the  law,  and  to  fill  full  of  significance  and  power  all  the  "glad  tidings" 
of  "  the  glorious  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,"  in  both  the  letter  and  the  spirit. 
It  dispels  mystery  by  removing  ignorance  and  misconception  regarding  that 
which  was  always  true  but  not  rightly  apprehended  in  human  consciousness. 

There  is  one  study  of  universal  interest,  and  that  is  man.  How  is  he . 
to  be  studied  ?  Experience  replies,  from  the  testimony  given  by  the  five 
senses,  and  yet  such  knowledge  at  best  is  only  relative,  and  can  never 
reveal  the  absolute  facts  of  being.  We  are  told  in  the  Bible  that,  "man 
that  is  born  of  a  woman,  is  of  few  days  and  full  of  trouble.  He  cometh 
forth  like  a  flower  and  is  cut  down  ;  he  fleeth  also  as  a  shadow,  and  contin- 
ueth  not."  This  relates  only  to  the  physical.  When  we  come  to  the  moral, 
the  idea  of  freedom  is  declared  and  thought  to  be  impossible  of  realization. 
This  mortal  man  is  by  his  own  confession  a  prisoner  in  a  house  of  clay, 
struggling  to  realize  something  he  knows  not  what ;  the  seemingly  helpless 
victim  of  sickness,  sin,  and  sometimes  unmerited  misfortune.  And  is  this 
man  ?  Nature,  as  we  know  her,  has  no  answer;  human  reason  says  I  know 
no  other;  but  above  the  discord  of  the  senses.  Divine  Science  lifts  up  its 
voice  as  the  sound  of  many  waters,  and  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God 
declares  that  this  is  not  man.  The  universe  is  spiritual.  This  conceived, 
we  find  God  has  verily  created  (made  manifest)  heaven  and  earth.  God 
(the  creative  Principle)  brings  forth  man,  the  image  and  likeness  of  God,  or 
"  the  very  image  of  good."  Man  is  not  a  finite  personality.  If  God  were 
not  self-existent,  he  must  have  had  a  creator,  and  the  cause  of  being  had 
not  been  reached.  The  very  image  of  a  self-existent  infinite  God  could 
not  be  a  finite  person. 

The  ideal  brotherhood  of  man  is  that  state  in  which  the  individual  loves 
and  serves  God  supremely,  and  loves  all  mankind  with  a  perfect  love.  This 
is  the  only  state  that  can  bring  peace,  and  to  reach  it  each  one  must  do  an 
individual  work.     Left  to  their  own  resources,  mortals  are  in  constant  strife 

go 


1426  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

socially,  politically  and  religiously.  Each  individual  has  an  opinion  as  to 
what  is  needed  to  afford  harmony  and  satisfaction  ;  but  because  of  conflict- 
ing minds  many,  and  the  great  variety  of  abnormal,  carnal  tastes,  there  is 
little  agreement. 

To  harmonize  millions  of  dissimilar  and  antagonistic  minds  is  impossi- 
ble, but  to  harmonize  each  individual  with  the  perfect  Infinite  Mind  that  is 
Good  is  practicable,  and  will  be  made  manifest  when  each  one  shall  live  in 
harmony  with  the  text,  "Not  my  will  but  Thine  be  done." 

The  social  conflict  cannot  be  composed  by  the  alteration  or  revision 
of  capricious  human  opinions  or  by  the  compromises  of  man-made 
laws,  but  through  the  operation  alone  of  the  laws  of  God,  which,  when  under- 
stood, will  be  found  to  meet  unto  the  uttermost  all  the  needs  of  man's  well- 
being,  and  to  adjust  with  scientific  perfection  all  of  his  affairs. 

If  God  is  Omniscience,  then  it  is  futile  for  humanity  to  try  to  extricate 
itself  from  misery  and  failure  by  substituting  human  devices  in  place  of 
Divine  Wisdom  or  Science. 

Christian  Science  is  a  universal  religion,  with  a  universal  Principle,  and 
capable  of  a  universal  practice.  Its  origin  is  God,  Infinite  Mind.  Infinite 
Mind  is  expressed  in  the  Christ  The  Christ  was  never  bom,  but  was  mani- 
fest through  the  human  Jesus.  Jesus  is  the  pattern  for  a  true  humanhood. 
All  that  mortals  will  ever  know  of  Truth  they  will  know  as  Jesus  knew  it,  by 
demonstration,  revelation  or  reflection  from  the  Infinite  Mind.  His  message 
was  from  God,  and  his  message  was  his  theology.  This  theology  is  Divine 
Science,  and  antidotes  all  human  theologies. 

-  Jesus'  theology  as  set  forth  in  "  Science  and  Health  "  is  being  practised 
by  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  of  his  loving  disciples  to-day.  It  is  a 
practical  Christianity.  We  recognize  ail  that  is  true,  honest  and  pure  in  all 
the  world's  religions ;  yet  we  suggest  this  most  excellent  way  of  demon- 
strating God's  power  among  men.  Better  the  understanding  to  heal  the 
slightest  malady,  strictly  on  the  basis  of  God  as  the  Principle  of  Science, 
than  all  the  material  knowledge  of  the  world. 

The  Discoverer  and  Founder  of  Christian  Science  has  given  an  ample 
explanation  of  the  cause  of  disease  and  the  method  of  scientific  healing. 
Jesus'  followers  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  demonstrated  that  the  Prin- 
ciple he  taught  was  scientific  and  therefore  practicable.  The  healing  of  the 
sick  by  Jesus,  according  to  the  infinite  will  and  purpose  of  God,  was  neither 
supernatural  nor  miraculous.  Nothing  that  is  done  in  obedience  to  God  can 
be  unnatural. 

Christian  Science  is  the  revelation  of  the  Science  of  the  Christ  mission, 
and  shows  that  this  mission  is  a  complete,  perfect  illustration  of  the  only  way 
in  which  mortals  can  overcome  the  world  and  the  evils  of  every  kind  that 
are  unlike  God,  and  therefore  contrary  to  God,  and  that  separate  man,  in 
belief,  from  Him. 

It  shows  that  the  healing  of  the  sick  is  a  natural  phenomenon  of  Scien- 


CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE.  1 427 

tific  Christianity  or  the  understanding  of  Jesus'  teachings.  This  declaration 
is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that,  as  his  followers  perceive  and  understand  the 
real  significance  of  his  work,  they  are  able  to  manifest  that  knowledge  by 
healing  disease.  Christian  Science  healing  is  wholly  unlike  what  is  called 
"Faith  Cure"  or  "Prayer  Cure."  It  is  not  the  operation  of  a  supposed 
fluctuating,  capricious  interposition  of  God,  but  in  accord  with  his  infinite 
law.  Jesus  said,  "  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am,"  referring  clearly  to  the  uni- 
versal and  infinite  nature  of  the  Christ  Mind  that  preaches  the  Gospel,  heals 
the  sick,  raises  the  dead  and  casts  out  evils. 

At  the  first  glance  it  would  seem  as  though  the  claims  and  conditions  of 
■error  were  real  and  conclusive ;  that  man  was  held  by  them  and  had  no  way 
-of  escape.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  <^aim  of  evil  power  over  man,  we  have, 
at  this  very  hour,  the  reassurance  of  the  protecting  care  of  God.  Christian  Sci- 
•ence  shows  how  to  take  God's  Word  and  apply  it  in  overcoming  sickness  as 
well  as  sin.  Jesus'  command  "  heal  the  sick  "  is  as  imperative  as  "  preach  the 
■Gospel,"  for  it  is  good  tidings  to  all  mankind.  Are  you  suffering  with  sick- 
ness? Search  for  what  the  Bible  says  about  health.  Are  you  overcome  with 
sorrow?  Find  its  .antidote  in  joy.  Do  you  believe  your  strength  is  failing 
you  ?  Read,  "God  is  our  refuge  and  strength."  Do  you  seem  to  be  over- 
<ome  with  fear,  so  that  your  physical  body  appears  full  of  confusion  and 
suffering  ?  "  Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear."  Accept  this  scriptural  state- 
ment as  made  lor  you,  and  you  will  be  enabled  to  drink  at  the  life-giving 
fountain  that  heals  the  sick.  We  are  practising  Christian  Science  only  as 
-we  are  growing  less  envious,  less  greedy,  less  selfish  in  all  of  its  expressions, 
by  striving  to  love  our  neighbor  as  ourselves,  and  keeping  God's  command- 
ments. If  no  one  believed  in  sickness,  there  could  be  no  sickness.  Let  us 
know  the  Truth  that  makes  us  free,  even  from  this  belief. 

Christian  Science  is  presented  before  the  world  to-day,  the  happy  sup- 
pliant for  recognition  of  its  claim  to  be  what  its  name  implies,  both  Chris- 
tian and  Scientific ;  it  voices  an  imperative  demand  that  these  two  be  made 
one  henceforth  in  faith  and  practice,  for  otherwise  there  is  no  satisfactory 
proof,  no  final  evidence  of  the  validity  of  the  claims  of  either.  In  no  other 
way  than  through  actual  demonstration  of  Truth  can  mortals  learn  whether 
they  are  obeying  God,  or  their  opinions  about  him.  Faith  not  buttressed  by 
demonstration  is  always  in  danger  of  changing  to  skepticism.  It  is  always 
possible  to  change  one  belief  for  another,  the  belief  in  immortality  for  the 
belief  in  annihilation ;  but  a  demonstrated  knowledge  of  God  is  planted  on 
a  rock  and  cannot  be  moved. 

"  Science  and  Health "  teaches  concerning  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
that :  First,  the  historical  record  of  the  resurrection  is  trustworthy. 
Secondly,  Christian  Science  teaches  explicitly  that  all  of  the  experiences 
of  Jesus,  from  the  time  he  was  placed  in  the  tomb  to  the  time  that  he 
emerged  from  it,  occurred  on  this  plane  of  thought,  and  the  body  with 
•which  he  came  forth  from  the  tomb  was  identically  the  same   body   that 


1428  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

was  put  in  the  tomb.  Thirdly,  Jesus'  resurrection  differed  only  in  degree, 
not  in  kind,  from  Jesus'  other  miracles.  They  were  all  designed  to 
prove  that  Spirit  is  all-powerful,  and  matter  powerless.  Fourthly,  the 
resurrection  and  all  the  other  so-called  miracles  are  divinely  natural 
rather  than  supernatural.  When  Jesus  came  forth  from  the  tomb  it  was 
not  because  he  had  supernatural  assistance.  He  was  only  asserting  a  great 
fact  of  man's  being,  viz.,  that  man  cannot  die.  He  was  demonstrating  his 
birth  right  as  a  son  of  God.  He  proved  that  the  law  of  man's  nature  was  Life, 
and  that  death  was  a  false  claimant.  Those  who  maintain  that  the  resur- 
rection and  Jesus'  other  demonstrations  over  matter  were  exceptional  asser- 
tions of  God's  power,  and  that  they  interfered  with  the  natural  order  of 
things,  are  forced  to  admit,  that  sin,  disease  and  death  are  natural  and  that 
Life,  Truth  ind  Love  are  abnormal.  Admitting  the  reality  of  evil,  they  have 
to  admit  that  there  is  another  power  than  God,  viz.,  a  god  of  evil,who  at  pres- 
ent at  least  shares  God's  throne.  They  also  have  to  accounf  for  the  origin 
of  evil,  and  how  can  that  be  done  without  impugning  the  benevolence  of 
God  ?  This  line  of  thought  leads  also  to  the  assertion  that  man  is  not 
entirely  a  child  of  God,  that  he  is  in  part  a  child  of  the  devil.  These 
admissions  are  paralyzing  to  spiritual  growth,  and  lead  us  away  from  the 
simplicity  of  Jesus'  gospel  into  a  never-ending  maze  of  human  speculation. 
Fifthly,  we  can  have  part  in  Jesus'  resurrection  now  and  here,  by  obedience 
to  the  law  of  Spirit  and  denial  of  the  seeming  law  of  matter.  According 
to  "  Science  and  Health,"  the  central  thought  and  efficiency  of  the  resurrec- 
tion was  not  the  mere  rising  of  a  physical  body  from  a  material  grave.  The 
Bible  records  other  instances  of  physical  resurrection,  but  as  factors  in  the 
Christian  life,  they  are  not  to  be  compared  with  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
And  even  as  to  the  physical  resurrection  of  Jesus,  it  may  be  said  that  a 
zealous  belief  in  it  may  be  consistent  with  an  unchristian  life.  It  is 
evident  then,  that  if  we  would  know  the  secret  of  the  transforming  power  of 
the  doctrine  of  Jesus'  resurrection,  we  must  look  elsewhere  than  at  its  phy- 
sical and  material  aspects.  This  doctrine  was  very  prominent  in  the  Apos- 
tles' preaching.  They  seemed  to  realize  that  to  this  they  owed  in  a  large 
measure  the  spiritualization  of  their  thought,  their  control  over  the  lusts 
of  the  flesh  and  worldly  ambitions,  their  solid  assurance  of  the  great  facts 
of  Life,  Truth,  and  Love,  and  deliverance  from  the  beliefs  of  sin,  disease 
and  death.  We  do  not  claim  thai  Christian  Scientists  have  at  present 
sufficient  spiritual  realization  to  demonstrate  over  the  claim  of  death  as 
Jesus  did;  but  we  do  claim  that  we  are  using  Jesus'  method  successfully  in 
destroying  the  claims  of  disease  and  sin,  and  in  ail  reverence  we  maintain 
that  that  same  method  faithfully  adhered  to  will  enable  us,  at  some  time,  to 
demonstrate  over  the  claim  of  death  as  Jesus  did.  He  said  that  his  follow- 
ers could  do  all  the  works  that  he  did  and  greater,  and  we  rest  confidently 
on  this  promise. 

Jesus,  who  did  the  will  of  omniscient  God,  said  "  I  and  my  Father  are 


CONGREGATIONAL.  1 4-29 

one."  The  Mind  which  created  and  governed  Jesus  was  the  divine  Mind. 
The  .\postle  writes  :  "Let  that  Mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ 
Jesus."  Mortals  have  a  very  degraded  sense  of  Mind.  The  medley  of 
changing  opinions  and  erroneous,  sinful  thoughts  that  encumber  human 
consciousness  is  neither  Mind  nor  evidence  thereof.  It  is  simply  a  falsity; 
it  is  "foolishness  with  God;"  it  is  evil  and  cannot,  by  any  process  now  or 
hereafter,  be  transformed  into  Truth. 

Error  must  be  cast  out  and  utterly  destroyed  before  individual  con- 
sciousness shall  appear  in  the  likeness  of  God. 


THE  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH  CONGRESS. 

Congregationalism  had  the  honor  of  ushering  in  the  first  week  of  the 
great  Parliament  of  Religions.  It  was  convened  in  the  Hall  of  Columbus, 
September  lo,  at  2:30  P.M.  Rev.  Dr.  Willard  Scott,  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Arrangements,  presided. 

Congregationalism  is  the  form  of  religious  faith  and  polity  which  was 
represented  by  the  Pilgrim  F'alhers,  who,  coming  across  the  Atlantic  in  the 
Afayflower,  landed  at  Plymouth  Rock,  December  21,  1620,  and  by  the  Puri- 
tans of  New  England.  President  Bonney  opened  the  Congress,  with  the 
justness  of  thought,  intelligence  and  felicity  which  have  characterized  all 
his  addresses  on  similar  occasions. 

In  response  to  the  address  of  welcome.  Dr.  Willard  Scott,  in  a  brief 
survey  of  the  successive  stages  of  religious  thought.  Oriental  and  Occidental, 
which  had  led  the  way  to  the  movement  that  issued  in  Congregationalism, 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  first  revelation  of  God's  will  to  man 
came  to  the  Oriental  mind.  The  Orientalist  was  a  good  listener,  but  he 
was  not  such  a  good  thinker.  It  was  therefore  left  to  the  European  to 
discover  man's  nature  as  God  had  made  him.  The  receptive  mind  of  the 
Oriental  received  the  revelation  from  God.  The  introspective  mind  of  the 
European  formed  this  body  of  truth  into  a  system  of  ethics  or  religious 
philosophy.  The  next  step  was  the  translating  of  this  philosophy  into  the 
language  of  the  people,  and  the  next  to  put  this  system  of  ethics  into  human 
behavior.  The  Puritan  and  the  Pilgrim  are  distinguished  as  dealing  with 
social  religion.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  social  millennium  :  and  this  is  so 
largely  because  the  Puritans  wrought  toward  it.  We  shall  realize  it  when 
we  fall  back  upon  their  principles  as  still  the  methods  by  which  the  end  is 
to  be  reached. 

The  Rev.  Simeon  Gilbert,  D.D.,  of  the  Advance,  described  :  "  What 
Congregationalism  is." 

Congregationalism  stands  for  .t  faith  and  a  principle  of  church  govern- 
ment.    The   faith  is  the  evangelical   belief  ;  the  church  polity  is  that  of  a 


1430  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

pure  democracy,  under  the  one  Lord  and  Master.  Historically,  Congrega- 
tionalism was  the  pure  outcome  of  the  Reformation,  and  was  a  return, 
straight  and  immediate,  to  the  sole  authority  of  the  Word  of  God.  In  all 
matters  of  the  religious  life  and  church  control,  its  loyalty  to  Christ  alone 
makes  it  disown  "  the  authority  of  pope,  prelate,  presbyter,  prince  or 
parliament."  It  calls  no  man  master  ;  for  one  is  our  Master,  even  Christ, 
and  all  we  are  brethren.  The  acceptance  of  the  supreme  authority  of  God 
as  revealed  in  his  Word  and  in  our  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  is  the  fundamental 
thought.  All  doctrine,  all  motives,  all  rules  of  the  Chiistian  life  are  sub- 
jected to  this  test. 

Congregationalism  begins  with  the  idea  of  a  regenerate  church  mem- 
bership. It  would  have  no  meaning  without  this  as  its  basis,  no  justification 
or  power.  Moreover,  the  local  church  is  constituted  by  a  definite  covenant, 
entered  into  by  believers  with  God  and  with  one  another. 

Congregationalism,  consistently  and  alike  in  both  its  faith  and  its 
polity,  emphasizes  the  continual  and  indwelling  presence  of  Christ  in  his 
church,  according  to  his  promise,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway."  For  the 
same  reason,  it  keeps  at  the  front  its  dependence  upon  the  inward  teaching 
and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

But,  along  with  this  independency  of  the  local  church,  Congregational- 
ism holds  to  the  idea  of  the  fellowship  of  the  churches.  As  to  the  fittest 
methods  of  church  fellowship,  on  thfe  basis  of  the  freedom  and  spiritual  equal- 
ity of  the  several  churches,  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  experimentation. 
In  this  respect  Congregationalism  of  to-day  is  the  result  of  a  long  process 
of  evolution  and  of  re-adjustment  to  new  conditions.  If  it  took  courage  to 
dare  to  be  free,  it  has  required  an  equal  degree  of  courage,  while  insisting 
upon  freedom,  to  dare  to  enter  upon  terms  of  fellowship,  mutual  trust, 
council  and  cooperation. 

The  present  system  of  "councils,"  and  of  "associations,"  local,  state 
and  national,  and  at  length  international,  came  about  only  by  degrees.  The 
existing  combination  of  the  immediateness  of  each  one's  accountability  to 
God,  of  the  independency  of  each  local  church  of  all  outside  human  authority, 
and  with  this  an  organized  system  of  church-fellowship,  has  been  an  achieve- 
ment, the  victory  of  a  long-growing  "sanctified  common  sense."  So  that 
that  which  not  long  ago  seemed  to  the  fathers  impossible  has  now  come  to 
appear  axiomatic  and  altogether  natural.  This  at  least  is  true  in  America, 
where  Congregationalism  is  in  certain  respects  greatly  in  advance  of  that  In 
Great  Britain. 

The  genesis  of  Congregationalism  was  in  England ;  its  first  exodus  to 
the  New  World  was  from  Holland ;  and  it  was  the  May/lower  which  bore  lo 
Plymouth  Rock  this  choicest  and  fruitfulest  seed-corn  of  all  American  immi- 
gration, religious,  civil  and  educational. 

From  the  necessity  of  the  Ciise,  Congregationalism  has,  from  the  first, 
always  and  everywhere,  put  paramount  emphasis  upon  education.     The  sysr 


mm^ 


RKV.   MARV  IIAKF.R  (;.   KDDY, 

DISCOVEREK   AND    lOL'NOEK   OF   CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE. 

"  HUMAN  WILL  AND  HIE  KlVii  SENSES  ARE  OPPOSED  TO  THE  DIVINE  MIND,  EXPRESSED  THROCGH 
CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE,  WHICH  REVERSES  ALL  PERVERTED  AND  HUMAN  HYPOTHESES  CONCERNING 
DKITV, —  EVEN  AS  THE  SCIENCE  OK  OPTICS  REJECTS,  Willi. K  IP  EXPLAINS,  7  HE  INCIDENTAL  OH 
INVKKTED  IMAGE, —  AND  SHOWS  WHAT  IS  L'^VE  AND  US  DEMONSTKA  I  ION."' 


1432  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

lem  which  makes  so  much  of  the  individual,  of  every  individual  member,  is 
itself  educative,  and  is  constantly  making  demands  for  more  and  still  more 
of  personal  culture.  What  may  be  termed  the  American  educational  idea, 
from  the  founding  of  Harvard  College  and  the  origination  of  the  common 
school  of  New  England,  owes  more,  far  more,  to  Congregationalism  than  to 
any  other  single  source. 

But  no  one  can  have  arty  tolerably  adequate  conception  of  what  modem 
Congregationalism  is,  unless  he  takes  into  large  account  two  other  great  fac- 
tors in  its  life.  These  are,  on  the  one  hand,  its  comprehensive  and  really 
majestic  system  of  joint  responsibility  and  joint  enterprise  in  support  of  its 
varied  missionary  societies,  home  and  foreign ;  and,  on  the  other,  its 
religious  journalism  —  the  "  council "  that  waits  on  no  "  letters-missive  "  for 
its  organization ;  the  open  parliament  which  never  adjourns,  and  before 
which  no  questions  of  vital  moment  are  ever  out  of  order.  These  two  great 
factors  and  forms  of  actualized  fellowship  do  more  than  any  other  human 
agency  to  bind  into  a  sweet  and  living  and  divinely  forceful  unity  not  only 
the  scattered  Congregational  churches  of  a  continent,  but  throughout  all  the 
world,  and  which  makes  it  possible  and  proper  to  speak  of  an  ecumenical 
Congregational  Church. 

The  Congregational  denomination  is  not  the  most  numerous,  religious 
body  in  America,  having  only  a  little  more  than  half  a  million  communi- 
cants ;  but  its  power  is  not  to  be  fairly  estimated  without  taking  into  the 
account  its  influence  hitherto  toward  congregationalizing  all  the  other  church 
organizatiofis. 

One  other  distinctive  characteristic  of  Congregationalism  must  be  noted. 
This- is  the  intertsity  of  its  belief  in  "the  Holy  Catholic  Church"  the  world 
over,  and  its  disposition  to  recognize  the  existing  unity  in  Christ  of  true 
believers  of  whatever  name. 

If  Congregationalism  is  not,  as  some  claim  for  it,  "the  solvent  of  the 
sects,"  its  distinguishing  and  constituent  principles  are  the  ones  which,  it  is 
believed,  will  prevail  when  at  the  last,  the  prayer  of  our  Lord  shall  have  come 
to  pass  that  "  they  all  may  be  one." 

Incidentally,  it  is  pleasant  to  add  that  the  man  who  had  most  to  do  in 
bringing  about  the  consummation  of  this  World's  Parliament  of  Religions, 
Dr.  John  Henry  Barrows,  was  by  birth,  education  and  early  ministry  a 
Congregationalisf. 

Prof.  Williston  Walker,  of  Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  in  a  paper  on 
"FIRST  THI.NGS  IN  CONGREGATIONALISM," 
outlined  with  great  lucidity  what  may  be  termed  the  genesis  and  the  exodus 
of  Congregationalism,  its  origin  in  England,  its  partial  organization  in 
Holland,  its  divinely  guided  voyage  to  America  in  the  Mayflower  its  early 
history  in  New  England  and  its  subsequent  development.  He  said  :  If  any 
type  of  church  government  deserves  to  be  called  American  it  is  Congrega- 
tionalism.    Its  formative   influence   has  been  felt   in  greater  or  less  degree 


CONGREGATIONAL.  1433 

by  all  the  religious  bodies  that  occupy  this  land.  It  has  modified  other 
systems  of  church  government,  making  them  vastly  different  from  what  they 
are  on  European  soil ;  while  if  its  adherents  in  name  are  not  the  most 
numerous  of  the  tribes  of  our  American  Israel,  no  Christian  body  equals  the 
Congregational  in  services  to  education  and  to  those  interests  which  make 
for  the  intellectual  well-being  of  our  nation. 

If  the  Puritans  gave  us  the  love  of  education,  the  executive  force  and 
the  business  ability  which  have  marked  the  descendants  of  New  England 
parentage  throughout  our  land,  the  Pilgrims  gave  us  Congregationalism. 

In  the  paper  of  Miss  Mary  A.  Jordan,  of  Smith  College,  Northampton, 
Mass.,  on  "  The  Congregational  Idea,"  certain  of  the  elenrientary  char- 
acteristics of  the  Congregational  wa^  were  set  forth  with  fine  penetration 
and  justness  of  statement. 

Rev.  Dr.  Henry  A.  Stimson,  of  New  York,  in  a  paper  on  "Congrega- 
tionalism To-day,"  said  that  first  of  all  Congregationalism  was  not  an  organ- 
ization, but  an  organism  ;  it  was  not  a  sect,  but  a  denomination.  It  had  made 
deliverances  and  spoken  solemnly  on  various  points,  but  those  utterances 
were  chiefly  for  those  whom  they  concerned,  and  they  imposed  no  yoke  and 
constituted  no  shibboleth.  Their  gatherings  had  been  for  the  expression  of 
a  common  brotherhood  and  the  promotion  of  a  common  task,  and  not  for 
the  forging  of  fetters.  That  is  the  central  fact  of  Congregationalism.  It  is 
its  distinguishing  feature.  Another  fact  in  the  development  of  Congrega- 
tionalism has  been  its  denominational  unselfishness.  Its  members  have 
thought  little  of  pushing  the  denomination,  and  much  of  forwarding  the 
kingdom  of  Christ. 

Rev.  Hugh  Pedley,  of  Winnipeg,  Manitoba,  spoke  on  the  "  Relations 
Between  English  and  American  Congregationalists,"  In  the  interests  of  a 
closer  union  he  urged  the  establishment  of  a  council  of  councils,  a  journal 
of  journals,  and  a  college  of  colleges,  international  in  their  scope,  which 
should  make  the  denomination  in  this  manner  more  truly  one. 

In  the  evening  Dr.  A.  F.  Sherrill  of  Atlanta,  Georgia,  spoke  of  Congre- 
gationalism in  the  West  and  South.  During  the  past  twenty-five  years 
greater  and  better  work  has  been  accomplished  than  any  one  who  has  not 
been  on  the  ground  can  believe. 

Secretary  Judson  Smith,  of  Boston,  followed  with  a  graphic  survey  of 
"The  Missionary  History  of  the  Denomination."  He  touched  rapidly  upon 
the  beginning  of  missions  in  different  foreign  lands  and  of  the  marvelous 
changes  which  they  had  produced.  Through  missions,  will  come  about  the 
union  of  all  nations  and  that  parliament  of  man  which  is  the  dream  of  poet 
and  philanthropist. 

Rev.  Dr.  Alexander  McKenzie,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  spoke  on  "Con- 
gregationalism and  the  World."  Congregationalism,  he  said,  had  gone  back 
to  the  primitive,  Biblical  conception  of  the  church  ;  was  giving  to  Christiar^ity 
and  to  the  world  the  influence  of  American  institutions;  and  had  brought 
out  a  peculiar  and  noble  type  of  manhood. 


THE  WOMAN'S  CONGREGATIONAL  CONGRESS. 

The  sessions  of  the  Woman's  Congregational  Congress  opened  Mon- 
day, September  ii.  Through  all  its  six  sessions  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee, Mrs.  George  Sherwood,  presided.  Despite  the  immense  attractions 
of  the  Parliament  of  Religions,  the  sessions  of  this  part  of  t^e  Congrega- 
tional Congress  were  well  attended  and  kept  to  a  high  pitch  of  enthusiasm. 
4  The  topics  had  been  admirably  chosen  and  grouped  together,  and  the  papers 
in  point  of  thought  and  literary  treatment  fully  equaled  those  of  the  men. 

The  first  grouping  of  addresses  was  about  the  Pilgrims  and  Puritans. 
The  opening  devotions  were  conducted  by  ReV.  Elvira  Cobleigh,  from  the 
far  West,  herself,  a  modern  pilgrim.  The  singing  at  these  meetings  was 
chiefly  congregational.  A  number  of  original  hymns  were  used,  written  for 
the  occasion  by  Mrs.  Margaret  Sangster,  Mrs.  James  Gibson  Johnson,  Mrs. 
L.  P.  Rowland,  Rev.  Louise  Baker,  Mrs.  Merrill  E.  Gates,  and  Mrs.  G.  B. 
Willcox. 

The  Pilgrim  and  Puritan  idea  was  treated  by  Mrs.  A.  E.  Arnold,  of 
Piano,  111.  Then  the  trials,  firmness,  constancy  and  heroism  of  the  Pilgrim 
mothers  were  presented  in  a  historical  paper  by  Mrs.  Moses  Smith.  A  tall, 
bright-faced,  young  looking  woman  presented  herself  as  the  Rev.  Miss 
Juanita  Breckenridge,  and  spoke  without  notes  on  the  True  Democracy  of 
Congregationalism.  Mrs.  Jane  G.  Austin  considered  the  Influence  of  Pil- 
grim and  Puritan  Heredity  in  Relation  to  Religious  Thought.  The  answer 
of  Rev.  Mrs.  Cobleigh  to  the  question  of  the  Scope  of  Woman's  Work  in 
the  Churches  was,  that  "every  position  she  is  fitted  to  fill  may  be  hers." 

A  poem  by  Miss  Emily  Gilmore  Alden,  herself  a  descendant  of  John 
Alden,  of  the  Pilgrim  band,  was  read  by  Miss  Harriet  N.  Haskell,  principal 
of  the  Monticello  Ladles'  Seminary.  Mrs,  Sarah  B.  Cooper  of  San  Francisco, 
who  has  a  Bible  class  in  that  city  of  several  hundred  members,  contributed 
a  paper  on  Woman  Teachers  in  the  Congregational  Church.  The  cause  of 
Woman  at  the  Outposts  of  Congregationalism  received  from  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Emerson  Humphrey,  of  Chicago,  beautiful  and  sympathetic  treatment, 
showing  how  much  of  cheer,  heart  and  strength  woman  put  into  man's  work 
by  her  presence. 

The  Christian  Home  in  its  Relation  to  the  State  was  discussed  by  Mrs. 
E.  H.  Merrell,  of  Ripon,  Wis.  The  Christian  Home  in  its  Relation  to  the 
Church  by  Mrs.  Joseph  Ward,  of  Yankton,  represented  hotne  as  the  central 
thought  of  our  religion.  Christian  homes  are  the  life  of  the  church  ;  the 
Christian  home  the  place  where  God  symbolizes  himself,  his  care,  love  and 
government.  The  Home  and  Labor  Problem  was  spoken  of  by  Miss  Jane 
Addams,  of  Hull  House,  Chicago,  whose  work  enables  her  to  speak  as  one 

M34 


WOMAN'S  CONGREGATIONAL.  1435 

having  authority.  The  labor  question  was  the  question  of  the  home  ;  it 
could  not  be  settled  till  settled  right ;  it  must  be  taken  into  the  homes,  and 
hoys  and  girls  trained  to  see  that  other  boys  and  girls  have  equal  rights  to 
home  and  chance  for  growth  and  equitable  reward  tor  work. 

The  Relation  of  the  Home  to  Social  Life  was  that  of  uplifting,  beauti- 
fying and  Christianizing  other  homes,  and  was  presented  by  Rev.  Miss 
Mary  Moreland.  The  Church  and  the  Children,  a  paper  by  Miss  Julia 
Holmes  Boynton,  spoke  of  the  work  the  "  church-mother  "  —  the  Congrega- 
tional Sunday  School  Publishing  Society —  was  doing  for  the  children  in 
books,  papers,  societies,  etc.,  their  dangers  and  uses. 

The  answer  to  the  question,  How^oes  the  Growing  Independence  of 
Woman  affect  the  Home  ?  was  given  by  Mrs.  Geo.  H.  Ide,  Milwaukee. 

A  word  from  far  Australia  came  in  a  paper  on  Congregationalism  in 
new  countries,  by  Mrs.  Louise  J.  Bevan,  Melbourne,  read  by  Mrs.  F.  B. 
Little,  giving  a  clear  idea  of  the  progress  of  Congregationalism  in  that 
land.  - 

Miss  H.  A.  Farrand,  of  the  Chicago  Advance,  read  a  paper  on  the 
Modem  Pilgrim  Woman,  showing  how  the  very  best  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  and  the  Pilgrim  Mothers  has  been  reenacted  in  our  own  time  in  the 
work  of  Christian  women  in  building  up  new  homes,  the  new  churches,  the 
new  schools  and  other  institutions  all  along  our  advancing  "  frontiers."  In 
Silhouettes  of  the  Women  of  an  old  Congregational  Family,  Mrs.  Roxana 
Beecher  Preuszner  showed  admirably  the  power  of  a  mother's  character 
over  her  children,  particularly  the  three-fold  endowments  of  this  mother, 
Roxana  Beecher,  were  reproduced  in  her  daughters,  Catherine,  Mary  and 
Harriet.  Mrs.  Ella  Beecher  Gittings  read  a  thoughtful  and  pleasant  story 
on  the  Mayflower  as  a  Symbol  of  Faith.  Mrs.  Edgar  Wylie  spoke  on 
Woman  and  the  Bible,  giving  God's  conception  of  her  as  there  set  forth. 

The  Work  of  the  Indians  on  the  Frontier  was  represented  by  Miss 
Mary  C.  Collins ;  Among  Indians  and  Negroes  at  Home,  by  Miss  Alice 
W.  Bacon,  of  Hampton,  Va. 

Mrs.  Rebecca  H.  Cheetham's  report  of  the  Two  Settlements  for 
Working  Women  in  London,  was  heard  with  interest.  Miss  Millie  A. 
Hand,  of  the  New  West  Education  Commission,  told  of  the  work  done  by 
Congregational  women  for  other  women  held  by  the  errors  of  Mormon 
belief. 

Miss  Harriet  N.  Haskell,  of  Monticello  Seminary,  gave  A  Bit  of  His- 
tory Concerning  the  Higher  Education  of  Women,  showing  how  constantly 
the  forefathers  provided  for  the  sons'  education  only,  and  how  slowly  the 
cause  of  education  for  women  has  won  its  way.  She  also  gave  glowing 
tribute  to  the  founder  of  Monticello  Seminary,  Mr.  Godfrey,  who,  when 
Chicago  was  but  Fort  Dearborn,  so  wisely  built  for  the  daughters  of  Illinois. 

Mrs.  G.  W.  Moore,  one  of  the  original  Jubilee  Singers  of  Fisk  Univer- 
sity, read   a  paper  on  What  Congregational  Women    have    done  for  the 


1436  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Colored  Race.  A  noble  poem,  "Day,"  by  Miss  Ella  Gilbert  Ives,  of  Dor 
Chester,  Mass.,  with  special  reference  to  this  subject,  was  read  by  Mrs- 
Preuszner. 

The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic  was  sung  with  the  pathos  that  only  one 
of  that  long-enslaved  race  could  throw  into  it,  the  enthusiastic  audience  join- 
ing in  the  chorus  of  the  last  verses.  The  singer  was  Mme.  Desaria  Plato,  a 
colored  lady  of  beautiful  voice. 

After  a  brief  address  by  Mrs.  Kate  Upson  Clark,  a  paper  by  Mrs. 
Ella  S.  Armitage,  of  Bedford,  Eng.,  was  read,  explaining  the  aims  of  the 
Yorkshire  Woman's  Guild  of  Christian  Services. 

Rev.  Annis  E.  Eastman  presented  a  paper  on  The  Relation  of  Religion 
to  Women  Historically  Considered.  The  Sacred  Singers  of  our  Church  were 
marshaled  by  Mrs.  M.  B.  Norton's  graceful  pen.  The  claim  of  the  Chris- 
tian College  upon  the  denomination  was  presented  by  Mrs.  A.  A.  Johnston, 
of  Oberlin  College,  in  an  address  on  Our  Churches  and  Our  Colleges. 
The  paper  of  Mrs.  Sarah  S.  C.  Angell  on  Women  as  Foreign  Mission- 
aries, was  read  by  Mrs.  E.  W.  Blatchford.  The  closing  paper  was  that  of 
Mrs.  John  E.  Bradley,  of  Jacksonville,  111.,  who  fittingly  treated  the  theme. 
The  Summons  of  the  Coming  Century  to  the  Women  of  To-day. 


THE  CONGRESS  OF  THE  DISCIPLES  OF  CHRIST. 

•The  Congress  of  Disciples  of  Christ  convened  in  the  Hall  of  Washing- 
ton, Wednesday,  September  13,  at  10  o'clock.  After  devotional  exercises, 
Dr.  T.  P.  Haley,  of  Kansas  City,  took  the  chair,  and  the  presentation 
address  was  delivered  by  Mr.  Bonney,  who  spoke  very  kindly  of  the  great 
work  this  people  has  done  in  the  direction  of  union,  and  loyalty  to  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  God's  Word.  Mr.  Haley,  in  behalf  of  the  Congress,  delivered  a 
well-timed  response,  after  which  the  regular  program  was  taken  up. 

The  first  address  was  delivered  by  Regent  H.  W.  Everest,  of  Carbon- 
dale,  III.,  and  was  entitled  The  First  Century  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
His  address  was  both  comprehensive  and  incisive. 

The  next  address,  entitled  Christian  Union,  was  delivered  by  Dr.  F. 
D.  Power,  of  Washington,  D.  C,  an  ex-chaplain  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  the  pastor  of  James  A.  Garfield  during  his  long  residence  in 
the  capital.  Mr.  Power  said  :  Christian  union  is  the  one  clear  high  note  of 
this  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  need  of  it  is  pressing,  the 
desire  of  it  deep,  the  prayer  for  it  fervent,  the  plea  for  it  powerful  beyond 
anything  that  marks  our  present-day  Christianity.  Nobody  now  thanks  God 
for  sects.     The  flowmg  tide  is  with  union  ;  the  ebb  with  division. 

The  third  address  was  delivered  by  Dr.  W.  T.  Moore,  of  London,  Eng. 
Subject,  The   Church  of  the   Future.     He  said  that  the  historic  church  and 


DISCIPLES   OF   CHRIST.  1437 

the  church  of  the  New  Testament  were  different.  He  thought  the  church  of 
tlie  future  must  avoid  the  extremes  to  which  man  has  gone  in  the  past  and 
live  more  closely  to  the  scriptural  ideal.  He  showed  what  it  must  be  in 
faith,  organization  and  life. 

Dr.  Moore,  who  is  the  ediior  of  the  Christian  Commomvetilih,  one  of  the 
most  widely  read  of  England's  religious  journals,  was  followed  by  Dr.  J.  H. 
(jarrison,  editor  of  one  of  America's  most  widely  read  religious  journals,  the 
Clirisiian  Evangelist,  of  St.  Louis.  His  address  was  entitled  Biblical 
Anthropology — the  Key  to  Some  of  the  Problems  of  the  Age. 

Thursday  morning  the  Congress  again  met  in  Hall  XXVI.  The  first 
address  of  the  day  was  by  Prof.  B.  J.  Radford,  of  Eureka,  III.  Subject. 
Christianity  the  only  Solution  of  the  Problems  of  the  Age. 

The  next  speaker  was  Hon.  W.  D.  Owen,  an  ex-congressman  and  ex- 
commissioner  of  immigration.  His  theme  was  The  Church  and  the 
Masses. 

The  next  address,  entitled  A  Creed  that  Needs  no  Revision,  was 
delivered  by  President  E.  V.  Zollars,  of  Hiram,  O.  Of  course  he  repre- 
sented the  creed  that  needs  no  revision  to  be  Christ — the  personal,  living, 
loving,  all-pervading  Christ  of  the  scriptures. 

The  closing  address  of  the  Disciples  Congress  was  delivered  by  Dr.  B. 
B.  Tyler,  pastor  of  the  Church  of  Disciples,  New  York  City. 

HISTORICAL   AND    DOCTRINAL    STATEMENTS,    BY    REV,    GEO.    F.    HALL. 

Origin. — The  Disciples  of  Christ,  or  Christians,  date  the  origin  of  the 
religious  movement  they  advocate  near  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury. 

In  the  year  1809,  in  Washington  county,  Pennsylvania,  Thomas  Camp- 
bell, then  a  Presbyterian  mmister,  recently  arrived  in  this  country  from  the 
north  of  Ireland,  issued  a  declaration  and  address  which  the  Disciples  gener- 
ally regard  as  the  initiatory  of  this  religious  reformation. 

This  remarkable  paper  was  a  plea  for  Christian  union  and  the  restora- 
tion of  New  Testament  Christianity.  It  was  a  call  to  all  Christians  of  everv 
name  and  creed  to  "come  firmly  and  fairly  to  original  ground  and  take  up 
things  just  as  the  apostles  left  them."  In  this  way  "  becoming  disentan- 
gled from  the  accruing  embarrassments  of  intervening  ages,  they  could  stand 
with  evidence  upon  the  same  ground  on  which  the  church  stood  at  the 
beginnmg." 

"Never  before  had  any  reformer  taken  distinctively  such  ground  as 
this.  Never  before  had  any  one  presumed  to  pass  over  so  lightly  the 
authorities  and  usages  and  decisions  of  so  many  intervening  centuries. 
Here,  indeed,  was  the  startling  proposition  to  begin  anew — to  begin  at  the 
beginning  ;  to  ascend  at  once  to  the  pure  foundation  of  truth,  and  to  neglect 
and  disregard,  as  though  they  had  never  been,  the  decrees  of  popes,  councils, 
synods  and  assemblies,  and  all  the  traditions  and  corruptions  of  an  apostate 


1438  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

church.  Here  was  an  effort,  not  so  much  for  the  reformation  of  the  church 
as  was  that  of  Luther,  and  of  Calvin,  and  of  Wesley,  but  for  its  complete 
restoration  at  once  to  its  pristine  purity  and  perfection.  By  coming  at 
once  to  the  primitive  model  and  rejecting  ail  human  imitations ;  by  submit- 
ting implicitly  to  the  Divine  authority  as  plainly  expressed  in  the  Scriptures, 
and  by  disregarding  all  the  assumptions  aud  dictations  of  fallible  men,  it 
was  proposed  to  form  a  union  upon  a  basis  to  which  no  valid  objections 
could  possibly  be  offered.  By  this  summary  method  the  church  was  to  be 
at  once  released  from  the  controversies  of  eighteen  centuries,  and  from  the 
conflicting  claims  of  all  pretenders  to  apostolic  thrones,  and  the  primitive 
gospel  of  salvation  was  to  be  disentangled  and  disembarrassed  from  all  those 
corruptions  and  perversions  which  had  heretofore  delayed  or  arrested  its 
progress." 

In  connection  with  this  movement,  headed  in  western  Pennsylvania  by 
Thomas  Campbell  and  Alexander  Campbell,  a  similar  movement  was 
inaugurated  in  the  states  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  under  the  leadership 
of  Barton  W.  Stone,  and  other  ministers  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  These 
separate  movements  as  they  grew  coalesced,  and  in  their  developed  form 
became  known  as  the  "  Disciples  of  Christ,"  or  "  Church  of  Christ." 

Progress  and  0«/'/(3(?/J-:-Congregations,  9,030  ;  members,  837,319  ;  Sun- 
day schools,  5,715;  Sunday  school  scholars  and  teachers,  491,062;  ministers, 
5,809;  value  of  church  property,  $15,000,000, 

The  various  home  and  foreign  missionary  societies  raised  last  year 
$379,271.67.  In  the  foreign  field  they  have  missions  in  Japan,  China,  India 
and  Turkey,  also  in  Scandinavia  and  Jamaica.  There  are  engaged  in  the 
missions  about  one  hundred  missionaries  and  native  helpers. 

Among  their  educational  institutions  are :  Bethany  College,  West  Vir- 
ginia; Butler  University,  Indiana  ;  Eureka  College,  Illinois  ;  Drake  Univer- 
sity, Iowa;  Kentucky  University,  Kentucky;  Cotner  University,  Nebraska. 
Among  their  religious  publications  are :  The  Christian  Standard,  Cin- 
cinnati, O. ;  The  Christian  Evangelist,  St.  Louis,  Mo. ;  The  Christian  Oracle, 
Chicago,  111.;  The  Apostolic  Cw/aV,  Louisville,  Ky. ;  The  Gospel  Advocate, 
Nashville,  Tenn.,  and  The  Christian  Common-wealth,  London,  England. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  Disciples  are  building  on  an  average  one  church 
house  for  every  day  in  the  year.  And  according  to  United  States  census 
report  for  1890  no  Protestant  denomination  is  increasing  in  numbers  more 
rapidly. 

Principles. — The  following  brief  statement  of  the  principles  of  the 
Disciples  was  prepared  under  the  supervision  of  their  General  Christian 
Missionary  Convention  for  distribution  during  the  World's  Columbian  Expo- 
sition : 

The  "Christians  or  Disciples  of  Christ"  plead  for  the  union  of  all 
Christians,  to  the  end  that  the  world  may  be  evangelized.  To  secure  this 
they  teach  that  there  must  be  a  return  to  the  principles  and  practice  of  the 


a 


■y. 


1440  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

apostolic  age  according  to  the  axiom:  "Where  the  Scriptures  speak,  we 
speak  ;  where  the  Scriptures  are  silent,  we  are  silent."  The  following  brief 
synopsis  comprehends  substantially  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in  the  appli- 
cation of  the  above  axiom  : 

That  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  are  the 
inspired  Word  of 'God,  and  that  they  are  all-sufficient  as  a  rule  of  faith  and 
life.  Hence  all  human  creeds  as  tests  of  fellowship  and  bonds  of  com- 
munion are  rejected,  seeing  that  they  cause  and  perpetuate  division. 

That  there  is  one  God,  the  Father,  who  created  and  sustains  all  things. 

That  Jesus  was  God  manifest  in  the  flesh ;  that  he  died  for  our  sins  and 
arose  again  for  our  justification  r,  that  he  ascended  to  heaven,  where  he  ever 
liveth  to  make  intercession  for  us. 

That  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father,  and  that  in  conversion 
and  sanctificalion  he  operates  through  the  truth. 

That  baptism  is  the  immersion  in  water  of  a  penitent  believer,  into  the 
name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

That  the  death  of  Christ  should  be  commemorated  on  the  first  day  of 
every  week  in  the  Lord's  Supper. 

That  the  followers  of  Christ  ought  not  to  wear  any  names  other  than 
those  found  in  the  New  Testament,  such  as  Christian,  Disciple,  etc.     . 

That  the  church  consists  of  all  the  regenerate,  and  that  these,  consti- 
tute one  flock  even  as  there  is  but  one  Shepherd.  Our  Lord  prayed  for  the 
union  of  his  followers,  that  the  world  might  believe.  The  apostles  urged 
the  church  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace.  Hence, 
sectarianism  and  denominationa|lism  are  necessarily  unscriptural  and  essen- 
tially evil. 

That  in  the  Christian  system  Christ  is  central  and  supreme.  Christ 
himself  is  preached  as  the  only  Saviour  of  sinners  and  the  only  head  of  the 
church;  hence,  we  call  no  man  master;  neither  Paul,  nor  Apollos,  nor 
Cephas,  nor  Luther,  nor  Calvin,  nor  Wesley,  nor  Campbell ;  according  as  it 
is  written,  "he  that  glorieth  let  him  glory  in  the  Lord." 

It  is  confidently  believed  that  the  position  herein  set  forth  is  scriptural 
and  catholic,  and  the  only  practical  basis  for  the  union  of  all  Christians. 
With  a  return  to  apostolic  principles  and  practices,  the  divisions  which  are 
now  the  shame  and  weakness  of  the  church  would  cease  to  exist,  and  the 
one  great  barrier  to  the  speedy  and  complete  evangelization  of  the  world 
would  be  abolished.  The  men  and  means  now  needed  to  maintain  secta- 
rian and  denominational  establishments  could  be  used  in  the  regions  beyond. 
A  united  church  would  be  irresistible,  and  in  a  single  generation  could 
carry  the  Gospel  to  every  kindred,  and  tribe,  and  people,  and  tongue  on  the 
globe.  Our  Lord's  prayer  would  be  answered,  and  the  world  would  believe. 
This  is  a  matter  of  supreme  mcT^oent,  and  no  denominational  associations, 
however  sacred,  and  no  vested  interests  ought  to  be  allowed  to  stand,  for  a 
single  instant,  in  the  way  of  its  consummation. 


THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  CONGRESS 
By  Rev.  Josiah  Strong,  D.D. 

Held  in  Art  Institute  October  8th- 15th. 

The  program  was  divided  into  four  general  subjects,  viz.:  I.  Religious 
Liberty.  II.  The  Religious  Condition  of  Protestant  Christendom.  III. 
Christian  Union  and  Cooperation.  IV.  T'he  Church  and  Sociological  Prob- 
lems. 

I,  One  of  the  avowed  objects  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  from  the  first 
has  been  to  promote  religious  liberty,  which  it  has  done  in  Spain,  Italy, 
Austria,  Russia,  Turkey,  Persia,  South  America  and  many  other  countries. 
It  has  made  efforts  not  only  in  behalf  of  persecuted  Protestants,  but  has 
also  defended  the  religious  liberty  of  Roman  Catholics  and  Jews  as  well. 
And  should  occasion  arise,  the  Alliance  would  with  equal  zeal  seek  to  secure 
liberty  of  conscience  to  Mohammedans,  Buddhists  and  Brahmans. 

Nothing  has  contributed  more  to  the  progress  of  civilization  during  the 
past  four  hundred  years  than  religious  liberty.  It  was,  therefore,  eminently 
fitting  to  the  occasion  that  there  should  be  an  address  on  Religious  Liberty 
and  the  Progress  of  Mankind,  which  was  made  by  Bishop  Charles  H.  P'owler, 
D.D.,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Nothing  is  more  characterietic 
of  our  American  institutions  than  the  separation  of  church  and  state.  Relig- 
ious Liberty  and  the  State,  therefore,  was  discussed  by  Rev.  James  M. 
King,  D.D.,  secretary  of  the  National  League  for  the  Protection  of  Ameri- 
can Institutions.  There  was  presented  also  a  paper  written  by  Hon.  J.  L. 
M.  Curry,  LL.D.,  late  United  States  .Minister  to  Spain,  on  The  Present  Con- 
dition of  Religious  Liberty  Throughout  the  World. 

II.  The  object  in  discussing  the  Religious  Condition  of  Protestant 
Christendom  was  not  so  much  to  make  statistical  presentations  as  to  trace 
the  present  currents  of  religious  thought,  to  point  out  existing  phases  of 
religious  life,  and  to  mark  those  conditions  to  which  the  churches  must  adapt 
themselves  in  order  to  accomplish  their  mission. 

Papers  were  prepared  or  addresses  made  as  follows  :  On  Australasia, 
by  Rev.  H.  B.  Macartney,  M.A.,  Incumbent  of  St.  .Mary's,  Caulheld,  Victo- 
ria; on  Canada,  by  Rev.  George  Monro  Orant,  D.D.,  Principal  of  Queen's 
University,  Kingston,  Canada;  on  Erance,  by  Prof.  Jean  C.  Hracq,  of  Vassar 
College,  Pougiikeepsie,  N.  V.:  on  Germany,  l)y  Count  .\nilreas  von  Bern- 
storff,  of  Berlin;  on  Great  Britain,  by  Lord  Kinnaird,  of  London;  on  Italy, 
by  Rev.  Comm.  Matteo  Prochet,  D.D.,  of  Rome;  on  the  Netherlands,  by 
Col.  R.  Roosmale  Nepoen,  of  Doom,  Netherlands;  on  Scandinavia,  by  Rev. 

91  1441 


1442  THE    DExVOMINATIONAL    CONGRESSES. 

M.  Falk  Gjertsen,  of  Minneapolis,  Minn.;  and  on  Switzerland,  by  Prof. 
Edouard  Naville,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland. 

While  the  religious  conditions  of  these  different  countries  differ  in  impor- 
tant particulars,  there  are  certain  most  significant  resemblances.  In  all  there 
seems  to  be  much  of  popular  unrest,  much  of  unbelief,  and  in  all  there  are 
social  problems  demanding  attention,  of  which  only  the  Gospel  of  Christ  can 
furnish  the  solution. 

III.  Christian  union  and  cooperation.  When  twelve  hundred  delegates, 
representing  many  countries  and  more  than  fifty  denominations,  met  in  Lon- 
don in  1846  to  form  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  their  avowed  object  was  "the 
furtherance  of  religious  opinion  with  the  intent  to  manifest  and  strengthen 
Christian  unity,  and  to  promote  religious  liberty  and  cooperation  in  Chris- 
tian work." 

For  nearly  half  a  century  now  the  Evangelical  Alliance  has  afforded  a 
common  ground  between  the  denominations  for  the  expression  and  cultiva- 
tion of  Christian  fellowship,  and  for  the  promotion  of  cooperation  in  Chris- 
tian work.  The  duty  of  Christian  union  and  cooperation  becomes  more 
evident  as  the  sin  and  waste  of  selfish  competition  grow  more  apparent; 
and  the  weakness  of  disunion  becomes  more  obvious  as  we  better  appreciate 
the  magnitude  of  the  work  demanded  of  the  churches,  if  they  are  to  Chris- 
tianize our  civilization. 

The  waste  of  competition  and  cooperation  as  a  remedy  were  empha- 
sized by  President  W.  DeW.  Hyde,  D.D.,  of  Bowdoin  College,  Me.,  in  an 
address  on  Christian  Cooperation  and  Church  Extension.  Ht  was  followed 
by  representatives  of  the  Baptist,  Congregational,  Dutch  Reformed,  Metho- 
dist and  Presbyterian  home  missionary  societies.  Rev.  Arthur  T.  Pier- 
son,  D.D.,  spoke  on  Christian  Cooperation  and  the  Social  Mission  of 
the  Churches.  A  paper  on  Organic  Union  :  Its  Reasons  and  Prospects 
was  prepared  by  Rt.  Rev.  A.  Cleveland  Coxe,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Protestant 
Episcopal  Bishop  of  Western  New  York ;  one  on  Denomination  Fed- 
eration, by  Rev.  James  McCosh,  D.D.,  LL.D..  of  Princeton,  N.  J.;  one  on 
The  Evangelical  Alliance  and  the  Reunion  of  Christendom,  by  Rev.  Philip 
Schaff,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  professor  in  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
Prof.  Schaff's  death  occurring  only  a  few  days  after  the  close  of  the  Confer- 
ence lends  added  interest  and  emphasis  to  this,  his  last  message  to  the 
churches.  Mr.  A.  J.  Arnold,  Secretary  of  the  British  Alliance,  sent  a  paper 
or  the  Work  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  Great  Britain,  and  Rev.  Josiah 
Strong,  D.D.,  spoke  on  The  Aims  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  for  the 
United  States. 

It  seemed  to  be  the  general  conviction  that  the  divisions  of  Protestant 
Christendom  are  lamentable,  and  that  the  selfish  competition  of  the  churches 
is  scandalous.  To  the  question,  how  are  these  evils  to  be  remedied  ? 
there  seem  to  some  three  possible  answers,  viz.,  (l)  organic  union,  (2) 
denominational  federation,  and  (3)  the  cooperation  of  the   local  churches. 


EVANGELICAL   ALLIANCE.  1443 

It  was  urged  that  however  desirable  organic  union  might  be,  and  however 
completely  it  might  solve  the  problem,  the  solution  would  come  too  late,  for 
the  need  is  immediate  and  urgent,  and  organic  union  will  be  impossible  for 
many  years,  if  not  for  many  generations,  yet  to  come. 

Denominational  federation  would  make  possible  an  official,  ecclesias- 
tical cooperation,  which  would  be  good  so  far  as  it  went,  but  such  cooper- 
ation would  be  subject  to  very  serious  limitations.  It  would  stop  the  com- 
petition of  the  various  home  missionary  societies,  which  would  be  a  great 
economy  of  men  and  of  money ;  but  such  a  body  would  be  weak  in  the  pros- 
ecution of  reforms,  and  in  attempts  to  solve  the  great  sociological  problems 
of  our  times.  On  all  such  questions  its  position  would  necessarily  be  con- 
servative; It  could  not  lead.  It  coufd  never  go  faster  than  the  slowest 
denomination  entering  into  the  federation.  As  there  could  be  no  compul- 
sion, the  denomination  which  was  least  advanced  on  any  question  would 
necessarily  determine  the  position  of  the  federation.  Such  would  be  the 
result  of  what  might  be  called  federation  at  the  top. 

The  cooperation  of  the  local  churches,  or  federation  at  the  bottom, 
promises  larger  results.  A  half  dozen  neighboring  churches,  representing  as 
many  different  denominations,  can  be  induced  to  take  a  much  more  advanced 
position  concerning  needed  reforms  and  new  methods  of  work  than  the  half 
dozen  denominations  which  they  represent.  The  conservatism  of  one  com- 
munity would  not  keep  back  a  less  conservative  community.  When  local 
churches  have  learned  to  cooperate,  then  the  churches  of  different  towns  and 
counties  and  states  might  learn  to  act  together  in  behalf  of  common  interests 
and  of  popular  reforms.  This  is  the  kind  of  organization  which  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  for  the  United  States  advocates.  For  such  a  cooperation 
we  need  not  wait  until  the  churches  can  all  think  alike,  which  might  not  be 
desirable  even  if  it  were  possible;  if  in  essentials  there  is  union,  in  non- 
essentials liberty,  and  in  all  things  charity,  the  churches  will  be  able  to  work 
together  for  common  objects,  and  so  realize  the  strength  which  comes  from 
cooperation.  Such  cooperation  would  transform  the  churches  from  a  Chris- 
tian mob  into  the  army  of  the  living  God.' 

IV.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  program  was  given  up  to  the  church 
and  sociological  problems.  This  congress  had  been  preceded  by  many 
church  congresses,  which  had  presented  the  strength,  the  resources,  the 
peculiar  characteristics  and  adaptations  of  the  several  denominations.  In 
the  long  list  of  preceding  congresses  there  had  also  been  many  in  the 
interest  of  needed  reforms,  where  the  great  problems  of  modern  civilization 
were  discussed.  It  was  the  special  province  of  the  Alliance  Conference, 
coming  as  it  did  at  the  close  of  this  long  series  of  religious  and  reformatory 
congresses,  to  point  out  the  relations  of  the  churches  to  these  reforms,  to 
show  how  the  vast  resources  of  the  various  denominations  could  be  applied 
to  the  solution  of  the  great  problems  of  our  times.     The  supreme  aim  of  the 


1444  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

United  States  Alliance  at  the  present  time  is  to  assist  the  churches  to  see  and 
to  accomplish  their  social  mission. 

It  also  recognizes  the  fact  that  all  life  is  conditioned  by  its  environ- 
ment. The  conditions  on  which  the  life  of  churches  depends  are  under- 
going important  changes.  The  shifting  of  population  from  c-iuntry  to  city, 
and  from  "  down  town  '  "  up  town  "  has  profound  significance  and  far- 
reaching  consequences.  New  habits  of  thought  and  life  have  displaced  the 
old.  It  is  a  vital  question  whether  the  churches  will  adapt  themselves  to 
these  changed  conditions,  and  therefore  flourish. 

The  Alliance  aimed  to  make  the  section  conferences  of  its  Columbian 
congress  a  school  of  new  and  approved  methods,  by  which  churches  have  been 
enabled  to  adapt  themselves  to  changed  conditions  and  through  which  they 
have  won  a  notable  success.  Experts  who  haye  been  eminently  successful 
in  their  respective  lines  at  practical  Christian  work  spoke' out  of  their  own 
experience.  For  instance.  Rev.  John  C.  Faville,  of  Appleton,  Wis.,  who 
spoke  on  The  Evening  Congregation,  told  how,  in  a  single  year,  he  had 
built  up  his  Sunday  evening  congregation  from  two  hundred  to  eight  or  ten 
hundred.  Rev.  Kerr  B.  Tupper,  D.D.,  of  Denver,  who  spoke  on  A  Work- 
ing Church,  described  the  methods  by  which  his  church  was  enabled  to  add 
over  360  to  its  membership  last  year.  Rev.  Russell  H.  Coriwell,  D.D.,  of 
Philadelphia,  told  the  story  of  his  own  church  as  an  example  of  a  larger 
conception  of  the  churcn's  mission.  His  church  is  declared  by  Rev.  B.  Fay 
Mills  to  be  the  most  remarkable  on  the  continent,  if  not  in  the  world. 
Prof.  C.  R.  Henderson,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  told  hov/  to 
reach  workingmen,  and  spoke  out  of  the  experience  of  a  ten-years  pastor- 
ate in  which  there  was  not  a  single  Sabbath  without  inquirers.  Dr.  W.  S. 
Rainsford,  of  New  York,  who  spoke  on  the  same  subject,  has  had  a  phenom- 
enal success  in  winning  workingmen.  Mrs.  Lucy  Rider  Meyer,  who  spoke 
on  deaconesses,  is  herself  a  deaconess  and  is  recognized  as  standing  at  the 
head  of  the  deaconess  movement  in  the  United  States.  Miss  Grace  H. 
Dodge,  who  spoke  on  Working  Girl's  Clubs,  is  the  founder  of  the  same. 
Mr.  James  L.  Houghteling  one  of  several  who  answered  the  question,  What 
Can  the  Churches  Effect  through  Young  People's  Organizations?  is  the 
founder  of  the  Brotherhood  of  St.  Andrew.  Miss  Jane  Addams,  who  dis- 
cussed Social  Settlements,  is  the  founder  of  the  famous  Hull  House  of 
Chicago.  Rev.  Willard  Parsons,  of  New  York,  who  spoke  on  Fresh  Air 
Funds,  originated  and  has  administered  the  Tribune  Fresh  Air  Fund,  which 
has  given  two-weeks  vacations  to  124,092  children  and  one-day  excursions 
to  107,979  others,  at  a  total  cost  of  over  $300,000.  Mr.  Alfred  T.  White  of 
Brooklyn,  who  discussed  Tenement  House  Reform,  has  built  the  most  suc- 
cessful tenement  houses  in  the  world.  Such  were  the  experts  who  gave  to 
their  hearers  the  results  of  their  valuable  experience. 

The  general  subject  of  The  Church  and  Sociological  Problems  was 
divided  into  : 


EVANGELICAL  ALI 
HON.  W.  K.  DonCK. 
KKV    \V.  S.  RALNSKORI). 

KKV.  (;i;(jR(jK  A.  (;atks. 


JA\CE  CONGRESS. 

RKV.  RUSSELL  H.  CONWELL. 
REV.  CHARLES  H.  PARKHURST. 
REV.  JOSIAH  STRONG. 


1446  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 


EVANGELISTIC. 

A  Working  Church. — Dr.  K.  B.  Tupper. 

Athletics  in  Reaching  Young  Men. — Prof.  Henry  Drummond,  F.R.S.E., 
Lord  Kinnaird  and  Prof.  A.  Stagg. 

Deaconesses. —  Mrs.  Lucy  Rider  Meyer,  Sister  Dora  (Miss  Dora  Stephen- 
son), Margaret  Dryer  and  Rev.  George  U.  Wenner,  D.D. 

Evening  Congregation. — The  Rev.  John  C.  Faville. 

Factory  Town,  Christian  Work  in. — Rev.  Percy  S.  Grant  and  Rev. 
George  Hodges,  D.D. 

How  to  Put  Young  Men  and  Women  to  Work. — Rev.  H.  S.  Bliss  and 
Rev.  N.  M.  Calhoun. 

How  to  Reach  the  Non-Church-Going  Element  of  our  Foreign  Popu- 
lation.— Rev.  E.  A.  Adams,  D.D.,  and  Prof.  Jernberg. 

How  to  Reach  the  Non-Church-Going  Workingmen. — Rev.  J.  Elmen- 
dorf,  D.D.,  Dr  .W.  S.  Rainsford  and  Prof.  C.  R.  Henderson,  D.D. 

How  to  Utilize  Church  Buildings  during  the  Week. —  Dr.  K.  B.  Tup- 
per. 

House -to-House  Visitation. —  Mrs.  S.  B.  Capron  and  Mrs.  Lucy  S. 
Bainbridge.    v-v  . 

Institutional  Methods  of  Church  Work. — Rev.  C;  A.  Dickinson. 

Lumber  Camp,  Christian  Work  in. — Rev.  W.  G.  Puddefoot  and  Mr.  A. 
Terry. 

Object  Talks  and  Stereopticon  Sermons. — Rev.  C.  H.  Tyndall. 

Open  Air  Services. — Rev.  E.  H.  Byington. 

Parish  Houses. — Rev.  George  H.  McGrew,  D.D. 

Tent  Work. — Mr.  F.  Schiverea. 

What  can  the  Churches  Effect  through  Young  People's  Organizations  ? 
• — Young  People's  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor,  Rev.  C.  A.  Dickinson  ; 
the  Brotherhood  of  St.  Andrew,  Mr.  James  L.  Houghteling  ;  Ihe  Brother- 
hood of  Andrew  and  Philip,  Prof.  Graham  Taylor. 

REFORMATORY. 

Charity,  a  Scientific  Basis  of.— Rev.  H.  L.  Wayland,  D.D. 

Foes  of  Society,  Church  and  State. — Mr.  Anthony  Comstock. 

Labor  Problem,  The.— Prof.  R.  T.  Ely,  LL.D. 

Municipal  Government. — Dr.  C.  H.  Parkhurst. 

Organized  Charities. — Rev.  H.  G.  Hoadley. 

Political  Reforms. — Prof.  John  R.  Commons. 

Social  Purity  (for  men). — Mr.  Anthony  Comstock  and  Rev.  W.  G.  Pud- 
defoot. 

Social  Reform,  Christian  Basis  of. — Prof.  George  D.  Herron,  D.D. 

Substitutes  for  the  Saloon. — Prof.  John  R.  Commons. 

Tenement  House  Reform. —  Mr.  Alfred  T.  White  and  Rev.  W.  T. 
Elsing. 


EVANGELICAL   ALLIANCE.  1447 

EDUCATIONAL. 

Chautauqua  Circles — Dr.  W.  A.  Duncan. 

Kindergarten — Mrs.  E.  W.  Blatchford,  Miss  Lucy  Wheelock,  Mrs.  Mary 
H.  Peabody,  Miss  Paine,  Miss  Wood  and  Mrs.  Putnam. 

Manual  Training — Bishop  Samuel  Fallows,  D.D.,  and  others. 
University  Extension — Prof.  Nathaniel  Butler,  Jr. 

SOCIAL. 

Boy's  Brigades — Prof.  Henry  Drummond  and  Rev.  Mr.  R.  Deming. 

Boy's  Clubs — Rev.  John  C.  Collins  and  Rev.  H.  S.  Bliss. 

Domestic  Circles — Miss  Grace  H.  Dodge. 

Fresh  Air  Funds — Rev.  VVillard  Parsons. 

Holiday  Houses — Miss  E.  A.  Buchanan. 

Maternal  Associations — Miss  Lucy  S.  Bainbridge. 

Outing  Clubs— Rev.  W.  T.  Elsing  and  Rev.  H.  S.  Bliss. 

Social  Settlements — Mrs.  Charles  Henrotin. 

Men's  Settlements — Mr.  Robert  A.Woods  and  Rev.  George  Hodges,  D.D. 

Women's  Settlements — Miss  Jane  Addams. 

Working  Girls'  Clubs — Miss  Grace  H.  Dodge. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

American  Institute  of  Christian  Sociology — Prof.  John  R.  Commons,  and 
others. 

Christian  Basis  of  Social  Reform — Prof.  George  D.  Herron,  D.D. 

Christianity  and  the  Evolution  of  Society — Prof.  Henry  Drummond, 
F.  R.  S.  E. 

Church  and  Labor  Problem — Prof.  Richard  T.  Ely,  LL.D. 

Church  and  Municipal  Government — Rev.  C.  H.  Parkhurst,  D.D. 

Churches  and  Public  Baths — Mr.  John  Paton. 

Country  Church,  The  Problem  of  the— President  W.  DeW.  Hyde,  D.D., 
Rev.  George  E.  Hooker,  Rev.  Norman  Plass,  Mr,  Robert  A.  Woods  and  Rev. 
O.  D.  Sewall. 

Failures  in  Charities — Mr.  C.  D.  Kellogg. 

Foes  of  Society,  Church  and  State — Mr.  Anthony  Comstock. 

Historical  Evolution  of  the  Kingdom  of  God — Pressident  George  A. 
Gates,  D.D. 

Inner  Mission  of  England — Rev.  B.  B.  Patton,  D.D. 

Inner  Mission  of  Germany — Rev.  G.  U.  Wenner,  D.D. 

Institutional  Methods  of  Church  Work — Rev.  C.  A.  Dickinson,  D.D. 

Mission  of  the  Church,  an  Enlarged  View  of  the  —  President  E.  B, 
Andrews,  D.D. 

Savings  Banks  and  Provident  Funds — Rev.  Howard  S.  Bliss. 

There  was  also  a  conference  on  theological  education,  with  Prof. 
Graham  Taylor,  D.D.,  of  Chicago  Theological  Seminary,  as  chairman. 
The  program  was  as  follows : 


1448  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

The  Work  of  the  Seminary  as  Conditioned  by  its  Location— Prof.  G. 
Frederick  Wright,  Oberlin  Seminary. 

Field  Work,  its  Educational  Value  and  Relation  to  the  Financial  Aid 
of  Students — Prot.  Graham  Taylor,  Chicago  Seminary. 

Student  Preaching — Prof.  Herrick  Johnson,  McCormick  Seminary. 

Relation  of  the  Seminary  to  the  Foreign  Population— Prof.  H.  M. 
Scott,  Chicago  Seminary,  and  S.  L.  Umbach,  Union  Biblical  Institute. 

Relation  of  the  Seminary  to  Foreign  Missions — Prof.  James  F.  Riggs, 
Seminary  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America. 

Standards  of  Admission,  Scholarship  and  Degrees — Prof.  A.  C.  Zenos, 
McCormick  Seminary. 

Relation  of  the  Seminary  to  Colleges — Prof.  A.  C.  Little,  Garrett  Bib- 
lical Institute. 

Relation  of  the  Seminary  to  the  University :  to  what  Extent  can  the 
Divinity  School  Share  the  Advantages  of  the  University  ? — Prof.  E.  B. 
Hulbert,  Chicago  University  Divinity  School. 

The  English  Bible  :  its  Literary,  Historical  and  5)cientific  Study — Prof. 
E.  T.  Harper,  Chicago  Seminary;  Instruction  in  its  Use  in  Personal  Work 
— Rev.  R.  A.  Torrey,  Biblical  Institute,  Chicago. 

Spiritual  Training  in  the  Seminary — Prof.  Charles  S.  Nash,  Pacific 
Theological  Seminary. 

The  discussions  under  the  general  division  of  The  Church  and  Socio- 
logical Problems  were  rich  in  practical  suggestions,  and  will  prove  to  be 
invaluable  to  all  live  churches  and  to  churches  sufficiently  alive  to  want 
more  life. 

There  remains  only  space  for  a  few  general  observations  : 

1.  Enough  has  been  said  to  show  hc^v  comprehensive  was  the  pro- 
gram. Professor  Drummond  remarked  :  "  I  simply  want  to  express  my 
wonder  and  delight  at  the  program  which  has  been  put  into  your  hands 
to-day.  Like  Lord  Kinnaird,  I  shall  frame  it  and  keep  it  to  remind  me 
not  only  of  the  trends  and  torrents  of  Evangelical  thought  in  America,  but 
of  the  scope  and  breadth  of  the  Evangelical  faith." 

The  program  was  also  practical,  not  speculative.  Dr.  McPherson 
said  of  it,  that  it  was  devoted  not  to  "  pathology  or  diagnosis,  but  to  the  art 
of  healing." 

2.  The  two-thirds  of  the  program  which  were  devoted  to  the 
church  and  sociological  problems,  were  a  recognition  of  the  necessity  of 
exact  knowledge  and  the  need  of  expert  training  in  all  social  reforms.  It  was 
made  manifest  that  kind  hearted,  but  ignorant  goodness  may  do  as  much 
harm  as  well  schooled  villainy.  God's  methods  are  scientific,  and  if  we  are 
to  be  intelligent  helpers  of  God,  our  methods  also  must  be  scientific. 

3.  The  program  itself  and  the  sympathy  with  it,  expressed  both  by 
the  speakers  and  by  the  religious  press  in  general,  indicate  that  the  churches 
are  beginning  to  see  that  they  have  a  duty  to  the  entire  man  and  to  the 
entire  life,  and  are  beginning  to  recognize  their  social  mission. 


EVANGELICAL    ASSOCIATION.  1449 

This  larger  conception  of  their  mission  on  the  part  of  the  churches 
means  nothing  less  than  a  coming  Christian  renaissance. 

4.  This  larger  conception  of  the  mission  of  the  churches  springs  from  a 
clearer  and  truer  vision  of  the  Christ  and  his  mission.  His  love,  his  teach- 
ings and  his  example  are  the  inspiration  of  the  new  movement  which  aims 
to  apply  his  salvation  to  body  as  well  as  soul,  and  to  society  as  well  as  to 
the  individual. 


THE    CONGRESS  OF  THE   EVANGELICAL 
,    ASSOCIATION. 

This  Congress  was  held  on  September  19th  and  continaed  to  the  21st. 
At  the  presentation  meeting  on  September  19th  addresses  were  delivered  by 
Rev.  S.  P.  Spreng,  of  Cleveland,  O.,  on  "The  History  of  the  Evangelical 
Association;"  by  Bishop  J.J.Esher,  of  Chicago,  111.,  on  "The  Doctrine  of  the 
Evangelical  Association,"  and  by  Bishop  S.  C.  Breyfogel,  of  Reading,  Pa., 
on  "  The  Polity  of  the  Evangelical  Association."  Abstracts  of  two  of  these 
papers  follow.  A  complete  edition  of  the  papers  presented  at  this  Congress 
is  published  by  the  Evangelical  Association  Publishing  House. 

1.  The  History  of  the  Evangelical  Association. — The  Evan- 
gelical Association  may  well  lay  claim  to  being  the  ecclesiastical  first-born 
of  this  fecund  century.  Jacob  Albright,  under  God  the  foander  of  this 
church,  was  born  May  i,  1759.  He  was  converted  about  1790.  In  1796  he 
began  to  preach.  In  1800  he  temporarily  organized  the  first  three  classes, 
or  congregations,  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania.  In  1803  the  first  general  council 
was  held.  In  1807  the  first  annual  conference  was  organized,  and  in  1816 
the  first  general  conference  met.  The  Evangelical  Association  is  distinct- 
ively an  American  product,  the  result  of  American  religious  conditions, 
synchronous  with  a  notable  American  revival  dating  about  the  year  1800. 
Jacob  Albright  was  bom  in  America  and  reared  here.  The  same  is  true  of 
all  the  early  leaders.  During  the  first  fifty  years  her  activity  was  confined 
to  the  United  States  apd  Canada.  She  was  first  called  into  life  to  meet  the 
pressing  needs  of  the  German  speaking  population  of  this  country,  especially 
the  Germans  of  Pennsylvania,  by  quickening  spiritual  life,  and  emphasiz- 
ing the  importance  of  vital  godliness  among  them  and  others.  Albright 
and  his  co-laborers  felt  called  upon  to  do  for  the  neglected  Germans  in  this 
country  just  what  Wesleyan  and  other  missionaries  were  doing  for  the 
Knglish-speaking  population.  Albright,  who  had  been  reared  in  the  midst 
of  formalism,  experienced  a  profound  and  radical  change  of  heart  when  he 
was  over  thirty  years  of  age.  His  whole  ministry  was,  accordingly,  a 
solemn  and  effectual  protest  against  religious  formalism.  He  and  his  co- 
laborers  preached  repentance  and  insisted  upon  the  experience  of  conversion 


1450  THE    DENOMINATIONAL  CONGRESSES. 

by  the  energy  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the  only  true  beginning  of  a  spiritual 
life.  Albright  would  have  found  a  congenial  home  in  the  M.  E.  Church, 
but  when  he  followed  the  Divine  call  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  his  erring 
brethren  in  their  mother  tongue,  his  path  naturally  diverged  into  an  inde- 
pendent course,  as  that  church  did  not  wish  to  enter  this  field.  He  preached 
no  new  doctrine.  He  created  no  schism.  He  had  no  quarrel  with  any 
church.  He  simply  followed  the  call  of  duty,  and  a  separate  organization 
was  the  necessary  outcome,  which,  however,  did  not  take  permanent  shape 
until  after  his  death  in  1808. 

Notwithstanding  the  persecutions  with  which  the  movement  was 
afflicted,  the  work  prospered  and  grew.  The  fathers  of  the  church  preached 
the  Gospel  to  the  common  people — in  the  language  of  the  people.  When 
the  necessity  for  labor  in  the  English  language  arose  they  preached  in  that 
tongue  also,  as  well  as  in  German.  To-day  at  least  one-third  of  its  mem- 
bership, worship  in  the  English  language,  while  there  are  very  few  indeed 
among  its  ministers  who  do  not  understand  both  languages,  and  the  propor- 
tion is  rapidly  increasing  in  favor  of  the  English. 

The  present  status  of  the  church  is  as  follows.  She  is  represented  on 
three  continents,  America,  Europe  and  Asia. 

Present  membership,  145,829;  ministers,  1,327;  church  edifices,  2,119; 
probable  value,  $4,928,000  ;  parsonages,  722;  probable  value,  $933,200; 
Sunday  schools,  2,222  ;  scholars,  167,000  ;  conferences,  25. 

The  institutions  of  the  church  are  a  publishing  house  in  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  founded  in  New  Berlin,  Pa.,  in  i8i6,  now  valued  at  $502,000;  North- 
western College  at  Naperville,  111.;  Union  Biblical  institute,  Naperville, 
111.;  Ebenezer  Orphan  Home,  Flat  Rock,  Ohio  ;  Alten-Heim,  Philadelphia, 
Pa.;  Charitable  Society,  Orwigsburg,  Pa.;  Branch  Book  Concern,  Stuttgart, 
Germany ;  Theological  Training  Schools,  Reutlingen,  Germany,  and  Tokio, 
Japan.- 

The  circulation  of  its  periodicals  is  as  follows : 

Der  Christliche  BotschafUr  (German  official  organ),  19,000 ;  The 
Evangelical  Messenger  (Y.xi^\^  o^c\2.\  organ)  10,000;  magazines,  Sunday 
school  literature,  etc.,  195,000. 

Missions  are  being  carried  on  in  the  large  cities  in  this  country  and  on 
the  frontiers  to  the  number  of  452.  Two  mission  conferences  exist  in  Europe 
with  70  missionaries  and  9,000  members.  A  Missionary  Conference  is 
organized  in  Japan  with  16  missionaries,  and  600  members.  The  sum  of 
$140,000  is  raised  annually  for  missions.  During  the  fiscal  year  just  closed, 
an  average  of  $1.52  per  member  has  been  raised. 

In  all  the  work  of  the  Evangelical  Association  there  has  been  a  steady 
insistence  upon  sound  conversion,  spiritual  worship  and  holy  living.  Evan- 
gelical in  doctrine,  Evangelistic  in  method,  and  associational  in  polity,  she 
has  been  distinctively  a  missionary  church. 

II.   The  Polity  of  the  Evangelical  Association. — The  Evangelical  Asso- 


EVANGELICAL  ASSOCIATION  CONGRESS, 
BISHOP  J.  J.  ESHER.  REV.  G.  C.  KNOHEL. 

REV.  S.  P.  SPRENG.  BISHOP  I3REVfUGEL. 


1452  THE    DENOMINATIONAL  CONGRESSES. 

elation  is  neither  hierarchical  nor  congregational  in  its  polity,  but  avoiding 
either  extreme  has  adopted  the  Episcopal  and  Connectionai  form. 

1.  The  Organic  Structure. — The  authoritative  rule  in  the  church  is  the 
Word  of  God.  Her  Book  of  Discipline  contains  the  fundamental  law.  In 
the  ministry  there  are  two  orders  known  respectively  as  "deacons "  and 
"  elders."  In  the  official  duty  and  authority  of  the  ministry  there  is  a  grad- 
ation of  offices  termed  respectively,  the  "  preacher  in  charge,"  the  "  presid- 
ing elder,"  and  the  "  bishop."  The  bishop's  most  important  functions  are 
the  ordination  and  the  annual  appointment  of  the  preachers. 

There  are  three  conferences,  the  quarterly,  the  annual,  and  the  general. 
All  of  these  have  judicial  prerogatives,  and  only  the  general  conference  has 
legislative  powers.  It  is  the  supreme  court  of  law  in  the  church  and  the 
final  arbiter  of  all  controversy.     There  is  no  lay  representation. 

2.  The  Genius  of  the  Church. —  The  Evangelical  Association  possesses 
a  pronounced  individuality,  the  most  marked  characteristics  of  which  are  the 
following  : 

1.  The  itinerancy  is  inseparable  from  the  inner  life  and  animating 
spirit  of  the  church.  It  is  the  highest  economic  expression  of  that  spirit. 
It  secures  a  distribution  of  gifts  and  a  diversity  of  service  among  all  the 
churches  and  cultivates  a  spirit  of  unity  between  the  ministry  .and  member- 
ship as  well  as  between  the  churches  themselves. 

2.  The  simplicity  of  her  spirit.  Her  ministry  depend  not  upon  any 
claims  to  a  personally  transmitted  authority  or  unbroken  succession  of 
ordination.  There  is  no  attempt  at  stately  architecture,  elaborate  forms  of 
worship,  or  imposing  ceremonies.  Her  very  simplicity  constitutes  her 
grandeur. 

3.  Her  economy  is  an  intensely  practical  one.  Her  genius  takes  the 
short  cut  for  the  realization  of  the  great  purpose,  at  the  same  time  avoiding 
instinctively  all  irreverent  and  vulgar  methods.  A  controlling  force 
influencing  the  life  of  the  entire  organization  is  Christianity  applied. 

4.  Thoroughness  of  character  Superficiality  of  religious  experience 
and  Chriiitian  life  is  repugnant  to  the  spirit  and  institutions  of  the  denomi- 
nation. There  inheres  in  her  life  a  stern  sense  of  right  and  an  uncompro- 
mising hostility  to  shams  of  every  kind  associated  with  a  loving  spirit  of 
condesension  and  mercy  to  the  erring.  Her  love  of  pure  doctrine  Is  equaled 
by  her  love  of  a  pure  life. 

5.  Aggressiveness  of  spirit.  There  thrills  through  the  church  the 
spirit  of  conquest  foi  Christ.  A  restless  energy  prompts  constantly  to  the 
occupancv  of  new  fields  at  home  and  abroad.  The  wheels  of  her  machinery 
are  made  to  go.  Her  spirit  gives  birth  to  new  institutions,  modes  of 
organization  and  improved  methods  of  work  as  the  progress  of  Christianity 
recjuires.  If  her  practical  life  is  Christianity  applied,  her  aggressive  spirit 
is  Christianity  on  fire  I 

3.   The  Aim. — The  aim  of  her  polity  is  the   preservation  and  promul 


FREE    BAPTIST.  1453 

gation  of  sound  doctrine,  the  observance  of  a  truly  spiritual  worship,  the 
edification  of  all  the  members  into  a  building  of  true  holiness,  the  maintain- 
ance  of  her  purity  by  a  strict  discipline,  to  possess  the  indwelling  influence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 


PRESENTATION  OF  THE  FREE  BAPTIST  CHURCH. 
By  Jas.  a.  Howe,  D.D.,  of  the  Cobb  Divi.nity  School. 

Address  delivered  before  the  Parliament  of  Religions  September  asth. 

The  first  Baptist  church  in  English  history  was  of  the  free  or  general 
order,  and  antedated  the  first  particular  Baptist  church  by  twenty  years. 
General  Baptists  long  constituted  the  larger  and  more  influential  part  of 
English  Baptists,  and  among  the  earliest  Baptist  churches  in  America  no 
small  number  were  of  that  persuasion.  The  church  planted  by  Roger  Will- 
iams was  the  first.  With  numerous  churches,  centrally  placed,  they  gave 
early  promise  of  large  development  in  America.  This  promise  only  needed 
fulfillment  to  remove  every  occasion  for  Free  Baptists  becoming  a  separate 
people.  But  General  Baptists  aimed  at  simplicity,  clung  to  crude  forms  of 
worship,  neglected  to  educate  and  support  the  ministry,  and  fell  so  far 
behind  the  age  that  at  the  end  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  existence 
here  their  churches,  though  not  few,  were  too  little  associated  to  be  easily 
recognized  as  a  distinct  people. 

In  1780  Benjamin  Randall,  unaware  of  them  and  innocent  of  sectarian 
design,  organized  a  church  at  New  Durham,  X.  H.,  that  became  the  first  of 
the  modern  Free  Baptists. 

The  ministers  associated  with  and  immediately  succeeding  him  had 
little  theological  training.  Often  their  general  intelligence  but  slightly 
excelled  that  of  the  better  part  of  their  congregations.  They  possessed 
enough  strength  of  character  to  gain  leadership  and  to  stamp  marked  feat- 
ures upon  the  character  of  the  church.  They  gave  special  prominence  to 
the  necessity  of  personal  verification  of  Christian  truth.  Conversion  meant 
a  sense  of  sin,  cries  to  God,  struggle  and  victory  ;  followed  by  peace,  com- 
munion with  God,  love  for  Christianity,  and  living  joy  in  Christ  and  duty. 
Religion  without  emotion  was  paradoxical.  Christian  truths  were,  if  appre- 
hended, sure  to  stir  the  soul.  Christian  life  was  life  at  the  center  of  moral 
being,  always  deep,  active  and  strong,  answering  to  the  most  fervid  descrip- 
tions on  the  sacred  page.  This  was  "  experimental  religion."  These 
preachers  refused  to  be  bound  to  any  one  parish,  and  their  itinerant  ministry 
was  martyrdom.  In  preaching  they  relied  on  the  immediate  aid  of  the 
Spirit,  and  often  became  indifferent  to  exact  preparation.  Study  of  the 
Scriptures,  prayer,  meditation,  and   almost  any  unwritten  arrangement  of 


1454  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

the  theme  left  the  mind  open,  they  held,  to  inspiration  from  above.  To 
preach  with  power  the  preacher  needed  only  to  be  en  rapport  with  the  Spirit. 
Learning  was  not  indispensable  ;  the  Spirit  was.  They  aimed  at  reaching 
conscience  through  feeling.  They  denied  the  value  of  dry  intellectual  light 
in  efforts  to  change  the  depraved  will.  If  a  sermon  were  not  melting,  it  was 
only  a  pleasant  sound.  They  cultivated  a  spirit,  style,  tone  and  mien  that 
would  appeal  to  the  feelings.  They  so  affected  their  congregations  that  a 
dry  eye  could  not  be  found.  Earnestness,  simplicity  and  sincere  feeling  could 
not  be  withstood.  Immediate  conversions  were  frequent.  Charges  of  fanat- 
icism they  could  not  escape.  But  when  their  zeal  carried  them  into  c\trav- 
agance,  it  was  soon  checked.  Between  fervor  and  fanaticism  the  leaders  dis- 
tinguished, and  promptly  checked  all  tendencies  to  disorder.  The  usefulness 
of  these  men  might  be  envied  but  not  often  surpassed  by  many  better-cul- 
tured and  more  illustrious  ministers.  Their  work  was  progressive,  upward 
and  broadening,  correcting  earlier  mistakes  by  subsequent  improvement  till 
our  day. 

Until  1800  Free  Baptists  regarded  themselves  as  members  of  the  denom- 
ination. But  the  formation  of  a  New  Hampshire  association  consolidated 
Calvinist  Baptists,  and  left  non-Calvinist  ones  alone.  Free  Baptists  were 
forced  into  closer  relations,  and  the  multiplication  of  churches  compelled  the 
adoption  of  some  polity.  At  first  they  jcalled  themselves  "  Monthly  Meet- 
ings," because  meeting  once  a  month  for  fellowship,  and  considered  them- 
selves branches  of  the  New  Durham  Church.  In  a  few  years  these  monthly 
meetings  were  recognized  as  complete  churches.  With  increase  of  numbers 
came  the  quarterly  meeting,  composed  of  churches  in  a  restricted  locality; 
the  yearly  meeting,  embracing  the  quarterly  meetings  in  a  large  region  or  a 
state ;  and  after  fifty  years  the  general  conference.  At  first  annual,  then 
biennial,  now  triennial,  this  organization  comprises  all  yearly  meetings, 
and  is  remarkably  flexible  and  complete.  It  is  the  one  peculiar  feature  of 
our  government.  Congregational  in  character,  it  speaks  for  the  church  on 
faith,  polity  and  order,  and  within  the  limits  of  independency  makes  the 
denomination  homogeneous.  It  publishes  encyclicals  on  moral  questions, 
and  on  religious  questions  affecting  the  character  of  the  ministry  or  pulpit- 
teachings.  Without  waiting  for  other  churches,  it  pronounced  American 
slavery  un-Christian,  and  refused  fellowship  to  slaveholders.  It  declared 
temperance  the  duty  of  every  man,  total  abstinence  the  only  practical  rule. 
To  this  principle  it  committed  ministry  and  laity.  It  encouraged  the  build- 
ing of  academies,  seminaries,  colleges  and  divinity  schools,  changing  the 
current  from  indifference  to  enthusiasm  for  Christian  education.  Impelled 
by  the  command  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature.  Free  Baptists  had 
at  home  gone  everywhere.  In  1830  they  sent  missionaries  to  India.  All 
that  public  opinion  has  done  for  the  emancipation  of  woman  was  to  some 
extent  anticipated  by  Free  Baptists,  who  from  the  first  maintained  her  right 
in  the  church  to  pray,  preach  and  hold  office.     In  New  England  they  led  the 


FREE    BAPTIST.  1455 

way  in  offering  a  college  course  to  her,  Bates  being  the  first  to  take  this 
position. 

The  Scriptures  being  our  only  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  at  first  we  said : 
Other  creeds  are  needless.  But  when  the  rising  church  found  itself  charged 
with  heresy,  it  published  a  confession  of  faith.  As  this  is  orthodox  at  every 
point,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  speak  of  tenets  held  in  common  with  evan- 
gelical churches,  except  as  some  answer  the  question  :  How  differs  her  creed 
from  that  of  other  Baptist  churches  ? 

From  one  Baptist  body  Free  Baptists  differ  by  accepting  the  Nicene 
symbol  in  respect  to  the  Divinity  of  Christ ;  from  another  in  regarding  sav- 
ing faith  as  fiduciary  rather  than  historic,  antedating  baptism  and  securing 
forgiveness  independently,  since  baptisnj  is  but  a  symbol  and  public  profes- 
sion of  receiving  grace,  and  from  a  third  in  finding  only  two  gospel-ordi- 
nances enjoined,  and  in  viewing  church  government  as  originally  democratic. 

Our  variance  from  regular  (Particular)  Baptists  deserves  particular 
mention.  Free  Baptists  prefer  the  early  Greek  theology  to  the  Augiistinian, 
or  Arminianism  to  Calvinism ;  recognize  child-baptizing  churches  as  prop- 
erly organized  Christian  churches ;  and  hold  to  non-sectarian  communion  at 
the  Supper.  Our  special  contention  has  been  in  behalf  of  the  first  and  last 
positions.  As  to  Calvin's  teachings,  we  have  challenged  the  five  points. 
The  decree  of  salvation  is  indeed  founded  on  God's  sovereign  will,  but, 
therefore,  on  the  divine  nature  and  infinite  goodness  that  could  not  be  good- 
ness and  refuse  to  rescue  as  many  as  possible  from  the  consequences  of  sin. 
By  the  divine  will  all  men  are  equal  before  the  principles  of  grace.  Elec-y 
tion  rests  on  faith  in  Christ,  though  not  given  because  of  that  faith.  Faith 
is  not  the  touchstone  of  an  anterior  election,  but  the  terms  of  its  reception. 
Christ's  dying  for  every  man  proves  his  impartial  effort  to  obtain  every 
man's  salvation.  One  sin  of  the  first  man  could  not  shatter  his  and 
his  descendant's  moral  faculties,  when  numberless  after  sins  have  no 
such  effects.  Hence  every  sinner  has  natural  ability  to  obey  God  and  to 
repent.  The  Spirit  makes  God's  benevolence  beat  upon  every  heart,  and 
influences  it  to  repent,  believe  and  be  saved.  V/ith  the  first  free  choice  of 
Christ  the  Spirit  enters  the  heart,  to  cleanse,  renew  and  sanctify  it,  and  to 
fill  it  with  the  love  of  God.  Since  the  Spirit  enters  through  faith,  by  loss  of 
faith  he  departs  ;  a  partaker  of  the  Spirit  may  fall  away  hopelessly.  Free 
Baptists  deem  the  strength  of  free  will  correspondent  to  the  degree  of 
accountability.  They  have  been  tolerant  of  opposing  views,  conceding 
what  they  asked  :  the  right  of  private  judgment.  They  have  not  denied  the 
validity  of  the  title  of  child-baptizing  churches.  As  little  as  different  views 
of  grace  can  different  views  of  baptism  undermine  the  iKKXeata  of  any. 
Christians  who  obey  Christ's  law  of  baptism  as  they  understand  it,  are  true 
churches  of  Christ.  F"ree  Baptists  welcome  all  Christians  to  the  Supper. 
Since  church  ordinances  aim  at  holy  character,  those  who  have  not  been 
immersed  and  yet  manifest  this    character   have  the  greatest  qualifications 


145^     '         THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

for  receiving  the  Supper.  Free  Baptists  ask,  "  Are  the  symbols  of  redemp- 
tion comparable  with  the  redemption  itself?  Can  one  redeemed  be  denied 
the  mere  symbol?  What  has  the  church  to  do  but  observe  whether  the 
Master  visibly  fellowships  at  his  table  with  child-baptizers,  and  to  do  the 
same  ?"  This  liberality  has  allowed  them  to  add,  "  Free  communion"  to- 
"  free  will,"  "  free  grace  "  and  "  free  salvation."  In  itself  the  Free  Baptist 
faith  stands  out  complete,  logical,  compact  a.»d  so  loyal  to  apostolic  truth 
that  it  seems  a  transcript  from  the  New  Testament.  It  places  evangelical 
truths  in  the  forefront.  "  Back  to  Christ"  is  the  call.  In  response  to  the 
influences  Providence  has  set  in  motion,  Free  Baptists  have  in  many  things 
amended  the  exterior  life,  and  removed  the  defects  of  early  days.  '  No 
tenet,  however,  have  they  seen  reason  to  modify.  The  currents  of  practical 
belief,  if  not  of  speculative  theology,  set  toward  their  catholicity  of  spirit 
and  truth,  their  stable  yet  liberal  orthodoxy.  Possibly  they  have  been 
chosen  to  present  that  reasonable  and  attractive  center  of  truth  for  the  com- 
ing church  where  all  shall  be  in  one  fold  under  one  Shepherd,  that 
"One  far-off,  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 


CONGRESS  OF  THE  SOCIETY  OF  FRIENDS. 

(ORTHODOX.) 

.  This  church  presented  the  following  program  :  Our  Church  and  its  Mis- 
sion, by  James  Wood;  Our  Origin  and  History,  by  Joseph  B.  Braithwaite  ; 
Church  Organization,  by  Calvin  W.  Pritchard  ;  The  Position  of  Woman,  by 
Anna  B.  Thomas;  Missions,  by  Josephine  M.  Parker;  and  the  Philosophy  of 
Quakerism,  by  Thomas  Newlin.  We  give  their  salient  points,  the  author  of 
their  report  having  omitted  names.  Distinctive  Quakerism  is  to  be  interpreted 
by  the  one  truth  that  the  Spirit  abides  in  every  converted  soul,  that  baptism 
of  the  Spirit  is  administered  by  Christ  himself,  and  with  the  seal  of  sonship 
with  God.  There  follows  a  closeness  of  relationship  beyond  description. 
No  human  being  can  come  between  this  soul  and  Christ.  The  priesthood  of 
believers  lies  next  to  the  corner-stone  of  Quakerism.  Sacerdotalism  is  rejected, 
and  sacramentarianism.  The  one  effectual  baptism  is  that  from  Christ.  The 
communion  is  real, — spiritual  partaking  of  Christ's  body  and  blood  by  faith. 
Such  fundamental  principles  determined  the  direction  and  character  ot  our 
philanthropic  work.  The  earliest  formal  protest  against  slavery  in  modern 
times  was  made  bv  Friends  in  1688.  Much  has  been  accomplished  by  them  in 
securing  liberty.  Their  refusal  of  oaths  was  one  of  the  most  frequent  occas- 
ions of  fines  and  imprisonment  in  early  times.  Their  question  continually 
was  :  Shall  we  obey  God  rather  than  man  ?  They  held  their  meetings  con- 
trary to  Parliament  and  the  orders  of  the  crown.     Instead  of  taking  up  arms- 


SOCIETY   OF   FRIENDS.  1457 

they  taught  the  world  that  there  are  other  quite  as  effective  means  of  conquest, 
and  that  moral  courage  may  accomplish  more  than  the  sword.  They  showed 
the  patriotism  of  endurance  and  suffering  till  their  faithfulness  was  rewarded, 
conscience  aroused,  and  Parliament  compelled  to  pass  laws  recognizing  lib- 
erty of  conscience  and  worship.  Before  the  century  in  which  they  rose  passed 
awav,  their  simple  affirmation  was  made  legally  effective,  and  subsequent 
legislation  made  the  statute  applicable  to  all  possible  cases.  Our  mission 
was  general  and  special :  To  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature ;  and .  to 
carry  to  all  Christians  the  message  of  their  liberty  and  privileges  in  the  Gos- 
pel. Our  organization  was  a  development  as  need  appeared.  As  numbers 
increased,  general  meetings  were  called.  Where  Friends  were.numerous  it 
became  needful  to  meet  often  and  periodically,  and  quarterly  meetings  were 
established.  Soon  came  a  demand  for  more  frequent  meetings,  embracing 
fewer  churches  ;  and  monthly  meetings  were  established.  In  1678  began  the 
yearly  meeting.  This  is  a  legislative  body ;  the  quarterly  meeting  a  meeting 
for  conference  between  churches ;  and  the  monthly  meeting  the  executive 
body,  receiving  and  dismissing  members,  recording  ministers,  appointing  all 
important  officers,  and  carrying  out  instructions  from  quarterly  and  yearly 
meetings.  Government  is  thoroughly  democratic.  Every  member  has  a  seat 
and  a  voice.  Men  and  women  are  alike  eligible  to  all  offices.  Our  numbers 
through  the  world  are  100,630.  We  have  missions  in  Alaska,  Armenia, 
China,  India,  Jamaica,  Japan,  Me.xico,  Palestine  and  South  Africa.  Our 
(Red)  Indian  missions  number  thirteen,  with  twenty  churches,  more  than 
half  of  whose  members  are  Indians.  Home-Mission  boards  work  success- 
fully in  the  South  and  West.  All  our  churches  have  Sabbath  schools,  and 
stimulate  Bible  study.  j 

Quakerism  is  not  a  system  of  negation  merely.  It  was  not  organized 
only  to  testify  against  customs  and  practices.  No  philosophy  has  more  posi- 
tive back-bone  than  Quakerism.  Its  "thou  shalts"  are  more  frequent,  are 
thundered  in  louder  tones,  than  its  "thou  shalt  nots."  Its  principles  were 
outlined  in  the  apostolic  church.  In  religious  life  and  actual  experience  they 
make  real  the  doctrines  taught  by  philosopher  and  priest  ages  before.  The 
universality  of  the  spiritual  nature  was  brought  to  light  and  life  in  the  religi- 

ious  world  bv  Quakerism. 

(HICKSITE.) 

This  church  gave  the  following  program  :  Statement  of  Faith,  by  How- 
ard M.  Jenkins;  Mission  Work,  by  Joseph  J.  Janney;  Woman  in  the  Society, 
l)y  Elizabeth  C.  Bond;  Education,  by  Edward  II.  .Magill  ;  Cooperation,  by 
R.  S.  Haviland;  and,  Grounds  of  Sympathy,  by  Aaron  M.  Powell.  We  give 
salient  points  in  our  report,  having  omitted  names. 

The  Friends  arose  as  an  outgrowth  of  English  Protestantism  about  1650. 

The  distinctive  and  vital  feature  of  our  faith  is  belief  in  inner  light  or  divine 

immanence  or  immediate  revelation.     William  Penn  said  :     "The  bent  and 

stress  of  their  ministry  was  conversion,  regeneration  and  holiness :  a  leaving 

92 


1458  THE    DENOMINATIONAL  CONGRESSES. 

off  the  superfluous,  reducing  the  ceremonious  and  formal,  and  pressing  to 
the  soul  the  substantial,  necessary  and  profitable."  Our  faith's  main  points 
comprise:  (i)  Recognition  and  worship  of  the  Supreme  Being,  whose 
attributes  are  goodness,  love  and  mercy  ;  (2)  the  divine  immanence,  God's 
direct  self-revelation  to  our  perceptions,  his  shining  into  our  souls  if  admit- 
ted; (3)  the  Scriptures  as  confirming  that  immediate  divine  revelation, 
recording  God's  visits  to  the  soul  in  past  ages,  and  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment presenting  the  crowning  truths  of  the  Christian  dispensation.  We 
revere  the  Scriptures  and  desire  enlightenment  from  the  Spirit  who  gave 
their  truths.  Without  his  enlightenment  none  can  obtain  true  spiritual 
y; .  •  .  knowledge  of  them;  (4)  the  divinity  of  Christ.  The  divine  nature,  the 
^  V  Christ  spirit,  the  Word  dwelt  in  Jesus  in  unparalleled  and  finitely  immeas- 

•|.  i  "   arable  degree.     He  is  "the  highest  possible  manifestation  of  God  in  man"; 

, .,/.  (5)  the  Christ-rule  in  daily  life.     Desiring  the  guidance  of  tlie  Divine  Spirit 

.,-' '  in  Jesus,  and  from  his  example  and  from  inward  convincement  embracing 

his  infinite  truth,  this  is  the  ideal  of  religious  life..  Out  of  our  endeavor  to 
guide  our  daily  acts  by  these  rules  have  come  our  testimonies  and  most  of 
•       our  peculiarities. 
.,•>  v-'  Fox  announced  the  equality  of  woman  with  man.    Women  were  recog- 

■^r-    .^\       -      nized  as  ministers,  given  charge  of  such  church  matters  as  concerned  them, 
:'^j"  and  gradually  given  joint  authority  in  all  affairs  until  no  distinction  is  known 

.y  ■;,  as  to  any  duties  or  privileges.     Fox  wrote  that  all  differences  should  be  set- 

.'•'  tied  by  arbitration.     In   1692  the  earliest  book  of   discipline  required  all 

differences  between  Friends  to  be  thus  settled.  In  1793  Friends  inaugurated 
commercial  arbitration.  In  1824  they  had  all  legal  regulations  for  arbitra- 
tion consolidated  into  a  parliamentary  act.  Friends  began  prison  reform  in 
1786.  Their  influence  originated  the  Pennsylvania  system.  Some  years 
before  our  Revolution,  Philadelphia  Friends  formed  a  prison  association. 
In  1813  Elizabeth  Fry  wrought  improvement  in  English  prisons,  and  formed 
an  association  in  1817  which  soon  received  government  assistance  on  account 
of  its  eminent  success.  Penn,  in  1682,  solved  the  problem  of  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Indian  and  of  his  rights.  As  teachers  among  Indians,  Friends 
have  generally  adopted  most  practical  methods,  encouraging  the  use  of  farm- 
ing implements,  mechanic  trades,  etc.  In  1800  model  farms  and  machine 
shops  were  opened,  and  efforts  made  to  inculcate  the  dignity  of  labor,  and 
to  induce  the  Indian  to  release  woman  from  servitude.  Religious  instruction 
was  not  neglected,  but  no  proselyting  was  attempted.  Friends  favor  the 
abandonment  of  tribal  relations,  development  of  family  life,  and  ultimate  full 
citizenship  among  whites.  In  1687  (?)  Friends  questioned  the  rightfulness 
of  slavery.  In  1774  Philadelphia  advised  manumission  of  slaves  fit  for  free- 
dom. In  1776  it  concluded  that  slaveholding  among  its  members  could  not 
be  tolerated.  In  1790  slavery  was  abolished  among  all  Friends.  There  was 
deep  concern  about  the  condition  of  the  freed  negroes.  Many  meetings 
assumed  care  of  them,  and  this  care  has  extended  to  the  present  in  schools 


FRIENDS  CONGRESS. 

HOWARD  M.  JF.NKIN'S.  BENJAMIN  SMITH. 

J.  W.  PLUMMER. 
EMZABETU  POWELL  HOND.  EMMA  R.  ELITCRAFT. 

ROBERT  S.  HAVELAND. 
JOSEPH  J.  JANNEY.  EDWARD  H.  MAGILL. 


1460  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

for-  the  children  and  in  other  assistance  as  need  arose.  Tne  first  official 
action  on  intemperance  occurred  in  1679.  Friends  undertook  to  prevent  the 
delivery  of  rum  to  the  Indians  in  exchange  for  land.  In  1685  the  meeting 
unanimously  agreed  that  it  was  dishonorable  to  sell  liquors  to  Indians.  In 
1 7 ID  the  practice  was  discontinued,  and  Friends  begged  the  legislature  to 
prohibit  the  sale  of  intoxicants  near  their  meeting-houses.  Between  1795 
and  1810  subordinate  meetings  received  repeated  injunctions  to  have  Friends 
abstain  from  distilling,  using  or  selling  spirits.  In  1812  these  were  made 
disownable  offences.  Our  philanthropic  union  works  for  peace  and  arbitra- 
tion, temperance,  social  purity,  negro  education,  disuse  of  tobacco,  for 
*  dependent  children,  against  indecent  literature,  lotteries,  gambling  and 
kindred  vices,  for  prisons  and  asylums,  and  in  Indian  affairs.  Education 
was  very  early  recognized  as  necessary.  Friends  speedily  required  proper 
oversight  of  children  whose  parents  were  unable  to  give  them  proper  school- 
ing. Our  first  boarding-school  opened  in  1667,  our  first  corporate  action 
coming  in  1672  ;  Penn  Charter  School  in  1689;  Clerkenwell  School,  uniting 
manual  training  to  intellectual  studies,  in  1702;  and  Ackworth  School,  the 
backbone  of  English  Quakerism,  in  1779.  We  have  a  full  proportion  of 
schools  and  colleges,  noted  for  thoroughness,  moral  oversight  and  sex- 
equality. 

The  General  Committee  {Hicksite)  are — Jonathan  W.  Plu.mmer,  Chair- 
man; Emma  R.  Flitcraft,  Vice  Chairman;  Allen  J.  Flitcraft,  Treas- 
urer; Benjamin  Smith,  Secretary;  Edwin  Green,  James  McDonald, 
Edward  Speakman,  Phebe  W.  Brown,  Elma  Louise  Brown,  Eliza- 
beth T.  Law,  Hannah  A.  Plummer,  Mary  W.  Plummer,  Mary  Poul- 

SON. 


PRESENTATION    OF  THE  GERMAN    EVANGELICAL 

CHURCH. 

By  Rev.  J.  G.  Kircher,  of  Chicago. 

September  24th. 

The  German  Evangelical  Church  has  the  glory  of  having,  through  Mar- 
tin Luther,  restored  the  Bible  to  the  people.  She  also  has  understood  the  need 
of  its  careful  study.  To  these  German  reformers  is  due  the  great  extension 
of  educational  opportunities  in  Germany  whereby  it  has  become  the  educa- 
tional center  of  the  world,  and  especially  the  leader  in  theological  thought. 
This  religious  education,  according  to  the  church,  must  begin  in  childhood. 
A  German  Evangelical  parent  feels  that  the  Bible  must  have  the  first  place 
in  every  school  attended  by  his  children.  While  we  hold  it  to  be  the  sacred 
duty  of  the  whole  community  to  build  schools  where  all,  without  difference 
of  race,  color  or  station,  are  guaranteed  a  thorough  education,  conscience 
binds  us,  however,  to  provide  with  our  own  money  schools  for  our  children 


JEWISH.  I461 

where  the  Bible  is  at  home,  where  they  are  taught  according  to  it  the  pre- 
cepts of  our  blessed  Evangelical  faith.  Such  schools  have  given  to  the  world 
men  like  Arndt,  Gerhard,  Spener,  Franke,  Zinzendorf,  Lavater,  Stilling, 
Tholuck,  Bengel,  Mender,  Schleiermacher,  Nitzsch,  L'Uman,  and  others.  The 
Gennan  Evangelical  Church  has  created  and  given  to  the  people  religious 
songs,  church  hymns,  for  every  walk  of  life  and  every  experience,  hardly 
equaled  in  any  other  tongue.  Under  the  labors  of  A.  H.  Franke,  in  1694, 
Halle  founded  the  first  orphan  asylum,  and  in  connection  therewith  a  hos- 
pital and  various  other  charitable  institutions.  In  1710  he  founded  the 
famous  Bible  Society  of  Halle.  The  birthplace  of  these  institutions  is  Ger- 
many, and  their  spiritual  mother  the  Evangelical  Church.  Thence  they 
have  been  transported  to  England  and  America.  The  work  of  foreign  mis- 
sions goes  back  to  the  same  source,  for  in  1706  Frederick  IV.  of  Denmark 
founded  a  mission  in  India  and  Franke  of  Halle  sent  him  Ziegenbalg  to  do 
the  work.  In  1728  a  special  institute  was  founded  at  Halle  for  preaching 
the  Gospel  to  the  children  of  Israel. 

The  history  of  our  church  in  America  begins  with  October  15,  1840, 
when  six  ministers  of  the  Gospel  of  the  German  Evangelical  Church  met  at 
Gravis  Settlement,  Missouri,  and  organized  for  the  better  prosecution  of  the 
work  of  preaching  and  teaching  their  brethren.  That  company  has  grown 
to  a  synod  of  800  ministers,  960  congregations,  numbering  200,000  souls. 
We  have  a  theological  seminar^'  at  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  with  three  professors 
and  St  venty  students  ;  a  Proseminar  at  Elmhurst,  Illinois,  with  eight  profes- 
sors :.nd  130  students.  We  have  453  schools,  with  317  ministers  and  136 
teachers.  Our  home  mission  work  is  prosecuted  in  the  far  West,  the  great 
cities  and  the  harbors  of  Baltimore  and  New  York,  Our  foreign  mission 
work  is  carried  on  in  India.  We  are  supporting  a  number  of  orphan  asy- 
lums, hospitals  and  deaconesses  homes. 


THE   JEWISH    CONGRESSES. 

Held  in  the  Art  Institute  August  a7th-3ofh. 

None  entered  more  heartily  into  the  spirit  of  the  Parliament  of  Religions 
than  did  the  Jews.  They  hailed  with  delight  this  opportunity  to  add  their 
testimony  that,  however  manifold  the  titles  may  be,  the  beliefs,  hopes  and 
aims  cherished  by  all  religions  in  common  are  more  important  than  a  long- 
standing and  deep-rooted  intolerance  has  led  mankind  to  believe.  They 
were  anxious  to  witness  to  the  truth  of  Malachi's  words,  that  from  the  rising 
to  the  setting  of  the  sun  God's  name  was  great  among  the  nations,  and  to 
<leclare  what  is  and  has  been  Israel's  offering  in  the  service  of  the  Lord  of 
Hosts. 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  Union  of  American  Hebrew  Congregations 


1462  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

and  the  Central  Conference  of  American  Rabbis,  the  denominational  con- 
gress convened  in  the  Hall  of  Columbus,  August  27,  and  in  view  of  the  sad 
history  of  the  Jews,  significant  are  the  words  with  which  President  C.  C. 
Bonney  welcomed  the  assembly.  "By  the  Providence  of  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  mother  church  from  which  all  the  Christian 
denominations  trace  their  lineage,  and  which  stands  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind as  the  especial  exponent  of  august  and  triumphant  theism,  has  been 
called  upon  to  open  the  religious  congresses  of  1893.  But  far  more  impor- 
tant and  significant  is  the  fact  that  this  arrangement  has  been  made  and  this 
congress  is  now  formally  opened  and  welcomed  by  as  ultra  and  ardent  a 
'  Christian  as  the  world  contains.  It  is  because  I  am  a  Christian,  and  the 
chairman  of  the  general  committee  of  organization  of  religious  congresses 
is  a  Christian,  and  a  large  majority  of  that  committee  are  Christians,  that 
this  day  deserves  to  stand  gold-bordered  in  human  history  as  one  of  the 
signs  that  a  new  age  of  brotherhood  and  peace  has  truly  come.  We  know 
that  you  are  Jews,  while  we  are  Christians  and  would  have  all  men  so,  but  of 
all  the  precious  liberties  which  freemen  enjoy,  the  highest  is  the  freedom  to 
worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  conscience,  and  this  great  liberty 
is  the  right,  not  of  some  men,  but  of  all ;  not  of  Christians  only,  but  of  Jews 
and  Gentiles  as  well.  I  desire  from  all  men  respect  for  my  religious  con- 
victions, and  what  I  ask  for  myself,  a  Christian,  I  must  give  to  you  as  Jews. 
Through  all  the  sacred  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  we  walk  side  by 
side,  revering  the  creation;  journeying  through  the  wilderness;  clianting 
the  psalms  and  inspired  by  the  prophecies ;  and  if  we  part  at  the  threshold 
of  the  gospels  it  shall  be,  not  with  anger  but  with  love,  and  a  grateful  . 
remembrance  of  our  long  and  pleasant  journey  from  Genesis  to  Malachi." 

The  program  of  the  various  congresses  aimed  to  expound  the  funda- 
mental doctrines,  hopes  and  aims  of  Judaism,  to  explain  the  chief  spiritual 
contributions  for  which  humanity  is  indebted  to  it,  what  is  its  attitude  toward 
other  religions,  and  in  what  respect  it  is  still  indispensable  to  the  highest 
civilization;  and  it  is  generally  conceded  that  the  speakers  presented  these 
topics  with  courage,  clearness,  force  and  learning,  and  withal  in  a  spirit  of 
love  and  tolerance. 

Ever  since  the  dawn  of  history,  the  sons  of  Abraham  have  been 
entrusted  with  the  charge  of  everywhere  proclaiming  the  one  God  in  order 
to  be  "a  blessing  unto  all  nations  of  the  earth,"  and  Rabbi  Isaac  M.  Wise, 
of  Cincinnati,  explained  that  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the 
God  of  Israel,  the  God  enthroned  in  Zion  cannot  be  understood  to  signify 
a  tribal,  national,  local  or  special  god  ;  it  could  signify  only  the  one  God 
revealed  to  the  fathers  and  to  Israel  and  worshiped  by  them  ;  the  Creator, 
Judge  and  Possessor  of  heaven  and  earth,  exalted  above  all,  prior  and 
superior  to  all  matter,  time  and  space,  the  Eternal  Infinite,  Absolute  Univer- 
sal and  Omnipresent  One,  Supreme  Love  and  Truth,  the  highest  Ideal  of 
moral  perfection.     The  highest  ethical  duty  of  man,  according  to  the  Bible, 


JEWISH.  1463 

is  to  become  god-like,  to  come  as  near  as  possible  to  this  highest  ideal  of 
disinterested  goodness,  love,  mercy,  justice  and  holiness,  as  we  are  urged  by 
the  innate  moral  law,  and  as  our  God-cognition  defines. 

Prof.  Moses  Mielziner,  of  Cincinnati,  proved  with  many  quotations  how 
the  "Ethics  of  the  Talmud'''  are  a  development  of  this  principle.  "The 
moral  teachings  of  this  famous  book  are  as  broad  as  humanity,  knowing  no 
distinction  of  creed  or  race,  e.  g^  '  The  duties  of  justice,  veracity,  peacefulness 
and  charity  are  to  be  fulfilled  towards  the  heathen  as  well  as  the  Israelite.' 
'  The  pious  and  virtuous  of  all  nations  participate  in  the  eternal  bliss.' 
'  Man's  salvation  depends  not  on  the  acceptance  of  certain  articles  of  belief, 
nor  on  certain  ceremonial  observances,  but  on  that  which  is  the  ultimate 
aim  of  religion:  morality,    purity  of  heart  and  holiness  of  life. 

Rabbi  Joseph  Stolz,  of  Chicago,  maintained  that  man's  personal  immor- 
tality was  always  an  established  belief  in  Israel,  and  by  quotations  and 
inferences  from  the  general  principle  of  Judaism,  he  proved  that  throughout 
all  his  long  history  we  search  in  vain  for  a  period  when  this  doctrine  was  not 
affirmed,  believed  or  defended  by  the  Jew.  The  .voluminous  literature  of 
Judaism  is  unanimous  on  the  subject,  and  there  is  proof  positive  that  a 
clearly  defined  belief  in  immortality  existed  in  Israel  prior  to  the  rise  of 
Christianity,  and  that  Jesus  and  his  apostles  taught  the  doctrine  in  the  very 
words  of  the  Pharisees.  Jn  1885  the  Pittsburg  Conference  declared  :  '  We 
re-assert  the  doctrine  of  Judaism  that  the  soul  is  immortal,  grounding  this 
belief  on  the  divine  nature  of  the  human  spirit  which  forever  finds  bliss  in 
righteousness  and  misery  in  wickedness."  The  joy  is  eternal  because  good- 
ness is  everlasting,  the  pain  is  temporal,  because  "God  will  not  contend 
forever,  neither  will  he  retain  his  anger  to  eternity."  Our  life  here  fashions 
our  life  hereafter.     "  This  world  is  the  vestibule  to  the  next." 

But  the  hope  of  immortality  must  not  be  the  basis  of  ethics.  That  is 
selfishness.  "Be  not  like  servants  who  serve  their  master  for  the  sake  of 
the  reward." 

In  this  connection.  Rabbi  Isaac  S.  Moses,  of  Chicago,  in  his  treatise  on 
the  "Function  of  Prayer  According  to  Jewish  Doctrine,"  maintained  that  the 
object  of  Jewish  worship  is  to  lead  man  to  perfection  on  earth.  The  func- 
tion of  Jewish  prayer  is  not  to  persuade  God  into  granting  us  favors,  or  by 
our  hymns  and  praises  to  influence  his  will ;  it  is  rather  man's  opportunity 
to  learn  to  subject  his  will  to  the  will  of  God,  to  strive  after  truth,  to  enrich 
the  heart  with  love  for  humanity,  to  ennoble  the  soul  with  the  longing  after 
righteousness.  To  the  Jew,  the  house  of  prayer  is  not  the  gate  to  heaven, 
but  the  gate  to  righteousness,  through  which  he  enters  into  communion  with 
the  larger  life  of  God.  The  main  elements  of  Jewish  worship  are  freedom, 
law,  truth,  love  to  God  and  man,  holiness,  gratitude,  peace  and  universal 
brotherhood.  Characteristically  Jewish  are  the  words  with  which  every 
service  closes:  "We  hope,  O  God,  that  all  superstition  will  speedily  pass 
away,  all  wickedness  cease,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  be  established  on 


1464  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

earth ;  then  will  the  Lord  be  king  over  all  the  earth ;  on  that  day  shall  God 
be  acknowledged  one  and  his  name  be  one." 

To  bring  about  this  time  when  "the  earth  shall  be  as  full  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  as  the  depths  of  the  sea  are  covered  with  water,"  is  the 
mission  of  the  Jew,  and  Rabbi  Kaufman  Kohler,  of  New  York,  speaking  of 
the  "Synagogue  and  Church  in  their  Mutual  Relations,"  maintained  that  the 
synagogue  and  church  represent  refraction  of  the  same  divine  light  of  truth, 
the  opposite  polar  currents  of  the  same  magnetic  power  of  love.  Working 
in  different  directions  and  spheres,  they  supplement  and  complete  one 
another  while  fulfilling  the  great  providential  mission  of  building  up- the 
kingdom  of  truth  and  righteousness  on  earth.  The  synagogue  holds  the  key 
to  the  mysteries  of  the  church  which  is  flesh  of  our  flesh  and  spirit  of  our 
spirit.  Jesus  and  his  apostles  were  Jews  both  in  their  life  and  teaching. 
Jesus  was  in  every  respect  a  true  son  of  the  synagogue.  There  was  no 
reason  why  he  should  antagonize  the  teachings  of  the  synagogue  any  more 
than  John  the  Baptist  did,  nor  was  there  reason  for  the  Jewish  people  at 
large  or  for  the  leaders  to  bear  him  any  grudge,  or  to  hate  the  noblest  and 
most  lofty-minded  of  all  teachers  in  Israel.  It  was  the  anti-Semitism  of  the 
church  of  the  second  century  that  cast  the  guilt  upon  the  Jew  and  his  religion. 

When  the  church  amalgamated  pagan  elements,  the  synagogue  parted 
company;  but  while  standing  in  defense  of  his  own  disputed  rights  in  the 
great  battle  between  faith  and  reason  the  Jew  helped  and  still  helps  in  the 
final  triumph  of  the  cause  not  of  a  single  sect  or  race  or  class  but  of  human- 
ity, in  the  establishing  of  freedom  of  thought  and  conscience,  in  the  unfold- 
ing of  perfect  manhood,  in  the  rearing  of  the  kingdom  of  justice  and  love  in 
which  all  creeds  and  nationalities,  all  views  and  pursuits  will  blend  like  the 
rainbow  colors  of  the  one  bright  light  of  the  sun. 

What  this  "Share  of  the  Jewish  People  in  the  Culture  of  the  Various 
Nations  and  Ages  "  was.  Prof.  Gotthard  Deutsch,  of  Cincinnati,  explained 
with  much  attention  to  the  historical  details.  They  gave  the  world  the 
Bible  which  they  watched  with  such  jealous  care  and  devotion  that  it  found 
its  way  into  the  thought  and  sentiment  of  all  civilized  men.  Christianity  as 
it  was  developed  during  the  first  century,  derived  its  doctrines,  thoughts 
and*  forms  of  expression  from  Rabbinical  Judaism.  The  original  feature  of 
Christianity  is  its  combination  of  the  /ogos^  wilh  the  national  Jewish  messi- 
anic idea  and  this  is  the  result  of  Jewish-Alexandrian  philosophy.  The 
Jews  carried  Greek  learning  into  Europe,  dissipating  mediaeval  darkness. 
They  were  the  pioneers  in  Biblical  Criticism,  the  science  which  contributed 
50  much  to  the  enlightenment  of  the  world  and  to  the  purification  of  its 
moral  philosophy  and  religious  concepts.  They  supplied  the  weapons  for 
the  Protestant  Reformation.  They  furnished  Spinoza,  the  pioneer  of  mod- 
ern philosophy.  And  they  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  the  history  of 
modern  art,  music,  drama,  literature,  journalism,  science,  philosophy, 
exploration,  statesmanship  and  finance. 


JEWISH.  1465 

The  Jews  have  never  been  mere  idle  recipients  of  the  liberal  culture  of 
others,  but  they  have  always  been  eager  and  earnest  co-workers  in  every 
realm  and  department  of  knowledge.  Rabbi  Samuel  Sale,  of  St.  Louis, 
proved  this  thesis  in  his  essay,  "  Contribution  of  the  Jews  to  the  Preserva- 
tion of  the  Sciences  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  demonstrating  that  the  Jews  were 
the  only  means  and  instrument  by  which  the  philosophy  of  the  ancient 
Greeks  was  transmitted  to  the  European  world,  giving  a  lasting  incentive 
and  influence  to  the  philosophic  thought  of  the  middle  ages.  And  without 
the  precedent  contributions  of  the  Jews  to  the  sciences  in  the  middle  ages, 
the  Protestant  Reformation  would  not  have  been  possible. 

Rabbi  David  Philipson,  of  Cincinnati,  speaking  on  "  Judaism  and  the 
Modern  State,"  affirmed  that  the  Jews  do  not  consider  themselves  a  nation, 
but  a  religious  community  which  expects  no  personal  Messiah  and  desires 
not  to  return  to  Palestine.  They  are  Jews  in  religion  only,  citizens  of  their 
fatherland,  wherever  it  may  be,  in  everything  else ;  their  faith  has  no  inter- 
ests that  are  at  variance  with  the  common  weal ;  they  are  not  a  class  stand- 
ing apart,  but  their  hearts  and  hopes  are  bound  up  with  everything  that 
conduces  to  civic  advancement  and  their  country's  honor  and  political  tri- 
umph ;  they  recognize  in  all  men  brethren;  and  pray  for  the  speedy  coming 
of  the  day  when  all  the  world  over  religious  difference  will  have  no  weight 
in  political  councils. 

Rabbi  G.  Gottheil,  of  New  York,  speaking  on  "  The  Development  of 
Religious  Ideas  in  Judaism  Since  Moses  Mendelssohn,"  said  : 

The  idea  of  a  "chosen  people  "  has  for  us  no  other  meaning  than  that  of 
a  people  commissioned  to  do  a  certain  work  amongst  men  ;  it  implies  in  our 
sense  no  inherent  superiority  of  race  or  descent,  least  of  all  of  preference 
and  favoritism  in  heaven.  The  word  that  came  from  the  Jewish  mind 
thousands  of  years  ago  :  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,"  is  not  contra- 
vened by  us  either  in  our  belief,  or  in  our  prayers,  or  in  our  feelings  towards 
non-Jews,  and  that  other  word  from  the  same  source  :  "  Love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself,"  forbids  us  to  countenance  the  least  restriction  of  right  or  of 
duty  based  on  a  difference  of  race,  station,  culture  or  religion.  Whatever 
there  is  yet  in  our  liturgies  or  in  our  ceremonials,  even  if  it  only  seems  to 
conflict  with  that  great  Gospel,  will  disappear  when  the  new  order  of  ser- 
vice now  in  preparation  shall  become  the  accepted  ritual  expression  of  the 
Reformed  Judaism  in  America. 

Rabbi  Emil  G.  Hirsch,  of  Chicago,  spoke  on  the  "Ideals  of  Judaism  " 
and  "Biblical  Criticism  and  Judaism;"  Rabbi  Joseph  Silverman,  of  New 
York,  on  "Popular  Errors  About  the  Jews;"  Rabbi  .VI  H.  Harris,  of  New 
York,  on  "Reverence  and  Rationalism;"  Rabbi  L.  Grossmann,  of  Detroit, 
on  ".\ttitude  of  Judaism  to  the  Science  of  Comparative  Religions;"  Rabbi 
C.  H.  Levy,  of  Lancaster,  Pa.,  on  "  Universal  Ethics  According  -to  Prof. 
Steinthal;"  Rabbi  A.  Moses,  Louisville,  Ky.,on  "Who  is  the  Real  Atheist;" 
Rabbi  I.  Schwab,  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  on  '•  A  Review  of  the  Messianic  Idea  of 


1466  TKE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

the  Jews  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Rise  of  Christianity,"  Rabbi  E. 
Scluieber,  Toledo,  O.,  on  "  The  Historians  of  Judaism  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tuiy;"  Rabbi  A.  Kohut,  New  York,  on  "Genius  of  the  Talmud  ;"  Rabbi  S. 
Hecht,  Milwaukee,  on  "  A  Sabbath-School  Union  ;"■  Rabbi  B.  Felsenthal, 
Chicago,  on  "  The  Study  of  Post-Biblical  History." 

"  The  Position  of  Women  Among  the  Jews  "  was  the  theme  of  Rabbi 
Max  Landsberg,  of  Rochester,  N.Y.  He  showed  that  the  position  assigned 
to  woman  in  the  Biblical  history  of  her  creation,  where  the  perfection  of 
matrimony  is  the  close  union  of  one  man  and  one  wife  for  life,  is  expressed 
in  such  an  exalted  manner  that  not  only  all  conceptions  of  antiquity  are  put 
in  the  shade,  but  the  highest  civilization  yet  attained  cannot  conceive  of  a 
more  sublime  ideal.  Here  is  a  perfect  equality  of  man  and  woman;  yea, 
the  Bible  does  not  say  that  woman,  the  physically  weaker  one,  shall  leave 
her  father  and  mother  and  cling  to  her  husband,  but  man,  the  physically 
stronger  one,  shall  cling  to  his  wife,  who  in  a  high  condition  of  humanity  is 
morally  and  ethically  his  superior.  A  wealth  of  sentiment  so  universally 
ascribed  to  modern  ideas  is  contained  in  this  ancient  Hebrew  thought.  It 
furnishes  the  key-note  for  the  exalted  position  of  woman  among  the  Jews  so 
strangely  exceptional  in  practical  equality,  chastity,  dignity,  domestic  affec- 
tion, religious  power  and  moral  influence,  when  compared  to  that  of  all  the 
ancient  and  many  of  the  modern  nations.  To-day  the  Jewish  woman  has 
the  same  religious  rights  and  obligations  in  the  synagogue  that  man  has, 
and  she  is  a  most  powerful  factor  in  the  promotion  of  Jewish  religious  life 

and  sentiment. 

JEWISH  WOMEN'S  CONGRESS.  . 

The  Jewish  Women's  Congress  convened  on  the  4th  of  September  and 
continued  in  session  four  days.  The  preliminary  work  for  the  Congress  was 
done  by  a  committee  of  which  Mrs.  Henry  Solomon  was  chairman,  Mrs.  I. 
Moses,  vice  chairman,  and  Mrs.  Henry  Ader,  secretary.  There  was  no  advis- 
ory council,  but  the  members  of  the  committee  were  in  correspondence  with 
the  noted  Jews  throughout  the  world.  No  less  than  three  thousand  letters 
were  written  and  received.  In  this  manner  the  most  capable  women  were 
found  to  write  the  papers  upon  the  subjects  most  desirable  to  be  presented. 
The  subjects  were  divided  into  three  classes —  Religious,  Philanthropic  and 
Social.     The  program  was  as  follows  : 

September  4,  "Jewish  Women  of  Biblical  and  of  Mediaeval  Days  to 
1500,"  .Mrs.  Louise  Mannheimer,  Cincinnati,  O.  "Jewish  Women  of  Modern 
Days  from  1500,"  Mrs.  Helen  Kahn  Weil,  Kansas  City.  Discussion,  led  by 
Mrs.  Henrietta  Frank,  Chicago;  Dr.  Kohler,  Dr.  Hirsch. 

September  5,  "Women  in  the  Synagogue,"  Miss  Ray  Frank,  Oakland, 
Cal.;  Dr.  Moses.  "  Influence  of  the  Discovery  of  America  on  the  Jews," 
Mrs.  Pauline  H.  Rosenberg,  Alleghany,  Pa.;  Mrs.  Mary  Newberry  Adams, 
Dubuque,  la.  Discussion,  led  by  Miss  Esther  Witkowsky,  Chicago.  "Women 
as  Wage-Workers  with  Special   Reference  to  Directing  Immigrants,"  Miss 


JEWISH.  1467 

Julia  Richman,  New  York  City.  Discussion,  led  by  Mrs.  Sadie  Leopold, 
Chicago;  Mrs.  Henry  D.  Lloyd.  "  Influence  of  the  Jewish  Religion  on  the 
Home,"  Miss  Mary  Cohen,  Philadelphia,  Pa.;  Mrs.  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker; 
Mrs.  Chapman,  Dallas.     Discussion,  led  by  Miss  Julia  Felsenthal. 

September  6,  "Charily  as  Taught  by  Mosaic  Law,"  Mrs.  Eva  L.  Stern, 
New  York.  "  Woman's  Place  in  Charitable  Work— What  it  Is  and  What  it 
Should  Be,"  Mrs.  Carrie  Shevelson  Benjamin,  Denver,  Colo.  Discussion,  led 
by  Miss  Bamber,  Boston ;  Mrs.  Narva.  "How  Can  Nations  be  Influenced 
to  Protest  or  Even  to  Interfere  in  Cases  of  Persecution,"  Mrs.  Laura  Jacob- 
son,  St.  Louis,  Mo.;  Miss  Ida  Hultin,  Chicago  ;  William  J.  Onahan,  Chicago; 
Dr.  Emil  G,  Hirsch,  Chicago  ;  Rev.  Jenkin  Lloyd-Jones,  Prof.  Chas.  Zeublin; 
Discussion, led  by  Miss  Lillie  Hirshfield,^few  York.  "Mission  Work  Among 
the  Unenlightened  Jews,"  Mrs.  Minnie  Louis,  New  York  City. 

September  7,  "  Organization,"  Miss  Sadie  American,  Chicago. 

The  papers  were  invariably  good  and  the  discussions  very  interesting 
and  exhaustive,  and  were  participated  in  by  Jewish  and  Christian  women. 
Of  the  twenty  women  whose  names  appear  on  the  program,  nineteen  were 
present,  illness  preventing  the  attendance  of  one.  If  any  one  subject  may 
be  singled  out,  it  is  the  one  chosen  for  presentation  on  Wednesday  evening, 
"  How  can  Nations  be  Influenced  to  Protest  or  Even  to  Interfere  in  Cases  of 
Persecution."  Both  papers  presented  showed  care  and  study,  and  although 
taking  different  points  of  view,  were  equally  good. 

They  were  followed  by  an  interesting  discussion  in  which  Archbishop 
Ireland,  Dr.  E.  G.  Hirsch,  Mr.  Onahan,  Prof.  Zeublin  and  Rev.  Jenkin  Lloyd 
Jones  participated.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  all  of  the  speakers  occupied 
one  platform  regarding  persecution.  If  no  solution  could  be  found  to  the 
question,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  interest  aroused  may  result  in  some  plan 
whereby  the  world  at  large  will  cease  to  be  inactive  whenever  one  country 
jeopardizes  the  welfare  of  all  others  by  its  inhumanity.  The  audiences  far 
exceeded  the  expectations  of  the  committee,  being  at  all  times  too  large  for 
the  hall.  On  Wednesday  evening  it  was  necessary  to  hold  an  overflow 
meeting,  and  both  halls  were  completely  filled.  The  souvenir  of  the  con- 
gress consists  in  the  collection  of  the  principal  traditional  songs  of  the  syn- 
agogue, and  the  women  of  the  committee  are  gratified  to  know  that  this 
collection  has  found  its  way  into  manj  synagogues  where  the  songs  of  Zion 
had  not  been  heard  for  many  years.  The  Congress  was  the  first  gathering 
of  women  ever  assembled  in  the  interest  of  Judaism,  and  out  of  it  a  National 
Council  will  result  which  promises  to  become  a  large  and  powerful  organiza- 
tion. Invaluable  assistance  was  given  the  Chairman  by  Mrs.  Charles  Hen- 
rotin,  the  able  vice-president  of  the  Auxiliary,  and  to  her  the  great  success 
of  this  congress,  as  of  many  others,  is  largely  due. 


THE  LUTHERAN  GENERAL  SYNOD  CONGRESS. 

Held  September  iith-i3th. 

The  Hon.  C.  C   Bonney  said,  in  opening  the  Congress  : 

I  am  happy  to  meet  and  welcome  you  on  the  occasion  of  your  Congress 
for  the  presentation  before  the  leligious  world  of  the  characteristic  doc- 
trines of  your  faith  and  the  achievements  which  the  Lutheran  Church  has 
made  in  the  service  of  man.  The  special  object  of  the  various  Lutheran 
Congresses  is  to  make  the  faith  and  history  of  this  church  better  known  at 
large.  The  Lutheran  Church  was  raised  up  in  the  order  of  divine  provi- 
dence to  exemplify  and  emphasize  the  great  doctrine  of  personal  responsi- 
bility to  God,  and,  therefore,  stands  as  the  representative  of  individuals  in 
religious  life,  solemnly  exercising  self-judgment  according  to  the  laws  of 
righteousness.  The  whole  tendency  of  the  Lutheran  movement  in  Christianity 
is  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  better,  deeper,  higher  and  more  powerful  church 
of  the  one  God,  who  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself. 

The  Rev.  Lee  M.  Heilman,  D.D.,  chairman  of  the  Congress, 
responded :  .  ■  . 

A  special  pleasure  has  been  taken  in  accepting  the  courteous  invita- 
tion to  participate  in  this  great  Parliament.  Columbus  and  Luther  w6re 
contemporaries  and  providential  co-workers.  The  one  discovered  a  new 
continent,  the  other  provided  for  it  the  principles  of  liberty.  When  Colum- 
bus was  making  his  famous  voyages  to  America,  which  were  destined  to 
revolutionize  the  sciences  of  geography,  commerce  and  civil  government, 
Martin  Luther,  at  Eisenach,  Magdeburg  and  Erfurt,  was  storing  his  mind 
with  that  liberal  education  and  those  principles  of  individual  liberty  which 
disenthralled  Europe,  and  eventually  gave  to  the  land  of  Columbus  its  unpar- 
alleled civil  liberty  and  the  greatest  republic  the  world  ever  saw.  Within 
one  week  of  the  time  when  Mohammed's  rule  overthrew  the  freedom  of  the 
Mameluke  power  in  Egypt,  Luther  nailed  upon  the  Castle  Church  of  Wit- 
tenberg those  theses,  the  echo  of  whose  hammer  sound  struck  the  long-silent 
chord  of  freedom  in  all  Europe.  On  the  very  day  when  Cortez  conquered 
Montezuma  and  placed  Mexico  under  the  Romish  rule  of  Spain,  there  was 
enacted  at  Worms  a  scene  which  forever  checked  arrogant  supremacy  over 
human  liberty. 

Our  American  Lutheran  forefathers,  from  1621-1636  and  for  several 
centuries,  have  laid  us  under  tribute  of  honor,  even  on  this  proud  anniver- 
sary day,  by  their  sacrifice  and  seal  of  blood  for  liberty's  cause.  While 
they  constituted  about  a  tenth  of  the  American  people  there  enlisted  in  the 
war  of  the  revolution,  Lutherans  coming  out  from  numerous  Tories,  and 
from  central  and  southern  colonies,  probably  double  their  quota  of  the  tenth. 

1468 


MISS  JKANNt  SUKAI'.JI,  r,(>.Ml!AV,  INDIA. 


1470  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

We  may,  then,  sir,  be  permitted  to  believe  that  the  Columbian  discov- 
ery has  reached  its  present  renowned  results  so  worthy  of  our  gigantic  expo- 
sition, through  the  movements  of  the  Reformation  and  through  no  small  aid 
rendered  by  the  immediate  sons  of  the  Reformation.  The  distinguished 
orators  we  now  introduce,  will  speak  of  the  permanent  principles  and  the 
unchangeable  truths  of  hitherto  unchanged  creed,  which,  with  millions  of 
this  faith,  promises  to  achieve  yet  greater  results  in  the  coming  great  events 
of  this  age. 

Prof.  S.  F.  Breckenridge,  D.D.,  Springfield,  Ohio,  spoke  on  "The 
Lutheran  Church  and  Higher  Criticism." 

Whilst  the  reformers,  recognized  a  human  element  in  the  sacred  writings 
and  the  necessary  imperfections  due  to  it,  they  maintained  that  they  are  a 
revelation  from  God  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  men  who  wrote  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Luther's  discouraging  remarks  upon 
the  canonicity  of  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  were  omitted  in  his  works  after 
their  second  edition.  Underlying  the  Augsburg  confession,  which  Luther, 
during  its  preparation  by  Melancthon,  scrutinized  with  zealous  care,  and  of 
which  he  said,  "  It  pleases  me  exceedingly  well,"  is  the  implied  assumption 
that  it  was  based  on  the  Word  of  God  as  the  final  authority.  The  Formula 
of  Concord  defclares,  "The  sacred  writings  are  declared  to  be. the  sole  and 
infallible  rule  by  which  all  tenets  ought  to  be  tried  and  according  to  which 
we  ought  to  judge  all  doctrines  as  well  as  teachers.''  ....  Trials  for  heresy, 
I  believe,  have  been  very  rare  in  Protestant  Germany.  It  has  been  supposed 
that  the  best  way  to  overcome  error  is  to  place  by  its  side  the  bright  light 
of  truth.  Although  the  Lutheran  Church,  especially  in  Germany,  suffered 
much  from  the  time's  of  Semler  to  those  of  Strauss  and  F.  C.  Bauer,  the  old 
faith  survives  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  the  mass  of  the  people  and  their 
pastors.  So  far  as  I  know,  all  the  professors  in  the  theological  seminaries 
in  this  country  have  held  and  do  hold  and  teach  that  the  Scriptures  in  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  are  the  Word  of  God  and  constitute  the  only  infal- 
lible rule  of  faith  and  practice. 

But  the  Christian  world  is  now  in  a  conflict,  whose  forces  have  been 
gathering  for  more  than  a  century. 

Dr.  Adolph  Stoecker,  former  court  preacher  at  Berlin,  spoke  eloquently 
of  the  Reformation  on  this  side  and  that  side  of  the  sea.  He  believes  that 
there  is  too  much  going  after  ever  new  things  in  Germany.  But  the  Gospel 
is  preached  in  simplicity. 

Prof.  E.  J.  Wolf,  D.D.,  Gettysburg,  Penn.,  gave  an  address  on  "The 
Place  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  History." 

With  the  Lutheran  Church  as  the  first  army  that  waged  successful  bat- 
tle against  Rome,  modern  history  has  its  birth.  The  result  was  the  vanish- 
ing of  spiritual  darkness  before  the  rising  sun.  It  was  life  from  the  dead  ; 
it  was  a  revolution  that  contained  the  germs  and  the  pledge  of  every  advance 
that  society  has  made  in  400  years.     All  the  other  great  historical  churches 


LUTHERAN.  147^ 

have  sprung  from  the  Lutheran.  To  her  repudiation  of  papal  assumptions, 
to  her  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  and  to  the  saving  doctrines  preached  by 
her  leaders  at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  they  owe  their  existence.  "  Her  con- 
fession," says  Dr.  Schaff,  "  struck  the  keynote  to  the  other  evangelical  con- 
fessions." 

The  Lutheran  Church  is  the  great  mediating  power  between  ancient  and 
modern  Christianity.  She  struck  her  roots  deep  into  the  past  and  enriched 
her  strength  from  the  soil  of  the  church  in  every  age  between  Luther's  and 
that  of  the  Apostles.  She  is  the  conservative  church.  The  confession  of  the 
Church  of  England,  which  has  been  followed  by  others,  is  in  large  part 
almost  a  literal  transcript  of  that  of  the  Lutheran.  Of  the  Lutheran  liturgy 
they  could  say,  "  It  is  substantially  the'outline  and  structure  of  the  service  of 
the  Western  Church  for  a  thousand  years."  Her  conservatism  has  made  her 
the  bulwark  of  civil  liberty.  Lutherans  were  the  first  to  come  to  this  country 
with  the  purely  missionary  purpose.  The  first  to  proclaim  and  enact  religious 
tolerance.  They  were  the  first  Protestants  in  America  as  well  as  in  Europe 
to  suffer  religious  persecution. 

We  point  with  just  pride  to  the  Lutheran  church  as  the  church  of  cul- 
ture. She  is  called  by  writers  of  other  denominations,  "the  Church  of  Theo- 
logians." Her  great  doctrinal  systems,  setting  forth  in  articulate  fullness  and 
clearness  of  scriptural  doctrine,  is  paralleled  only  by  the  vastness  of  her  devo- 
tional literature,  her  myriads  of  hymns  and  chorales  and  her  manuals  of  piety, 
showing  that  her  richness  of  spiritual  life  is  the  counterpart  of  the  richness  of 
doctrinal  development. 

Prof.  C.  Jensen,  D.D.,  Brecklum,  Germany,  spoke  on  "The  Best  Gift  of 
the  Lutheran  Church  to  America." 

The  speaker  uttered  some  of  the  most  practical  and   spiritual  truths 
needed  by  the  ministry.     Pastors  ought  to  be  men  of  pronounced  convictions  ' 
in  scriptural  truths,  and  should  not  be  hampered  with  doubts   about  the 
Scriptures  being  the  inspired  Word  of  God.     They  must  be  men  of  the  pro- 
foundest  piety. 

Rev.  G.  U.  Wenner,  D.D.,  New  York:  "The  Deaconesses  in  the  Luth- 
eran Church." 

The  office  of  deaconess  was  unknown  in  the  period  preceding  the 
Reformation.  It  was  one  of  the  lost  offices  in  the  church.  In  the  East  it  had 
lapsed  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  in  the  West  it  had  disappeared  as  early 
as  the  eighth  century.  Luther  frequently  refers  in  terms  of  praise  to  the 
office  of  the  diaconate  as  it  was  maintained  among  the  Waldensians,  and 
wishes  he  had  such  deacons  to  attend  to  the  sick  and  the  poor.  He  also 
regards  women  as  specially  fitted  for  works  of  charity.  It  was  left  to  the 
nineteenth  century  to  restore  to  the  Evangelical  Church  one  of  its  most  ben- 
ificent  offices.  Its  beginnings  may  be  traced  to  the  correspondence  between 
Baron  Von  Stein  and  Amalie  Sieveking.  The  statesman  whose  far-seeing 
mind  grasped  the  idea  and  laid  the  foundations  of  the  modem   German 


1472  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Empire,  thus  shares  the  honor  of  being  a  co-worker  and  fellow  builder  in  this 
cause.  Under  Theodore  Fliedner,  the  young  Pastor  of  Kaiserwerth  on  the 
Rhine,  the  idea  first  assumed  practical  shape  and  became  a  living  force.  It 
has  become  a  familiar  and  inspiring  chapter  in  the  annals  of  the  Church. 
Founded  in  1836,  it  now  numbers  807  sisters,  on  more  than  200  stations. 

Rev.  E.  K.  Bell,  D.D.,  Cincinnati,  O.,  spoke  on  "The  Mission  of  the 
Lutheran  Church  in  America." 

When  a  church  makes  a  specialty  of  caring  for  any  particular  class  or 
nationality,  to  the  neglect  of  others,  it  can  have  no  rightful  expectation  that 
the  blessing  of  God  will  follow.  Our  watchword  must  be  America  for 
Christ  and  his  church.  Our  labors  must  unweariedly  be  spent  in  his  name, 
for  that  branch  of  the  church  which  we  believe  holds  the  triith  in  love,  and 
proclaims  the  Gospel  which  Christ  delivered  to  the  first  preachers  of  the 
cross.     Let  no  man  take  our  crown. 

But  what  is  our  opportunity  in  this  great  field?  There  are  few  great 
cities  in  which  special  opportunities  have  been  lost  by  us.  The  fact  is  the 
special  opportunity  is  not  at  hand.  The  Lutheran  church  was  for  years 
compelled  to  labor  against  great  odds  of  language  and  influence.  We  had 
no  literature  in  the  language  of  the  people.  We  were  misunderstood.  But 
the  day  has  come  when  Lutheran  theology  and  literature  are  pressing  to  the 
front  in  this  nation.  The  students  in  American  colleges  can  no  longer  study 
theology  without  coming  in  contact  with  the  theology  of  the  Church  of  the 
Reformation.  The  least  trammeled  pulpit  in  America  is  that  of  the  General 
SjTiod  Lutheran  Church.  The  Lutheran  Church  is  becoming  more  and 
more  the  church  of  the  masses.  Every  energy  must  be  bent  toward  the  one 
thing  of  planting  missions. 

Rev.  V.  L.  Conrad,  D.D.,  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  presented  a  paper  on  "  The 
Press  in  the  Lutheran  Church." 

There  are  in  the  church  in  this  country  fifty-five  English  periodicals, 
fifty-one  German,  seventeen  Norwegian,  sixteen  Swedish,  four  Danish,  one 
Icelandic,  four  Finnish,  one  French,  and  one  Hungarian.  The  speaker  gave 
a  discriminating  history  of  The  Lutheran  Observer,  The  Lutheran,  The 
Lutheran  Standard,  The  Lutheran  Visitor,  The  Lutheran  Evangelist,  The 
Lutheran  World,  and  The  Workman,  together  with  an  incisive  analysis  of 
the  spirit  and  design  of  each. 

Rev.  S.  N.  Lenker,  Secretary  Board  of  Church  Extension,  and  author  of 
"Lutherans  in  All  Lands,"  said:  The  Lutheran  Church  has  in  the  world  a 
baptized  membership  of  52,850,660,  ministers  5,120,  churches  9,135,  parochial 
schools  94,017.  It  has  churches  in  Germany,  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark, 
Greece,  Italy,  Switzerland,  England,  France,  Ireland,  Wales,  Scotland  ,and 
fourteen  more  countries  in  Europe.  It  has  169  churches  in  Palestine,  Asia 
Minor,  Persia,  Georgia,  India,  China,  Japan  and  Siberia,  with  114,350 
baptized  members.  In  Africa  are  100,863  baptized  members  in  266 
churches.     In  Oceanica,  including  Australia,  Sandwich  Islands,  Fiji,  Samoa, 


LUTHERAN.  1473 

New  Zealand,  etc.,  are  137,294  members  in  4iochurches.  In  South  .America 
115,545  members  in  90  churches,  and  in  North  America,  including  Green- 
land, Canada,  West  Indies  and  the  United  States,  are  7,012,500  members, 
9,135  churches  and  5,120  ministers. 

Rev.  S.  B.  Barnitz,  D.D.,  Secretary  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the 
United  States,  said  :  Over  $100,000  are  annually  expended  in  the  support 
of  more  than  200  missions  in  this  country.  The  foreign  field  expends  more. 
This  home  work  is  caring  for  the  scattered  of  our  fold,  and  the  rearing 
of  mostly  English-speaking  congregations.  We  work  also  among  those  of 
other  tongues.  Our  field  is  limitless.  The  most  touching  appeals  come  in 
for  help  from  many  sources.  .  Our  growth  has  been  the  most  rapid  of  any 
church  in  this  country.  "  : 

Rev.  M.  Sheeliegh,  Fort  Washington,  Pa.,  closed  the  Congress  with  a 
poem  on  Our  Lutheran  Heritage.    . 


THE  LUTHERAN  CONGRESS  (GENERAL 
COUNCIL,  ETC.) 

Held  In  the  Art  Institute  September  2d. 

THE  FAITH  OF  THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCH. 

-By  Prof.  F.  A.  Schmidt,  D.D. 

Religious  truth  to  us  Lutherans  is  not  a  matter  of  barren  abstract  spec- 
ulation, but  rather  one  of  vital  practical  interest.  Our  foremost  motive  in 
setting  a  high  price  on  the  purity  of  gospel  faith  is  our  conviction  that  such 
purity  of  faith  is  of  vital  importance  in  regard  to  all  questions  that  more  or 
less  closely  refer  to  the  salvation  of  sinners.  How  can  I  please  God  and 
be  accepted  of  him  at  death  ?  This  question,  above  all  others,  merits  inves- 
tigation. So  central  and  overmastering  is  this  doctrine  concerning  God's 
plan  of  saving  sinners,  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  that  all  other  doctrines  mani- 
festly occupy  a  place  subservient  to  it.  Our  Lutheran  theology  follows 
closely  the  same  train  of  thought.  All  parts  of  our  faith  and  confession, 
even  the  more  intricate  questions  of  our  systematic  theology,  have  positive 
reference  to  the  chief  gospel  doctrine  of  salvation  alone  by  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus  as  the  Saviour  of  sinners. 

Our  Lutheran  Church  has  ever  maintained  the  principle  that  the  article  of 
justification  by  faith  in  Christ  is  the  central  doctrine  of  gospel  truth.  If 
God's  granting  unto  us  the  eternal  Gospel  is  the  result  of  a  practical  motive, 
to  wit,  the  salvation  of  lost  sinners,  and  if  the  Church  of  God,  in  proclaihiing 
and  defending  that  Gospel,  is  actuated  by  the  same  practical  motive,  the 
desire  of  saving  sinners,  then  most  assuredly  the  article  of  our  justification 
must  be  recognized  as  the  pivotal  article  of  the  Gospel.    The  fate  of  a  sinner 

93 


1474  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

is  determined  in  the  sight  of  God  by  his  either  being  accounted  rijhteous 
before  God  or  his  not  being  so  accounted.  Righteousness  in  the  judgment 
of  God  is  the  immediate  condition  of  a  man's  being  accepted  as  an  object  of 
pleasure  and  an  heir  to  life  eternal.  That  sentence  of  God  by  which  his 
previous  accounting  a  sinner  as  a  sinner  is  changed  to  an  opposite  accounting 
of  a  sinner  as  not  a  sinner,  but  as  righteous,  that  justifying  sentence  of  God 
is  the  decisive  point  that  turns  the  scale  in  the  eternal  fate  of  sinners.  What- 
ever blessings  and  experiences  of  grace  may  lead  up  to  that  decisive  point 
of  our  justification  before  God,  they  have  their  great  importance  in  the  fact 
of  their  being  means  to  this  end.  And  whatever  blessings  and  experiences 
may  follow  afterward,  they  are  the  fruits  of  our  justification. 

There  are  two  ways  of  explaining  the  idea  of  God's  justifying  a  sinner, 
both  of  which  admit  that  the  basis  of  God's  justification  is  righteousness,  or 
the  fulfillment  of  the  law.  God  will  not  justify  or  absolve  any  sinner  with- 
out the  intervention  of  a  sufficiently  perfect  righteousness.  The  question  is : 
Wherein  does  this  necessary  righteousness  consist  ?  Both  the  law  and  the 
Gospel  testify  that  God  will  not  be  satisfied  with  our  being  merely  as  holy 
as  we  are  able  to  be  by  our  own  powers.  Neither  does  Jesus  heal  our 
nature  so  that  we  ourselves,  being  born  again  by  his  grace  and  renewed  into 
his  holy  image,  can  work  out  our  own  righteousness  and  merit  an  approving 
and  justifying  sentence  from  God.*  But  are  we  to  come  as  sinful  beings, 
admitting  our  lost  and  condemned  condition,  bringing  nothing  of  our  own 
holiness  or  worthiness  on  which  lo  rely,  merely  accepting  the  free  gift  of  an 
absolutely  complete  and  perfect  wedding  garment  which  Christ  has  procured 
for  us  by  suffering  punishment  in  our  stead  and  fulfilling  the  whole  Jaw  in 
our  stead  ? 

Righteousness  for  sinners  is  brought  about  in  a  vicarious  way.  The 
only  begotten  Son,  the  God-Man,  in  suffering  for  sin  outweighs  the  punish- 
ment merited  by  the  whole  world  of  sinners,  and  in  obeying  the  law  here  on 
earth  as  a  member  of  our  human  family,  he  is  in  possession  of  an  obedient 
fulfillment  of  the  law  which  outweighs  the  required  obedience  of  a  whole 
world  of  human  beings.  The  glory  and  dignity  of  his  divine  person  grants 
this  infinite  value  to  his  sufferings  and  obedience. 

CONFIRMATION  AND  CATECHETICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN 
THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCH. 

By  Rev.  J.  N.  Kild.\hl. 

Confirmation  has  been  practiced  in  the  Christian  Church  since  its  earli- 
est days.  Many  of  the  Reformed  Churches  have  abolished  it,  while  the 
Roman  Church  has  made  a  sacrament  of  it.  The  Lutheran  Church  retains 
confirmation,  not  as  a  sacrament,  not  as  an  institution  necessary  for  salva- 
tion under  the  form  in  which  we  have  it,  but  as  a  very  profitable  institution, 
which  should  be  practiced  by  the  church  in  some  form  or  other.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the  church  to  instruct   the  young  in  the  Christian  religion.     It  is 


LUTHERAN.  1475 

also  the  duty  of  those  who  have  been  instructed  in  the  Word  of  God,  and 
believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  to  confess  their  faith  before  men.  And  the  church 
has  no  right  to  receive  as  communicant  members  persons  who  are  not  will- 
ing to  promise  to  lead  a  Christian  life. 

In  evangelizing  all  nations  the  disciples  of  Christ  were  to  observe  two 
things ;  they  were  to  baptize  them  in  the  name  of  the  triune  God,  and  they 
were  to  leach  them  all  things  whatsoever  Christ  had  commanded  them. 
These  two  things  the  Lutheran  Church  has  endeavored  and  does  endeavor 
to  do.  We  know  that  children,  no  less  than  persons  of  riper  years,  are 
included  in  the  term  "all  nations;"  therefore  we  baptize  them  according  to 
Christ's  command.  But  baptism  is  only  one-half  of  the  command  ;  there- 
fore we  also  teach  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  he  has  commanded 
us.  Therefore  we  teach  them  biblical  history,  that  they  may  know  what 
wonderful  things  God  has  done  tor  his  children  through  all  generations, 
that  they  may  learn  from  the  pages  of  history  what  the  wages  of  sin  is,  and 
how  great  the  mercy,  loving  kindness  and  grace  of  God  is  to  those  who  fear 
him.  We  also  teach  them  the  principal  doctrines  set  forth  in  the  Bible. 
We  teach  them  the  law  of  God,  that  they  may  know  what  God  wants  them 
to  do  and  avoid,  and  that  they  may  learn  to  understand  that  they  are  sin- 
ners in  need  of  a  Saviour.  We  teach  them  the  Gospel,  that  they  may  know 
what  to  believe.  We  teach  them  how  to  pray,  that  they  may  call  upon  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  and  through  Christ  have  access  to  the  throne  of  grace. 
We  teach  them  that  God,  through  the  washing  of  regeneration,  has  made 
them  his  children  and  heirs  of  everlasting  life,  that  they  may  know  what 
covenant  God  has  made  with  them,  what  promises  he  has  given  them,  and 
what  he  has  in  store  for  them,  if  they  remain  faithful  unto  the  end.  And 
we  teach  them  about  the  sacrament  of  the  altar,  that  they  may  eat  the 
body  of  Christ  and  drink  his  blood,  so  as  to  be  strengthened  in  their  faith. 
In  short,  we  teach  them  the  five  parts  of  the  catechism. 

Every  Christian  who  arrives  at  years  of  discretion  ought  to  be  educated 
so  that  he  can  profitably  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Therefore  we  give 
our  children  a  course  of  instruction  in  the  rudiments  of  the  Christian  relig- 
ion, with  the  pastor  as  teacher,  before  they  are  permitted  to  come  to  the 
Lord's  table. 

But  can  not  the  Sunday  school  or  the  parochial  schoo'.  do  that  work  ? 
Yes,  to  a  great  extent,  but  if  the  pastor  meets  with  a  class  of  catechumens 
once  or  twice  every  week  for  six  'or  nine  months  previous  to  the  first  par- 
ticipation of  the  Lord's  Supper  the  children  will  learn  much  more  and  ought 
to  be  much  better  prepared  for  that  occasion.  Besides,  without  this  many 
would  receive  no  such  instruction  at  all. 

Why  should  the  children,  after  having  been  instructed,  make  public 
confession  ?  The  children  who  are  confirmed  have  received  infant  baptism, 
they  have  thus  been  received  into  the  church  and  are  members,  but  they  have 
been  mere  children  and  have  been  treated  as  such  by  the   church.     When 


1476  THE    DENOMINATIONAL    CONGRESSES. 

they  arrive  at  the  age  of  confirmation  they  are  no  longer  children  and  can 
not  be  treated  as  such.  The  church  has  instructed  them  concerning  the 
way  of  salvation,  and  now  they  are  to  be  received  into  the  church  as  grown 
members,  who  have  a  right  to  all  the  privileges  of  such  membership.  But 
the  church  demands  of  those  who  wish  to  become  communicant  members 
not  only  that  they  must  know  the  will  of  God,  but  also  that  they  must  live 
according  to  the  will  of  God.  Such  confession  and  promise  is  what  con- 
firmation in  the  Lutheran  Church  means.  No  catechumen  who  is  not  in 
earnest  in  the  confession  and  promise  should  be  confirmed. 

THE  EDUCATIONAL  NEEDS  AND  PROGRESS  IN  THE  LUTH- 
ERAN CHURCH  OF  AMERICA. 

By  Prof.  E.  F.  Bartholomew,  D.D, 

The  two  parts  of  the  subject  are  related  as  cause  and  effect.  Human 
progress  has  always  been  in  proportion  to  the  consciousness  of  human  needs. 
What  are  the  educational  needs  in  the  Lutheran  Church  of  America  ? 

First,  In  order  that  our  church  may  accomplish  her  true  educational  mis- 
sion in  this  country  it  is  necessary  that  she  cherish  a  lively  appreciation  of 
her  educational  history  in  the  old  country.  Experience  proves  that  it  is 
impossible  for  the  Lutheran  Church  in  this  country  to  fulfill  her  mission  by 
ignoring  her  historical  development.  Our  church  has  always  been  an  educat- 
ing church,  standing  with  her  great  institutions  and  learned  men  in  the  first 
rank  of  Christian  scholarship  and  culture.  '  . 

Second,  we  need  enlargement  of  our  educational  work.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  our  higher  collegiate  and  theological  education.  The  colleges  of  a 
church  give  type,  character,  power  and  rank  to  her  organization  far  more 
than  anything  else.  Ultimately  a  church,  as  also  a  nation,  will  be  what  her 
higher  institutions  of  learning  make  her.  One  has  recently  said  :  "  If  New 
England  has  been  the  schoolmaster  not  of  its  own  people  only,  but  of  the 
country,  it  is  because  its  first  settlers  established  colleges  rather  than  common 
schools."  To  this  we  would  add,  if  "  Germany  is  the  schoolmaster  of  our 
race,"  it  is  because  Germany  long  ago  established  great  universities.  If  the 
Lutheran  Church  in  America  is  to  occupy  the  field  marked  out  for  her  by  the 
Almighty,  she  must  strengthen  her  reserve  force  and  elevate  the  fountain-head 
of  her  power,  viz.,  her  higher  institutions  of  learning. 

Third,  we  need  increased  facilities  for  raising  up  an  adequate  force  of 
clerical  and  lay  workers.  The  supreme  demand  of  the  hour  is  not  money, 
but  competent  men.  We  dare  not  lower  the  standard  of  ministerial  qualifi- 
cation. The  church  must  train  a  ministry  adequate  to  the  needs  of  the  age. 
The  college  is  the  practical  question,  the  question  of  supreme  importance  in 
our  church  to-day. 

Fourth,  we  need  development  of  our  educational  resources.  These  are 
chiefly  money  and  brain.  Our  Lutheran  people  have  wealth  enough  to 
establish  and  support  colleges  and  universities  sufficient  for  the  needs  of  the 


LUTHERAN.  1477 

church,  but  hitherto  it  has  not  been  developed.     Our   intellectual  forces  are 
of  the  Iiighest  order,  but  they  too  need  development. 

Fifth,  anotiier  need  is  found  in  the  kind  of  education  we  cultivate  and 
the  methods  we  employ.  It  has  always  been  our  theory  that  all  education, 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  should  be  carried  on  in  connection  with  and 
in  the  interests  of  true  Christianity.  The  educational  conception  we  stand 
for  may  be  summarized  as  education  of  the  church,  by  the  church,  for  the 
church.  True  education  must  spring  from  the  needs  of  man's  religious 
nature,  and  must  proceed  under  the  sanction,  supervision  and  fostering  care 
of  religion.  The  true  end  of  culture  is  spiritual  life,  and  the  best  scholar- 
ship must  be  held  subservient  to  the  ends  of  personal  character  and  right- 
eousness. From  these  principles  certain  important  deductions  follow.  First, 
educational  supervision  should  be  vested  in  the  church.  Second,  our  methods 
should  correspond  with  our  ground  principles.  As  in  general  church  work, 
so  in  educational  work,  conservative  methods  best  become  us.  We  should 
be  slow  to  forsake  the  old  ways,  not  because  they  are  old,  but  because  they 
have  been  tried  and  proved.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  the  part  of  wisdom 
to  reject  every  new  thing  simply  because  it  is  new.  The  right  way  lies 
between  the  extremes.  Our  policy  must  ever  be  that  of  the  Apostle  :  "  Prove 
all  things ;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good." 


LUTHERAN    CONGRESS,  MISSOURI    SYNOD. 

One  of  the  most  successful  of  all  the  religious  congresses  of  1893  was 
that  which  crowded  the  Halls  of  Columbus  and  Washington  on  the  after- 
noon and  evening  of  Sunday,  the  third  day  of  September — that  of  these  dis- 
ciples of  the  Lutheran  faith.  The  addresses  were  made  both  in  the  German 
and  English  languages,  and  a  great  number  of  distinguished  Lutherans 
were  present.  Luther's  great  hymn,  "  A  Mighty  Fortress  is  Our  God," 
opened  the  services  in  both  halls.  In  one  it  was  sung  in  German  and  m  the 
other  in  the  English  language.  Prof.  A.  Graebner,  of  St.  Louis,  was  the 
first  speaker  in  the  Hall  of  Washington,  and  his  address  was  on  the  History 
of  Lutheranism  in  .America.  After  a  swift  sketch  of  the  settlement  and 
development  of  the  Swedish  and  Dutch  churches  on  the  banks  of  the  Hud- 
son and  in  the  Delaware  valley,  he  showed  how  the  German  jnd  English 
Lutheran  churches  on  the  Atlantic  coast  had  spread  over  the  continent.  The 
main  epochs  of  this  remarkable  development  were  1693,  1793,  and  1893, 
and  the  distinguishing  features  of  each  epoch  were  brought  out  most  viv- 
idly. He  said  that  during  the  first  half  century  of  Lutheranism  in  America 
there  existed  in  the  valleys  of  the  Hudson  and  the  Delaware  congregations 
which  cherished  the  pure  doctrine  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  but  there  was  no 
one  in  the  country  to  preach  it. 


1478  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

At  the  close  of  the  third  half  century,  after  another  hundred  years  of 
golden  opportunities,  there  were  numerous  congregations  and  a  goodly 
number  of  preachers,  Lutheran  in  name  but  no  longer  Lutheran  in  faith  and 
doctrine,  while  Swedish  and  Dutch  Lutheranism  had  become  entirely  extinct. 
An  entire  change  has  taken  place,  however,  during  the  last  half  century. 
A  genuine  Lutheran  church  has  grown  up  in  this  country,  true  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  original  church.  The  states  where  Lutheranism  is  strongest 
in  its  numbers  and  influence  are  Missouri  and  Ohio,  while  the  church  is 
growing  rapidly  throughout  the  whole  Mississippi  valley. 

Prof.  F.  Pieper,  of  St.  Louis,  spoke  on  the  "Doctrine  of  Justification  ; 
the  Article  with  Which  the  Church  Stands  or  Falls."  In  the  course  of  his 
address  he  said  that  there  were  only  two  essentially  different  religions  to 
be  found  in  the  world.  According  to  one  of  them  nian  was  saved  either 
entirely  or  at  least  in  some  degree  by  his  own  deeds.  According  to  the 
other,  salvation  was  presented  to  men  as  a  gift  of  the  grace  of  God  without 
the  deeds  of  the  law.  The  former,  he  said,  was  the  heathen  religion  in  a 
different  form.  The  latter  was  the  Christian  religion.  The  cause  of  this 
essential  difference  lay  in  the  fact  thkt  all  religions,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Christian  religion,  gave  commandments  to  their  adherents  according  to 
the  different  opinions  held  by  their  teachers.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Chris- 
tian religion  knew  but  one  Saviour,  who,  in  his  own  person,  had  worked 
out  salvation  by  his  own  vicarious  life  and  sufferings  and  death  for  all  men, 
and  presented  it  as  a  gift  to  all  who  believed.  Therefore,  there  was  room 
in  the  Christian  church  for  deeds  or  works.  After  giving  an  exposition  of 
the  Lutheran  doctrine  the  speaker  went  on  to  show  the  position  of  the 
Lutheran  Church  in  regard  to  certain  questions  of  the  day,  especially 
emphasizing  its  relation  to  the  state,  to  the  Bible,  and  to  science. 

At  the  evening  session,  which  crowded  the  Hail  of  Columbus  stnd  one 
of  the  smaller  halls  of  the  Art  Institute,  Rev.  L.  Hoelter  presided.  Rev. 
H.  Sauer,  of  Ft.  Wayne,  Ind.,  gave  an  address  on  the  theme,  "  We  Love 
this  our  Country,  Therefore  we  Love  our  Parochial  .Schools."  Prof.  A. 
Crull,  of  Ft.  Wayne,  Ind.,  gave  an  oration  on  "  A  Free  Church  and  a  Free 
Country."  And  with  the  anthem,  "  Let  Every  Thing  that  Hath  Breath 
Praise  the  Lord,"  this  successful  congress  was  closed. 


AFRICAN  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  BISHOPS. 

I'.KN'JAMIN  K.  LKK,  IXI).,  LL.D.  ABRA.M  (IRAXT,  D.I). 

MOSES  B.  SALTER.  D.D.  HENRV  McNKIL  TL'RXER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

WKSI.EV  J.  r.AlNKS.  U.D.  JAS.  A.  HANDV    I). I). 


THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  CONGRESS. 

The  World's  Congress  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  began  its 
sessions  at  the  Art  Institute,  Monday,  September  25,  1893.  The  first  sub- 
ject discussed  was  "The  Relation  of  Methodism  to  Evangelistic  Revivals." 
Christianity  represents  the  idea  of  God  saving  man  by  the  mediation  of 
Christ.  A  genuine  revival  represents  the  same  idea,  the  awakening  of  sin- 
ners and  their  salvation  by  faith  in  Christ.  Methodism  took  its  name  from 
the  method  of  its  founders,  but  its- characteristic  is  spiritual  zeal.  Born  in  a 
revival  in  the  English  Church,  it  has  been  the  fruitful  parent  of  revivals 
ever  since.  In  every  true  revival  there  are  two  indispensable  factors — (i) 
the  divine  will.  God  is  always  ready  to  revive  his  work.  (2)  The  human 
will.  If  man  more  nearly  resembled  God  in  his  constancy,  the  Holy  Spirit 
would  immediately  sanctify  the  church  and  speedily  convert  the  world. 
Man  is  constitutionally  inconstant. 

Among  the  practical  agencies  to  be  employed  in  a  genuine  revival  of 
religion  are  :  Public  meetings,  the  wise  use  of  the  Bible,  earnest,  prevail- 
ing prayer,  enthusiastic  singing.  A  revival  not  only  saves  individual  souls, 
but  breathes  new  life  into  old  intellectual,  social,  moral  and  religious  insti- 
tutions and  calls  new  ones  into,  being,  which  in  turn  prepare  the  way  for 
other  revivals,  and  become  potential  factors  in  the  world's  evangelization. 
The  great  want  of  the  world,  of  the  church,  of  Methodism  to-day  is  a  bap- 
tism of  the  Hoi}'  Ghost  in  a  powerful  revival  of  religion.  >Iethodism  should 
remember  its  birth  in  a  revival. 

Mrs.  Lucy  Rider  Meyer,  Principal  of  the  Chicago  Missionary  Training 
School,  spoke  on  "  Deaconess  Work  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in 
America."  The  characteristics  by  which  deaconesses  may  be  known,  in 
which  they  differ  from  other  missionaries,  may  be  enumerated  as  six.  Dea- 
conesses are:  (l)  trained;  (2)  unsalaried  but  supported;  (3)  volunteers; 
(4)  costumed;  (5)  living  mostly  in  communities  called  homes;  (6)  author- 
ized by  the  church.  In  close  connection  with  the  appearance  of  deaconess 
work  in  our  church,  there  has  taken  place  a  most  remarkable  quickening  of 
conscience  concerning  our  duties  toward  the  sick  poor  among  us.  There 
are  at  present  eleven  hospitals  under  Methodist  Episcopal  management  in 
the  United  States.  Eight  of  them  are  under  the  care  of  deaconess  nurses. 
The  advantages  of  this  arrangement  are  t\vo:(i)  verv  greatly  increased 
econoni}' ;  (2)  the  exercise  of  a  strong  religious  influence.  .Miss  Dora 
Stephenson,  familiarly  known  as  Sister  Dora,  of  London,  England,  spoke 
on  "Methodist  Deaconesses  in  England."  She  detined  a  Christrian  dea- 
coness as  a  "  consecrated  woman  working  on  principle  and  svstem  for  the 
glory  of  God  iii  the  salvation  of  man,  and  making   that   her  one  business." 

'4S0 


METHODIST.  1 48  I 

She  considered  as  essential  to  the  character  and  work  of  the  true  deaconess : 
First,  the  consecration  of  heart  and  life  to  God.  The  faith  and  love  which 
say,  "  Here  am  I,  Lord,  send  me."  Second,  a  sense  of  vocation,  though  no 
vow  is  demanded  or  given.  Third,  separation  to  the  work.  Fourth,  a  com- 
munity life,  which  encourages  and  sustains  the  spirit  of  work  and  fellowship. 

A  discussion  of  the  doctrinal,  educational  and  missionary  sides  of 
>[ethodism  began  with  "  The  Polity  of  Methodism."  Methodism  embraces 
twenty-nine  different  church  organizations.  But  with  all  their  differences, 
Methodist  sects  vary  less  from  each  other  than  from  other  denominations, 
and  hence  there  must  be  similarity  of  government  in  diversity.  The  pri- 
mordial cell  of  organic  Methodism  is  the  class-meeting  ;  for  it  was  not  only 
the  earliest  form  of  organic  life,  but  the  whole  ecclesiastical  structure  of  the 
church  is  nothing  but  the  expansion  and  multiplication  of  the  class-meet- 
ing. Peculiarities  which  distinguish  Methodism  from  other  denominations 
are  :  (l)  the  class-meeting,  (2)  probation,  (3)  local  preachers,  (4)  itinerancy, 
(5)  general  superintendency.  As  Methodism  is  not  organically  one,  but 
made  up  of  many  church  organizations,  so  there  is  no  one  complete  polity 
common  to  them  all,  yet  under  varying  names  and  governmental  forms 
there  is  substantial  agreement. 

Rev.  Martin  S.  Terry,  D.U.,  considered  "The  Philosophy  of  Methodist 
Doctrine,"  in  which  he  indicated  the  fundamental  teaching  of  American 
Methodism  as  distinguished  from  Calvinistic  Methodism.  The  Arminian 
Methodism,  set  forth  by  John  Wesley  and  his  followers,  is  a  compact  sys- 
tem, which,  however,  has  no  formal  authoritative  statement  in  a  written 
creed.  And  yet,  in  the  absence  of  a  written  creed  or  formal  confession  of 
the  Methodist  faith,  there  exists  a  common  consensus  of  fundamental  doc- 
trine. The  most  authoritative  written  form  of  Methodist  doctrine  is  a  series 
of  fifty-three  sermons  by  John  Wesley,  published  in  four  volumes  in  1771. 
These,  along  with  his  "Notes  on  the  New  Testament,"  constitute  the  theo- 
logical standards  which  are  formally  recognized  in  the  "  Deed  of  Declara- 
tion," and  in  the  trust  deeds  of  all  the  Wesleyan  chapels  of  England.  Bv 
common  consent  these  have  been  accepted  for  a  hundred  years  as  contain- 
ing the  substance  of  doctrine  everywhere  held  by  Arminian  Methodists.  A 
rational  explanation  of  the  doctrines  of  Methodism  and  of  their  remarkable 
spread  and  ready  reception  among  the  masses  of  the  common  people  of 
England  and  America,  may  be  seen  (i)  In  their  practical  character,  as 
answering  to  the  needs  and  longing  of  man's  religious  nature,  (2)  In  their 
successful  conflict  with  opposing  systems,  especially  with  Calvinism,  (3)  In 
their  adaptation  to  the  catholic  spirit  of  the  modern  Christian  world. 
"The  philosophy  or  scientific  explanation  of  the  Methodist  system  is  to 
be  traced  in  its  peculiar  combination  and  expression  of  fundamental  truths, 
its  exclusion  of  the  more  abstract  and  speculative  dogmas,  and  its  broad  and 
catholic  aims." 

H.  K.  Carroll,  LL.D.,  in  presenting  "The  Status  of  Methodism  in  the 


1482  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

United  States  "  gave  complete  statistics  of  the  church  based  on  the  census 
of  1890,  the  summary  of  which  is  as  follows :  Number  of  organizations, 
51,489;  church  edifices,  46,138;  seating  capacity,  12,863,178;  value  of 
church  property,  $132,140,179  ;  communicants  or  membeVs,  4,589,287. 

In  the  presentation  of  "  The  Missionary  Work  of  Methodism  "  the  fol- 
lowing facts  were  given  :  The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  alone  has  at  least  4,000  missionary  workers  in  the  foreign 
work,  and  5,000  in  home  missions.  This  society  raised  last  year  for  foreign 
missions  alone  $1,041,393,  which  is  the  largest  sum  contributed  for  that 
work  in  1892  by  any  denomination  in  Amerjca.  The  annual  contribution  of 
all  Methodism  for  missions  is  over  $3,000,000.  The  members  and  proba- 
tioners of  heathen  converts  in  all  Methodism  are  over  300,000.  In  the  past 
two  years  more  than  40,000  heathen  have  abandoned  idolatry  in  India  and 
accepted  Christianity,  and  have  been  baptized  in  the  missions  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  alone,  and  more  are  coming  this  year  for 
baptism  than  ever  before. 

"The  Educational  Work  of  Methodism"  was  presented  as  springing 
out  of  the  genius  of  Methodism.  Being  evangelistic  in  its  character,  it  could 
not  logically  be  other  than  thoroughly  educational  in  its  method  ;  for  Chris- 
tian evangelization  and  Christian  education  are  one  in  purpose  and  in  result. 
Beginning  in  Oxford  University,  among  earnest  scholars,  Methodism  aimed 
to  unite  sound  learning  and  fervid  piety.  The  present  condition  of  the 
institutions  of  learning  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  indicated  by 
the  following  items:  Number  of  theological  institutions,  seventeen ;  colleges 
and  universities,  fifty-seven  :  classical  seminaries,  sixty-one  ;  foreign  mission 
schools,  seventy-seven ;  total,  without  duplication,  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
seven. 

The  missionary  enterprises  and  achievements  of  the  denomination 
were  introduced  by  a  paper  on  "  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  and  Mis- 
sions," giving  a  historical  sketch  of  the  establishment  of  missions  by  the 
church  in  Africa,  South  America,  China,  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Ger- 
many, Switzerland,  India,  Bulgaria,  Italy,  Japan,  Mexico,  Korea,  Malaysia. 
In  addition  to  this  foreign  work,  the  church  has  accomplished  great  results 
in  the  domestic  mission  field.  The  foreign  population  in  this  country 
have  always  shared  in  its  thought  and  its  financial  appropriations.  Mis- 
sions have  been  established  among  the  German,  Scandinavian,  French, 
Welsh,  Italian,  Hungarian,  Bohemian,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  Chinese  and 
Japanese,  in  the  United  States.  The  missionary  society  has  always  fol- 
lowed up  the  immigrant  population  in  its  march  to  the  westward,  and  has 
helped  to  supply  gospel  agencies  both  to  colored  and  white  people  through- 
out the  Southern  States.  The  annual  receipts  have  increased  from  $834  to 
$1,257,000. 

In  the  presentation  of  the  work  of  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary 
Society,  and  the  Woman's   Home  .Missionary  Society,   it  was  said  :     "  The 


METHODIST.  I483 

Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  now  includes  a  working  force  of 
5,665  organizations  and  147,080  individuals,  through  whom,  in  steadily 
increasing  amounts,  a  sum  has  been  collected  which  will  aggregate  by  the 
end  of  the  current  year  at  least  53,000,000.  This  money  has  been  collected 
and  applied  directly  to  the  work  abroad  without  the  intervention  of  a  single 
salaried  officer  or  any  deduction  for  expenses.  In  examining  the  work  of 
the  society  we  find  it  presented  in  two  aspects  of  equal  importance  :  Its 
work  for  Christianity  abroad;  and  its. relations  to  Christianity  at  home. 
The  work  abroad  may  be  summarized  under  three  lines  :  Direct  evangel- 
istic effort ;  training  through  educational  institutions  ;  and  the  medical  mis- 
sionary work.  The  work  at  home  aims  to  secure  the  regular  giving  of 
small  sums,  making  these  so  insignifi'iant  that  the  poorest  could  afford  the 
gift,  thus  making  attainable  its  second  purpose  >to  secure  the  cooperation  of 
every  woman."  The  Woman's  Home  Missionary  Society  is  an  organiza- 
tion whose  first  mission  was  to  the  freed  women  of  the  South.  While  rec- 
ognizing the  fact  that  our  cities  presented  the  largest,  and  possibly  the 
most  important  home  mission  fields,  the  society,  at  first,  sent  her  mission- 
aries to  labor  among  the  neglected  populations  of  the  South,  and  employed 
teachers  in  the  West  for  the  planting  of  Christian  schools  among  Mormons 
and  Indians,  Chinese,  Mexicans,  Alaskans.  The  society  has  inaugurated 
work  in  cities  wherever  local  organization  made  it  practicable,  arranging 
its  methods  to  supplement  agencies  already  in  operation.  Twenty-five 
important  missions  and  deaconess  homes  have  been  established,  the  missions 
in  Cincinnati,  Cleveland,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Buffalo,  Troy,  New  Orleans, 
Chicago,  Detroit,  Pittsburg,  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  Washington  ;  the 
deaconess  homes  in  Detroit,  Washington,  Baltimore,  Pittsburg,  Brooklyn, 
Syracuse,  Buffalo,  San  Francisco,  Knoxville,  Grand  Rapids,  Cleveland,  and 
Philadelphia.  The  plans  of  work  in  each  place  are  arranged  to  supple- 
ment existing  agencies,  and  meet  the  needs  of  the  locality.  Kindergartens, 
kitchengarten,  and  night  schools,  mothers'  meetings,  reading  clubs  for 
girls,  practical  industrial  teaching  in  remunerative  employment,  as  cooking, 
dressmaking,  millinery,  and  evangelistic  services,  are  among  the  methods 
employed. 

The  character  and  work  of  the  Freedmen's  Aid  and  Southern  Edu- 
cation Society  was  presented  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  Christ  like  of 
the  great  organizations  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  It  was  organ- 
ized in  1866  and  immediately  applied  itself  to  its  noble  work.  Schools  were 
established  in  the  neediest  places,  and  where  the  prospect  for  usefulness 
was  best.  To  the  surprise  of  the  whole  world,  the  freedman  seemed  more 
anxious  to  learn  than  to  do  anything  else.  As  early  as  1868  the  society 
began  to  give  aid  to  schools  for  the  education  of  white  children.  Over 
three  millions  of  dollars  have  been  spent.  The  school  property  secured  is 
valued  at  nearly  two  millions.  Tens  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  have 
been  helped  upward  and  cheered  onward  in  a  path  of  blessed  light.     The 


1484  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Church  of  the  North  went  South  not  to  teach  letters  only,  but  to  make 
known  the  least  understood  precepts  of  the  one  great  summary  of  all  doc- 
trine and  all  duty,  the  magna  charta  of  civil  and  Christian  liberty — the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  Freedmen's  Aid  and  Southern  Educational 
Society  holds  that  all  men  are  created  free  and  equal,  and  that  there  can  be 
no  qualification  of  ethical  relations.  Equality  before  God  and  before  the 
law  is  the  only  possible  condition  of  the  Christian  heart  and  Christian  life. 
Social  equality  is  as  much  a  requirement  of  the  sermon  on  the  mount  as 
religious  equality.     And  all  Christianity  without  it  is  hypocrisy. 

The  new  agency  of  church  extension  has  contributed  largely  to  the 
advance  of  Methodism.  Four  million  nine  hundred  thousand  dollars  have 
passed  through  its  treasury  to  the  aid  of  nine  thousand  of  our  needy  and 
growing  churches  by  donations  and  loans ;  and  now,  in  the  use  of  an  aver- 
age of  ;S300,ooo  a  year,  we  are  adding  to  the  number  of  our  churches  thus 
aided  at  the  rate  of  ten  for  every  week  in  the  year.  When  we  remember 
that  it  requires  twenty-seven  years  to  double  the  population  of  the  country, 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  increase  in  our  part  of  the  work  given  the  churches., 
to  do  shows  a  gain  upon  the  rapidly  increasing  population  of  the  country. 

The  work  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  Sunday  school 
field  was  stimulated  by  the  formation  of  the  Sunday  School  Union  in  1827, 
and  then  step  by  step  the  work  of  the  Sunday  school  received  a  larger 
measure. of  recognition  and  its  importance  was  emphasized.  Under  the 
skillful  guidance  of  Drs.  Kidder,  Wise,  Vincent  and  Hurlbut  the  Sunday 
school  has  developed  marvelously.  The  Sunday  School  Union  is  designed 
to  advance  the  interests  and  promote  the  cause  of  Sunday  schools  in  con- 
nection with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  in  doing  this  work  it 
founds  new  Sunday  schools  in  destitute  and  sparsely  settled  communities ; 
helps  feeble  Sunday  schools  already  organized  until  they  become  self-sup- 
porting ;  does  special  work  among  the  colored  people  in  the  South  in 
connection  with  the  Tract  Society;  seeks  to  establish  and  maintain  Sun- 
day schools  among  the  foreign  population  of  our  land ;  helps  to  organize 
and  sustain  Sunday  schools  in  foreign  lands. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  relation  of  the  church  to  literature,  education 
and  social  conditions,  it  was  observed  that  Methodism  has  furnished  a  litera- 
ture of  substantial  and  permanent  value,  which  possesses  inspiration,  original- 
ity and  freshness,  and  is  symmetrically  well-balanced  and  popular — a 
literature  of  power  as  distinguished  from  a  literature  of  knowledge  only. 
In  addition  to  this,  the  literary  products  of  Methodism  are  stamped  with  a 
spiirit  of  catholicity,  and  have  always  been  identified  with  moral  reforms. 
Methodist  literature  has  gathered  up  and  concentrated  theological  discussion 
at  the  foot  of  the  cross  ;  has  given  a  greater  completeness  to  church  organ- 
ization and  work  ;  has  been  a  great  antidote  to  pernicious  literature  ;  has 
given  the  church  a  more  complete  connectional  bond,  and  a  greater  degree 
of  uniformity  in  tone,  spirit,  polity  and  teaching. 


,-v.-j.. — V  *j  »j-t,j  -y-'-'      "-ijL. 


METHODI-Sr  EPISCOPAL  BISHOPS. 
RKV.  FKRniNANI)  C.  INOI.KI!  ART,  H.I).  RKV.  CHAS.  PARKHIRST.  P.O. 

REV.  WILLIAM  D.  HAVEN.  RKV.  DAVID  H.  MOORE,  D.D. 

r.ISHOP  STEPHEN  M.  MERRILL.  D.D.,  LL.D. 
REV.  J.  11.  PECK,  D.D.  HENRV  WADE  ROGERS.  LL.D. 


I486  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Methodist  journalism  began  with  John  Wesley,  who  desired  a  regular 
and  stated  organ  of  communication  with  his  followers,  and  launched  the 
Arminian  Magazine,  which  is  in  existence  to-day,  and  which  is  the  oldest 
continuous  periodical  in  the  world.  Methodist  journalism  has  made  an  hon- 
orable and  successful  record.  The  spirit  of  private  gain  and  of  secular 
management  has  no  place  in  it.  Methodism  does  not  produce  the  ablest, 
the  best  and  most  influential  journals,  but  the  average  Methodist  paper  has 
ranked  well.  One  of  the  limitations  of  Methodist  journalism  is  a  lack  ot 
comprehensiveness;  a  second  is  a  lack  of  independence;  a  third  is  a  lack 
of  modernness  ;  a  fourth  is  inadequate  financial  support;  a  fifth  is  a  lack  of 
leadership. 

"  The  Relation  of  Methodism  to  Socialism  "  was  considered,  and  the 
observation  made  that  Methodists  have  taken  up  no  position  on  matters  of 
this  kind  ;  it  means  that  Methodists  are  not  economic  socialists.  "  Questions 
of  wages  interest  us,  and  our  sympathies  are  freely  given  to  wage  earners 
contending  inside  the  laws  of  the  land  for  fair  play.  But  I  have  not  been 
able  to  find  a  particle  of  proof  that  we  are  in  favor  of  any  kind  of  economic 
revolution.  Social  questions  are  class  questions.  They  are  as  essentially 
un-Methodistic.  They  assume  that  there  is  a  reason  for  arraying  group 
against  group,  class  against  class,  the  masses  again.st  the  classes.  Such  a 
social  war  is  a  premonition  of  .death.  Methodism  preaches  a  gospel  for 
individual  men.  Itsiiares,  with  all  the  other  evangelistic  bodies,  an  intense 
belief  in  the  value  of  the  individual  soul.  It  shares  with  the  great  body  of 
patriotic  Americans  the  intense  belief  that  all  rights  are  individual  rights  ; 
that  it  is  the  business  of  government  to  safeguard  individual  rights;  that 
there  cannot  be  any  other  rights.  Methodism  cannot  approach  any  plan  for 
improving  the  world  as  a  question  about  masses  and  classes.  As  Christians, 
we  believe  in  single  and  responsible  souls.  As  citizens,  we  believe  in  the 
common  rights,  just  as  we  believe  in  the  common  redemption,  for  every 
single  soul  in  the  nation.  It  is  in  this  way  only  that  Methodism  can  work 
or  plead  in  public  life.  To  command  our  confidence,  socialism  must  prove 
two  things  :  (i)  That  the  existing  social  conditions  are  a  true  cause  of  the 
weakness,  hunger,  nakedness  and  vices  of  individual  men  and  women  ;  (2) 
That  the  socialistic  scheme  will  save  these  lost  souls.  As  Methodists  we  are 
to  this  present  time  skeptical  on  both  points.  The  moral  forces  behind 
production  work  in  and  through  human  souls.  As  Methodists,  our  place  is 
there,  and,  please  God,  we  will  stay  there  watching  over  the  moral  machin- 
ery which  moves  all  the  other  machinery  in  the  world." 

In  regard  to  the  educational  work  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
President  Henry  Wade  Rogers,  LL.D.,  gave  the  following  statistics  :  "The 
report  submitted  to  the  Board  of  Education  of  the  General  Conference  of 
1892  shows  that  the  colleges  and  universities  in  affiliation  with  the  Method- 
ist E)piscopal  Church  at  that  time  numbered  fifty-four,  and  that  the  value  of 
their  property  and  endowments,  less  the  debts  belonging  to  all  its  educa- 


METHODIST.  1 487 

tionai  institutions,  including  therein  colleges,  universities,  theologicalinstitu- 
tions,  academies,  female  colleges  and  seminaries,  and  foreign  mission 
schools,  was  $26,022,392,  while  the  number  of  institutions  was  195,  instruc- 
tors 2,343,  and  students  40,026.  The  need  of  Methodism  to-day  is  not  more 
but  better  colleges  and  universities.  I  advocate  rallying  the  strength  of 
Methodism  to  the  support  and  upbuilding  of  our  most  promising  existing 
universities,  to  the  end  that  they  be  enabled  to  occupy  as  commanding  a 
position  in  the  educational  world  as  is  commensurate  with  the  dignity  of 
the  .Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  What  is  needed  to-day,  therefore,  is  an 
awakening  of  the  rich  men  and  women  of  Methodism  to  a  higher  apprecia- 
tion of  the  value  to  the  church  and  to  the  state  of  great  universities  ;  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  money  required  to  inable  universities  to  become  great ; 
and  to  an  understandmg  of  the  vast  difference  between  the  amount  so 
needed  and  that  which  our  universities  now  possess."    ■ 

President  Bradford  P.  Raymond,  D.D.,  emphasized  the  value  of  the 
previous  work  of  Methodist  education  in  its  application  to  the  conversion 
and  culture  of  the  individual ;  but  opened  a  new  field  for  it  in  the  revolution 
of  adverse  conditions  and  the  regeneration  of  hostile  environment.  "We 
shall  not  cease  to  seek  the  conversion  of  the  student.  Neither  shall  we  for- 
get that  the  mental  discipline  which  bears  the  fruitage  of  genuine  culture  is 
a  chief  good.  An  enlarged  intellectual  horizon,  sympathetic  touch  with 
many  tields  of  thought,  even  though  an  expert  in  none,  refinement  of  taste, 
sensitiveness  to  high  ideals,  these  are  the  results  of  true  culture.  The  last 
quarter  of  a  century  of  collegiate  progress  has  carried  us  far  out  into  the 
fields  of  new  learning.  Our  work  must  still  be  done  under  the  dominance 
of  the  Christian  ideal,  but  of  that  ideal  as  seen  and  handled  in  a  larger  and 
more  effective  \vay  for  the  good  of  men." 

Rev.  Geo.  L.  Curtiss,  D.D.,  professor  of  historical  theology  in  DePauw 
University,  Greencast'e,  Ind.,  had  a  paper  on  "  Methodism  and  Her  Theo- 
logical Schools,"  in  which  he  showed  that  the  school  of  theology  in  Method- 
ism originated  in  a  necessity;  that  each  school  has  an  individual  history  in 
which  are  seen  the  causes  for  its  being,  the  heroism  and  sacrifice  required  to 
found  and  build  up,  the  obstacles  and  encouragements  that  have  thronged 
the  way,  and  the  goal  of  success  each  has  aimed  to  reach  ;  that  in  these 
institutions  there  is  a  remarkable  uniformity  of  thought  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  several  curriculums,  while  there  is  a  generous  diversity  in  the  mode  of 
presentation  of  the  subjects  taught,  so  that  each  maintains  its  individuality, 
and  all  that  is  Methodibtical  and  scriptural;  that  they  are  not  mistaking 
their  missions  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  many  of  their  brightest  and  best  grad- 
uates are  going,  at  the  call  of  the  church,  with  heroic  self-sacrifice,  to  the 
most  difficult  mission  fields  in  the  darkest  portions  of  the  heathen  world; 
that  they  are  not  as  liberally  supported  by  the  church  as  they  ought  to  be; 
that  they  are  really  post-graduate  schools ;  and  that  in  tbe  coming  century 
liiese  schools  of  theology  will  be  able  to  develop  symmetrical,  physical 
Christianity,  to  accompany  the  highest  type  of  spiritual  enlightenment. 


1488  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

The  organization  of  the  Epworth  League  was  stated  as  resting  upon 
two  principles — "  one,  that  there  is  a  peculiar  period  of  life  called  youth,  with 
its  noticeable  characteristics ;  the  other,  that  this  is  the  period  of  bringing 
one's  powers  into  obedience  to  a  cultured  and  sanctified  will."  The  Sunday- 
schools  of  Methodism  were  said  to  have  a  three-fold  function :  to  train  the 
children  of  Christian  homes;  to  teach  adults  the  truth  of  the  Bible;  to 
gather  in  the  children  of  non-Christian  homes.  Some  of  the  weaknesses  in 
the  present  system  of  study  adopted  in  Sunday  schools  were  indicated,  and 
it  was  shown  how  this  great  institution  may  be  made  more  efficient  as  an 
arm  of  power  in  the  church. 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM  CHURCH  CONGRESS. 

The  New  Jerusalem  Church  Congress  was  opened  by  President  Bon- 
ney  in  these  words :  "In  the  name  of  the  only  wise  God  our  Saviour,  who 
was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  and  in  whose  glorified 
humanity  dwelleth  all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily,  I  reverently  bid 
you  welcome.  The  Church  of  the  Holy  City,"  he  continued,  "is  the 
Church  of  Reconciliation.  It  comes  to  reconcile  reason  and  faith,  science 
and  religion,  miracle  and  law,  revelation  and  philosophy.  It  comes  to 
reconcile  the  teachings  of  sacred  scripture  and  the  results  of  modern 
research.  This  religion  of  reconciliation  brings  in  its  right  hand  the  Word 
of  God,  and  in  its  left  the  Divine  science  of  the  relation  between  natural 
and  spiritual  things,  by  which  alone  that  Word  can  be  defended  and 
expounded ;  and  only  asks  that  its  teachings  be  considered  in  freedom, 
according  to  reason  ;  and  accepted  so  far  as  they  are  seen  to  be  true."  He 
set  forth  briefly  some  of  the  reasons  for  this  mission,  and  introduced  the 
Rev.  L.  P.  Mercer  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Organization. 

Mr.  Mercer  delivered  the  following  address  declaring  the  position  and 
mission  of  the  church,  which  may  be  taken  as  a  sort  of  summary  of  the 
points  more  fully  expounded  in  the  five-days  session  of  this  Congress. 

The  New  Jerusalem  Church  stands  for,  and  witnesses  to  all  nations 
of  the  earth,  the  fulfillment  of  the  expectation  of  the  ages,  in  so  far  as 
Divine  revelation  can  institute  and  constitute  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It 
must  be  received  into  willing  hearts,  and  build  them  up  into  the  life  of  its 
principles,  before  the  Kingdom  of  God  can  come ;  but  revelation  institutes 
that  movement,  and  influx  of  the  Divine  Spirit  impels,  directs  and  consum- 
mates that  purpose  in  the  currents  of  life  in  both  worlds,  and  in  the  experi- 
ences of  souls,  even  that  see  not  the  hand  by  which  they  are  led. 

We  worship  the  One  God,  who  is  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Lover  and 
Thinker  and  Doer,  who  'has  created  human  souls  in  such  form  and 
structure,  that  he  may  reveal  himself  to  them,  and  re-create  them  into  his 


NEW   JKRUSALEM.  I  489 

image  and  likeness,  and  impart  to  them  his  goodness  and  wisdom,  and  the 
joy  of  his  life. 

We  believe  that  this  One  God,  who  in  the  Ahsolute  Man  has  revealed 
iumself  from  the  beginning  is  the  Heavenly  Father;  and  that  the  streams 
of  tradition  proceeding  from  that  revelation  have  kept  alive  a  witness  of 
him  with  every  nation  ;  and  that  all  in  any  nation  who  look  to  him  and  live 
according  to  their  religion  are  gatheied  and  instructed  in  the  spiritual  world 
into  the  right  knowledge  of  him,  and  protected  in  the  spiritual  and  heavenly 
love  and  service  of  him.  "  ^ 

We  believe  that  all  the  just  who  have  lived  and  died  on  earth  are  thus 
living  in  the  spiritual  world  in  the  fuller^  knowledge  and  love  of  him,  and 
that  his  spirit,  flowing  in  through  a  heaven  of  such,  conserves  and  vivifies  all 
that  remains  of  permanent  value  in  any  religion. 

We  believe  that  he  has  "at  sundry  times  and-  in  divers  manners"  given 
the  revelation  which  is  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  so  that  it  should 
be  not  only  as  a  witness  to  him,  "in  whom  is  life,  and  whose  life  is  the  light 
of  men,"  but  the  fountain  of  light  to  angels  as  well  as  men,  and  thus  the 
means  of  light  through  heaven  to  the  "  ends  of  the  earth,  and  to  them  that 
are  afar  off." 

We  believe  "  that  the  Word  which  was  with  God  and  was  God,  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us  ;  "  that  he  assumed  our  nature  through  the  gate  of 
birth,  and  came  into  the  world,  that  he  might  live  the  Word,  assert  its  power 
against  evil  spirits,  subjugate  the  hells,  and  redeem  men  from  their 
dominion. 

We  believe  th;it  in  Jesus  Christ  he  made  his  human  nature  Divine 
from  the  Divine  in  himself,  and  the  visible  God  in  whom  is  the  invisible  ; 
and  that  completing  the  Holy  Scripture  by  the  record  of  his  work  and  the 
promise  of  his  final  coming  and  kingdom,  he  fills  it  with  his  Spirit  and 
nperates  all  power  by  means  of  it  in  heaven  and  on  earth. 

We  believe  that  the  benefits  of  that  redemption,  and  the  quickening  life 
and  light  of  that  Word,  are  extended  through  heaven  and  the  world  of 
spirits  to  all,  "whosoever  in  any  nation  feareth  (jod  and  worketh  right- 
eousness." 

And  we  believe,  that  even  as  he  promised  to  come  again  to  men,  he  has 
accomplished  his  second  advent  in  the  opening  of  the  spiritual  sense  and 
Divine  meaning  of  the  written  Word,  through  the  human  instrumentalityof 
Emmanuel  Swedenborg. 

The  New  Church,  therefore,  stands  for  new  revelation  from  the  Lord  — 
not  in  new  sacred  scriptures,  but  in  the  opening  of  the  spiritual  sense  and 
genuine  meaning  of  the  Word  given  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

The  purely  divine  work  of  opening  the  sacred  scriptures  and  of  reveal- 
ing the  science  of  correspondences  wiiich  was  the  source  of  wisdom  in  the 
ancient  churches,  throws  light  upon  the  origin  and  diversities  of  the  relig- 
ions, furnishes  the  key  to  their  sacred  books,  an4  leads  them  to  their  essen.- 

94 


1490  THE    DENOMINATIONAL    CONGRESSES. 

tial  unity  in  the  true  Christian  religion  and  church,  now  to  be  established  as 
the  culmination  and  crown  of  all  the  divine  dispensations, 

The  communication  of  the  heavens  with  the  church  on  the  earth  is 
opened  anew;  all  those  gathered  into  the  heavens  from  every  nation  and 
kindred  and  tongue,  see  a  new  meaning  in  the  Word  they  have  believed  ; 
the  good,  from  every  religion,  entering  the  spiritual  world,  are  instructed  ; 
and  thus  a  new  way  is  opened  —  both  in  the  spiritual  world  and  on  earth, 
— for  a  universal  church  in  the  faith  of  the  visible  God,  in  whom  is  the 
invisible,  the  glorified  and  Divine  human  Jasus  Christ,  "in  whomdwelleth 
all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily,"  who  imparts  eternal  life  to  alt  who- 
look  to  him  and  keep  the  commandments  of  righteousness. 

Miss  A.  E.  Scammon,  as  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Women  of 
the  New  Jerusalem  Church  Congress,  made  an  address  of  welcome  on  behalf 
of  women.  Interesting  incidents  of  the  opening  session  were  the  responses 
of  P.  C.  Mazoomdar.  of  India;  Dr.  Von  Bergen,  of  Sweden  ;  and  Miss  Jeanne 
Sorabji,  of  India.  "  It  is  yours,"  said  Mr.  Mazoomdar,  "  to  present  the  New 
Church ;  it  is  mine  to  represent  the  new  dispensation."  He  could  not  feel 
that  there  was  much  essential  difference  between  them. 

Papers  were  presented  by  the  Rev.  Frank  Sewall,  M.A.,  of  Washington, 
D.  C,  on  "'One  Lord;  One  Church,  with  its  Successive  Ages;"  by  the  Rev. 
G.  N.  Smith,  of  Michigan,  on  "The  Church  before  Christianity;"  by  the 
Rev.  J.  Reed,  of  Massachusetts,  on  "The  Church  of  the  First  Advent;"  by 
the  Rev.  L.  H.  Tafel,  of  Urbana  University,  on  "The  Church  of  the  Second 
Advent;"  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  A.  King, 'of  Chicago,  on  "The  Catholic 
Spirit  of  the  New  Church."  The  points  emphasized  were  that  the  succession 
of  dispensations  was  but  the  reaching  out  of  the  Divine  for  embodiment  in 
human  society.  The  ages  of  Adam  and  Noah  represent  the  most  ancient 
and  the  ancient  or  correspondential  churches  respectively,  out  of  which 
sprang  the  mythologies  of  the  ancient  world,  and,  in  the  direct  line,  the 
Hebrew  and  Jewish  Churches ;  the  Church  of  the  First  Advent  received 
the  oracles  of  God,  but  has  lost  its  spirit,  and  the  glory  has  passed  to  the 
Church  of  the  Second  Advent,  which  possesses  the  presence  of  the  Lord  in 
his  Divine  glorified  body,  is  universal  and  spiritual. 

The  "  Doctrines  of  the  New  Church  "  were  presented  as  "  the  basis  of  a 
universal  faith"  in  a  series  of  papers.  "The  Doctrine  of  the  Lord,"  i.e., 
God  in  the  glorified  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ,  was  discussed  by  Rev.  John 
Goddard,  of  Ohio.  "  Redemption,"  not  from  the  wrath  of  God,  but  from 
the  infestation  of  hell,  was  considered  by  Rev.  J.  Fresland,  of  England; 
"Salvation,"  presented  as  the  divine  working  out  of  a  redemption  in  indi- 
vidual hearts,  a  present  work,  available  for  all  who  believe,  by  Rev.  S.  S. 
Seward,  of  New  York  ;  the  "  Future  Life,"  which  is  spiritual,  determined  in 
its  character  and  details  by  the  individual's  ruling  love  here,  by  Rev.  H.  C. 
Dunham,  of  Kansas;  the  '"Science  of  Correspondences  and  the  Word  of 
God,"  defining   the    language   of    correspondences   and  representations  in 


M:W  JKklS  AI.K.M   (  IllKCil   lONilKKSS. 
RKV.  I..  I'.  MKRCKK.  i<l:V.  JoHX  C.  AOKR. 

ki.w  |t)iiN  (;(ji)i).\Ki>.  KK\ .  r.  K.  \\Rii;nT. 


149-  THE    DENO.VUNATIONAl.   CONGRKSSES. 

which  the  Word  is  written  as  familiar  to  the  ancient  churches,  easily  learned, 
natural,  revealing  the  divine  wisdom,  by  Rev.  John  Worcester,  of  Massachu- 
setts. Rev.  A.  Roeder,  of  New  Jersey,  presented"  The  Opened  Word  in  Rela- 
tion to  the  Gentile  Religions,"  showing  how  the  science  of  correspondence 
opens  the  meaning  and  shows  the  harmony  of  all  religions  under  Divine 
providence. 

The  "  Planting  of  the  New  Church  "  and  "  Its  Future  "  were  considered 
in  papers  on  "Swedenborg's  Writings,  and  his  disposition  of  them"  ;  "The 
Mission  of  the  New  Church  to  the  Gentiles,"  "in  Christendom,"  "to  the 
Denomination,"  "to  Biblical  Criticism,"  "to  Philosophy,"  "  to  the  Historian," 
"  to  Art,"  "  to  Literature,"  "  to  Sociology  and  Government,"  "  to  Education  ;  " 
in  which  the  breadth  and  depth  of  the  living  teaching  of  the  church  were 
developed.  Woman's  position  and  work  in  the  New  Church,  and  defined  by 
it,  received  attention  in  which  the  New  Church  doctrine  of  the  complemental 
nature  of  woman's  work  and  position  by  the  side  of  man  were  especially 
emphasized  by  Mrs.  J.  R.  Hubbard. 

Rev.  L.  P.  Mercer,  of  Chicago,  made  an  address  on  "Swedenborg  and 
the  Harmony  of  Religions,"  during  the  seventeenth  day's  session  of  the 
Parliament  of  Religions.     Extracts  from  it  are  here  presented  : 

That  Swedenborg  was  the  son  of  a  Swedish  bishop,  a  scholar,  a  prac- 
tical engineer,  a  man  of  science,  a  philosopher  and  a  seer,  who  lived  between 
1683  and  1772,  is  generally  known.  That  the  first  fifty  years  of  his  remark- 
able life,  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  natural  learning  and  independent  investi- 
gations in  science  and  philosophy,  illustrates  the  type  of  man  in  which  our 
age  believes,  is  generally  conceded.  Learned,  standing  far  ahead  of  his 
generation;  exact,  trained  in  mathematical  accuracy  and  schooled  to  obser- 
vation ;  practical,  seeing  at  once  some  useful  application  of  every  new  discov- 
ery; a  man  of  affairs,  able  to  take  care  of  his  own  and  bear  his  part  in  the 
nation's  councils;  aspiring,  ignoring  no  useful  application,  but  content  with 
no  achievement  short  of  a  final  philosophy  of  causes;  inductive,  taking 
nothing  for  granted  but  facts  of  experiment,  and  seeking  to  ascend  therefrom 
to  a  generalization  which  shall  explain  them — this  is  the  sort  of  man  which 
in  our  own  day  we  consitler  sound  and  useful.  Such  was  the  man  who,  at 
the  age  of  56,  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  powers,  declares  that  he  "  was  called 
to  a  holy  office  bv  the  Lord,  who  must  graciouslv  manifested  himself  to  me 
in  person  and  opened  my  sight  to  a  view  of  the  spiritual  world  and  granted 
me  the  privilege  of  conversing  with  spirits  and  angels.  From  that  day 
forth,"  he  savs,  "  I  gave  up  all  wurldiv  learning  and  laboreil  only  in  spiritual 
things  according  to  what  the  Lord  C(3nimanded  me  to  write." 

He  tells  us  that  while  in  the  bodv,  yet  in  a  state  of  seership,  and  thus 
able  to  note  the  course  of  events  in  both  worUls,  aiul  locate  the  stupendous 
transactions  in  the  s})iritual  worlcl  in  earthlv  time,  he  witnessed  a  last  judg- 
ment in  the  world  of  spirits  in  1757,  fulfilling  in  every  respect  the  predic- 
tions in  the  Gospel  and  in  the  Apocalypse;  that  he  beheld  the  Lord  open  in 


New  JERUSALEM.  1493 

all  the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning  himself,  revealing  in  their  internal 
sense  the  divine  meaning,  the  whole  course  and  purpose  of  his  providencj, 
organizing  a  new  heaven  of  angels  out  of  everv  nation  and  kindreil  and 
tongue,  and  coordinating  it  witn  the  ancient  and  most  ancient  heavens  for 
tiie  inauguration  of  a  new  dispensation  of  religion,  and  of  the  church -uni 
versal ;  and  that  this  new  dispensation  began  in  the  spiritual  world,  is  car- 
ried down  and  inaugurated  among  men  by  the  revelation  of  the  spiritual 
sense  and  divme  meaning  of  the  sacred  Scriptures,  in  and  bv  means  of 
which  he  makes  his  promised  second  advent,  which  is  spiritual  and  universal, 
to  gather  up  and  complete  all  past  and  partial  revelations,  to  consummate 
and  crown  the  dispensations  and  churches  which  have  been  upon  the  earth. 

There  is  time  only  to  indicate  the  catholicity  of  Swedenborg's  teach- 
ings in  its  spirit,  scope  and  purpose.  There  is  one  God  and  one  church.  As 
God  is  one,  the  human  race,  in  the  complex  movements  of  its  growth  and 
history,  is  before  him  as  one  greatest  man.  It  has  had  its  ages  in  their 
order  corresponding  to  infancy,  childhood,  youth  and  manhood  in  the  indi- 
vidual. As  the  one  God  is  the  Father  of  all,  he  has  witnessed  himself  in 
every  age  according  to  its  state  and  necessities.  The  divine  care  has  not 
been  conHned  to  one  line  of  human  descent,  nor  the  revelation  of  God's  will 
to  one  set  of  miraculously  given  scriptures.  The  great  religions  of  the  world 
have  their  origm  in  that  same  word  or  mind  of  God  which  wrote  itself 
through  Hebrew  lawgiver  and  prophet,  and  became  incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ. 
From  the  same  ancient  word  Moses  derived,  under  divine  direction,  the 
early  chapters  of  Genesis,  and  to  this  in  the  order  of  Providence  was  added 
the  law  and  the  prophets,  the  history  of  the  incarnation  and  the  prophecy 
of  a  final  kingdom  of  God,  all  so  written  as  to  contain  an  internal  spirit- 
ual sense,  corresponding  with  the  letter,  but  distinct  from  it  as  the  soul 
ci^rresponds  with  the  body,  and  is  distinct  and  transcends  it.  It  is  the  open- 
ing of  this  internal  sense  in  all  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  not  any  addition  to 
their  letter,  which  constitutes  the  new  and  needed  revelation  of  our  day. 
The  science  of  correspondences  is  the  key  which  unlocks  the  Scriptures  and 
discloses  their  internal  contents.  The  same  key  opens  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Orient  and  traces  them  back  to  their  source  in  primitive  revelation.  If 
it  shows  that  their  myths  and  representatives  have  been  misunderstood,  mis- 
represented and  misapplied,  it  shows,  also,  that  the  Hebrew  and  Christian 
Scriptures  have  been  likewise  perverted  and  falsified.  It  is  that  verv  fact 
which  necessitates  the  revelation  of  their  internal  meaning,  in  which 
resides  their  divine  inspiration  and  the  life  of  rational  understanding  for  the 
separation  of  truth  from  error.  The  same  rational  light  and  science  of 
interpretation  separates  the  great  primitive  truths  from  the  corrupting  spec- 
ulations and  traditions  in  all  the  ancient  religions,  and  furnishes  the  key  to 
unlock  the  myths  and  symbols  in  ancient  Scriptures  and  worship. 

If  Swedenborg  reveals  errors  and  superstitions  in  the  religions  out  of 
Christendom,  so  does  he  also  show  that  the  current  Christian  faith  and  wor- 


1494  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

ship  is  largely  the  invention  of  men  and  falsifying  the  Christian's  Bible.  If 
he  promises  and  shows  true  faith  and  life  to  the  Christian  from  the  Script- 
ures, so  does  he  also  to  the  Gentiles  in  leading  them  back  to  primitive  reve- 
lation and  shovk-ing  them  the  meaning  of  their  own  aspirations  for  the  light 
of  life.  If  he  sets  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  word  above  all  other  sacred 
Scripture,  it  is  because  it  brings,  as  now  opened  in  its  spiritual  depths,  the 
divine  sanction  to  all  the  rest  and  gathers  their  strains  into  its  divine  sym- 
phony of  revelation." 

So  much  as  the  indication  of  what  Swedenborg  does  for  catholic 
enlightenment  in  spiritual  wisdom.  As  for  salvation  he  teaches  that  God 
has  provided  with  every  nation  a  witness  of  himself  and  means  of  eternal 
life.  He  is  present  by  his  Spirit  with  all.  He  gives  th.e  good  of  his  love, 
which  is  life,  internally  and  impartially  to  all.  All  know  that  there  is  a  God, 
and  that  he  is  to  be  loved  and  obeyed  ;  that  there  is  a  life  after  death,  and 
that  there  are  evils  which  are  to  be  shunned  as  sins  against  God.  So  far  as  any- 
one so  believes  and  so  lives  from  a  principle  of  religion  he  receives  eternal 
life  in  his  soul,  and  after  death  instruction  and  perfection  according  to  the 
sincerity  of  his  life. 

No  teaching  could  be  more  catholic  than  this,  showing  that,  "who- 
soever in  any  nation  feareth  God  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  of 
him."  If  he  sets  forth  Jesus  Christ  as  the  only  wise  God,  in  whom  is  the 
fullness  of  the  Godhead,  it  is  Christ  glorified  and  realizing  to  the  mind  the- 
Infinite  and  Eternal  Lover,  and  Thinker,  and  Doer,  a  real  and  personal  God, 
our  Father  and  Saviour.  If  he  summons  all  prophets  and  teachers  to  bring 
their  honor  and  glory  unto  him,  it  is  not  as  to  a  conquering  rival,  but  as  to 
their  inspiring  life,  whose  word  they  have  spoken  and  whose  work  they  have 
wrought  out.  If  he  brings  all  good  spirits  in  the  other  life  to  the  acknowl- 
edgement of  the  glorified  Christ,  as  the  only  God,  it  is  because  they  have  in 
heart  and  essential  faith,  believed  in  him  and  lived  for  him,  in  living  accord- 
ing to  precepts  of  their  religion.  He  calls  him  a  Christian  who  lives  as  a 
Christian  ;  and  he  lives  as  a  Christian  who  looks  to^the  one  God  and  does 
what  he  teaches,  as  he  is  able  to  know  it.  If  he  denies  re-incarnation,  so 
also  does  he  deny  sleep  in  the  grave  and  the  resurrection  of  the  material 
body. 

If  he  teaches  the  necessity  of  regeneration  and  union  with  God,  so  also 
does  he  show  that  the  subjugation  und  quiescence  of  self  is  the  true  "  Nir- 
vana," opening  consciousness  to  the  divine  life,  and  conferring  the  peace  of 
harmony  with  God.  If  he  teaches  that  man  needs  the  Spirit  of  God  for  the 
subjugation  of  self,  he  teaches  that  this  Spirit  is  freely  imparted  to  whoso- 
ever will  look  to  the  Lord  and  shun  selfishness  as  sin.  If  he  teaches  thus 
that  faith  is  necessary  to  salvation,  he  teaches  that  faith  alone  is  not  suffi- 
cient, but  faith  which  worketh  by  love. 

If  he  denies  that  salvation  is  of  favor,  or  immediate  mercy,  and  affirms 
that  it  is  vital  and  the  effect  of  righteousness,  he  also  teaches  that  the  divine 


PRESBYTERIAN,  1495 

righteousness  is  imparted  vitally  to  him  that  seeks  it  first  and  above  all  ; 
and  if  he  denies  that  several  probations  on  earth  are  necessary  to  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  issues  of  righteousness,  it  is  because  man  enters  a  spiritual 
world,  after  death,  in  a  spiritual  body  and  personality,  and  in  an  environ- 
ment in  which  his  ruling  love  is  developed,  his  ignorance  enlightened,  his 
imperfections  removed,  his  good  beginnings  perfected,  until  he  is  ready  to 
be  incorporated  in  the  grand  man  of  heaven,  to  receive  and  functionate  his 
measure  of  the  divine  life  and  participate  in  the  divine  joy. 


THE  PRESBYTERfAN  CONGRESS. 

Art  Institute,  Suixlay  afternoon  and  evening.  Sept,  17  th. 

Rev.  J.  L.  Withrpw,  D.D.,  of  Chicago,  presided  in  the  afternoon,  and 
Rev.  Dr.  Black,  president  of  Marshall  College,  Missouri,  made  a  brief 
address  on  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  evening. 

By  Prof.  A.  C.  Zenos,  D.D.,  of  the  McCormick  Theological 

Seminary. 

Presbyterianism  is  distingiyshed  from  other  forms  of  Christianity,  first 
of  all  as  a  form  of  polity,  and  secondly  as  a  system  of  doctrine.  As  dis- 
tinguished primarily  by  a  polity,  Presbyterianism  claims  for  itself  a  founda- 
tion in  the  New  Testament,  although  it  does  not  claim  that  it  is  the  only 
system  which  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  will  permit. 

When  asked  for  the  peculiar  record  of  Presbyterianism,  we  point  back 
for  its  origin  to  the  time  when  it  assumed  definite  shape  under  the  powerful 
influences  at  work  during  the  sixteenth  century.  It  was  then  that  the  minds 
of  men  were  arrested  and  fixed  intently  on  the  principles,  theological  and 
ecclesiastical,  which  should  lie  at  the  basis  of  an  evangelical  and  primitive 
church.  Then  emerged  the  full  system  of  Presbyterianism  with  its  cardinal 
principles  of  the  headship  of  Christ,  the  organic  unity  of  the  church,  the 
possession  and  exercise  of  authority,  the  representative  character  and  parity 
of  ministers,  and  the  control  of  each  part  by  the  whole,  leading  to  a  graded 
system  of  ecclesiastical  judicatories. 

Presbyterianism  has  had  a  vigorous  growth  among  the  great  nations. 
In  Holland  was  fought  the  great  theological  battle  which  resulted  in  the 
intimate  and  historically  inseparable  association  of  Presbyterianism  with  a 
definite  system  of  doctrine.  And  while  Presbyterianism  is  not  logically 
identified  with  Calvinism,  it  remains  an  historic  fact  that  the  combination  of 
that  strong  system  of  doctrine,  with  the  strong  Presbyterian  polity,  has 
been  the  source  of  a  most  powerful  and  wholesome  influence  on  modern 
thought  and  life.  Both  in  England  and  in  Scotland  political  conditions 
were  very  much  against  Presbyterianism  at  the  beginning.     The  sovereigns 


1496  THE    DEx\OM [NATIONAL    CONGRESSES. 

of  England  especially,  having  wrested  the  control  of  the  church  from  the 
hands  of  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy,  were  not  willing  to  surrender  it  into 
the  hands  of  the  people.  In  Scotland,  with  less  autocratic  rulers,  Presbyter- 
ianism  of  a  vague  type  was  established  officially  in  1560,  and  with  the  advent 
of  John  Knox,  it  became  more  and  more  clearly  marked  in  its  features. 
From  Scotland  it  passed  into  Ireland  by  colonization.  In  spite  of  all  that  the 
throne  ot  England  could  do,  matters  were  drifting  toward  popular  government 
both  in  the  church  and  in  the  state.  The  Long  Parliament  met  in  1640  and 
was  controlled  by  the  Puritans;  but  the  Puritans  were  a  mixed  class,  includ- 
ing Episcopalians  of  the  liberal  school,  who  objected  to  the  book  of  sports, 
the  use  of  Episcopal  vestments,  and  other  ritualistic  usages ;  Indepen- 
dents, who  objected  to  the  exercise  of  any  authority  or  government  either 
over  the  church  by  the  state,  or  by  the  church  as  a  whole  on  individual 
congregations;  and  Presbyterians,  who  believed  in  the  government  of 
the  church  by  representative  ministers,  not  bishops.  No  division  had'tested 
the  strength  of  these  parties  at  the  time,  as  they  were  united  against  a  com- 
mon enemy;  but  subsequent  events  proved  that  the  Presbyterian  element 
was  in  the  preponderance. 

Yet,  even  among  the  Presbyterians  there  was  a  two-fold  tendency. 
Some  were  inclined  to  insist  on  the  enforcement  of  a  rigid  and  distinctive 
sjstem,  while  others  wished  to  effect  a  compromise  with  the  Epfscopalians 
on  the  basis  of  Archbishop  Ussher's  plan.  The  English  Presbyterians  of 
that  generation  unfortunately  wished  to  have  the  civil  magistrate  exercise 
the  functions  of  "  preserving  the  unity  and  peace  of  the  church,  of  keeping 
the  truth  entire  and  pure,  and  of  suppressing  blasphemies  an;l  heresies." 
Others  were  opposed  to  the  assignment  of  any  ecclesiastical  or  religious 
function  whatsoever  to  the  civil  authorities.  These  men  were  called  Sepa- 
ratists, and  were  absorbed  by  the  Independents,  although  the  latter  were 
hardly  in  sympathy  with  the  Separatist  position,  as  appeared  when  they 
came  into  power  under  Cromwell,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  Cromwell  as  chief 
magistrate  being  the  forcible  prohibition  of  Presbyterianism  in  England,  an 
act  of  interference  by  the  civil  authority  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  Mean- 
while the  agitation  of  the  question  divided  the  forces  of  the  anti-Episcopal 
side,  effectually  defeated  the  permanent  establishment  of  both  Presbyteri- 
anism and  Independency  in  England,  and  brought  about  the  triumph  of 
Episcopacy.  It  may  be  safely  asserted  that  but  for  these  causes  the  English 
Church  would  at  this  time  have  been  organized  on  the  Presbyterian  plan. 

The  Long  Parliament  had  called  together  an  assembly  of  divines,  which 
met  at  Westminster  in  1643.  In  a  series  of  sessions  held  during  the  follow- 
ing six  years,  and  characterized  by  the  utmost  deliberation  and  regard  for 
the  sentiments  of  all,  with  a  view  to  reaching  resnlts  in  a  harmonious  way 
that  should  be  accepted  by  all,  this  assembly  easily  and  after  brief  discussion 
adopted  the  doctrinal  standards  always  since  associated  with  its  name.  But 
in  the  attempt  to  formulate  a  polity  it  met  with  serious  difficulties.     The  very 


PRESBYTERIAN.  1497 

small  minority  of  Independents  and  Erastians  in  it  was  implacable.  A  vast 
amount  of  time  was  consumed  in  the  discussion  of  each  detail  in  the  form  of 
government.  Meanwhile  political  feeling  ran  high.  The  Presbyterian  side 
was  opposed  to  the  violent  measures  used  by  the  revolutionists,  and  by  this 
conservatism  alienated  many.  The  Independents  gained  the  day,  and  with 
the  accession  of  Cromwell,  in  1649,  English  Presbyterian  ism  was  check- 
mated. 

But  at  the  very  time  when  Presbyterianism  was  receiving  this  fr  '  check 
in  England,  a  large  future  was  being  prepared  for  it  in  America,  v  seemed 
to  have  been  specially  adapted  to  the  soil  of  the  new  world  Its  policy, 
either  directly  copied  or  arrived  at  independently  by  the  "  ^est  of  states- 
manship, is  in  its  main  principles  the  saihe  mutatis  mutandis  as  that  of  our 
national  constitution.  As  soon  as  the  war  of  independence  was  over  and  the 
United  States  had  a  national  existence,  the  growth  of  the  church  meanwhile 
warranting  it,  organization  was  completed  with  the  meeting  of  the  first 
General  Assembly  in  Philadelphia  in  1788. 

During  the  entire  period  of  its  existence  under  simple  Presbyteryc  and 
for  a  part  of  that  under  Synod,  or  for  the  space  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
turv,  the  church  had  no  recognized  doctrinal  standards.  It  was  tacitly 
assumed,  of  course,  that  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  and  Catechisms 
were  accepted  by  all  ministers  at  least ;  in  fact  this  was  openly  asserted  at 
times  without  controversy;  but  no  subscription  was  required.  Under  the 
influence  of  the  contingent  from  Scotland  and  against  the  desires  of  many 
who  had  joined  Presbyterianism  from  New  England,  the  Westminster  stan- 
dards were  formally  adopted  in  1729,  and  official  subscription  was  made  a 
condition  prerequisite  for  ordination  to  the  ministry,  although  limited  to  "  the 
essential  and  necessary  articles." 

There  were  two  parties  within  the  Presbyterian  Church  before  the 
adoption  of  the  constitution,  and  they  manifested  themselves  as  soon  as  the 
Church  had  a  constitution  to  interpret ;  one  of  these  stood  for  the  stricter 
and  the  other  for  the  looser  interpretation.  The  question  between  these 
parties  became  somewhat  later  complicated  by  the  appearance  of  two  other 
questions:  one  as  to  educational  qualifications  in  candidates  for  the  ministry, 
and  another  as  to  the  rights  and  liberties  of  revivalists.  In  1745  there  came 
a  division  between  the  so-called  "  Old  Side,"  and  "  New  Side,"  but  it  was 
of  short  duration. 

After  the  organization  of  the  general  assembly,  since  that  step  was  the 
culmination  of  a  unifying  process,  those  who  favored  unity  looked  toward  a 
fusion  of  many  denominations  ;  but  they  only  effected  an  agreement  between 
Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  upon  a  "  Plan  of  Union,"  put  forth  in 
1801.  The  practical  working  of  this  plan  issued  in  two  opposite  ways  : 
externally,  and  as  far  as  numbers  were  concerned,  it  led  to  great  gains;  all 
additions  in  the  West  to  both  of  the  bodies  entering  into  the  .compact,  even 
such  as  resulted  from  the   emigration   of   New   Englanders  to   the  western 


149^  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

states,  were  swept  into  the  bosom  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Congrega- 
tionalism was  virtually  enclosed  withir  the  boundaries  of  New  England. 
But,  in  another  way,  this  growth  was  not  beneficial ;  what  was  gained  by 
Presbyterianism  in  extension  was  lost  in  intensity ;  and  what  was  lost  by 
Congregationalism  in  membership  was  gained  by  it  in  influence  over  the 
Presbyterian  system.  Meanwhile  a  similar  wave  of  prosperity  occasioned 
by  revivals  in  the  Southwest  led  to  discussions  which  culminated  in  the 
founding  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church,  with  lower  educational 
standards  and  a  de-Calvinized  confession  of  faith. 

The  party  favoring  the  strict  interpretation  of  the  doctrinal  standards 
found  themselves  confronted  with  a  radicalism  in  the  church,  which  they 
believed  to  be  altogether  beyond  the  limits  of  the  toleration  prescribed  in 
the  adopting  act  of  1729^  On  the  other  hand  the  radical  element  deemed 
itself  entirely  within  the  liberty  allowed.  Other  questions  arose  to  compli- 
cate the  situation.  For  years  the  debate  was  carried  on  with  considerable 
feeling  on  both  sides.  The  test  cases  brought  judicially  before  the 
church  were  decided  in  favor  of  the  inclusive  view  in  the  acquittal  of  Albert 
Barnes  at  Philadelphia  (1830),  and  of  Lyman  Beecher  in  Cincinnati  (1836). 
But  the  Assembly  of  1837  having  pronounced  against  it  the  New  School 
organized  itself  into  a  separate  church.  This  disruption  lasted  something 
over  thirty  years,  or  precisely  the  lifetime  of  one  generation  as  it  is  usually 
computed.  But  before  this  reunion  another  disruption  was  destined  to  take 
place  on  the  question  of  the  church's  declaring  itself  on  political  questions 
involving  moral  principles.  This  was  in  connection  with  the  discussions 
leading  to  the  civil  war  {1857-1860). 

Disruption  and  reunion  seem  thus  to  be  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the 
history  of  American  Presbyterianism.  The  fact  is,  no  polity  can  totally 
overcome  all  human  weakness.  On  the  other  hand,  the  catholicity  of  Pres- 
byterianism is  of  so  genuine  and  earnest  a  type  that  through  all  disruptions 
and  controversies  its  branches  have  never  failed  to  accord  to  one  another, 
and  to  all  other  evangelical  bodies,  the  fellowship  due  to  believers  in  a  com- 
mon Lord  and  Saviour.  And  if  the  organic  reunion  of  Christendom  is  in 
some  form  ever  accomplished,  the  careful  student  of  history  will  be  greatly 
surprised  if  Presbyterians  are  not  found  at  the  very  forefront  of  the  move- 
ment. 

PRESBYTERIANISM  AND  MISSIONS. 

By  Rev.  H.  D.  Jenkins,  D.D. 
American  Presbyterianism  would  be  false  to  its  birth  and  lineage  were 
it  not  animated  by  a  missionary  spirit.  When  Makemie  and  his  half  dozen 
colleagues  in  1705  organized  the  first  classical  Presbytery  at  Freehold, 
N.  J.,  the  movement  was  not  sectarian  but  evangelistic.  The  aim  was  not  to 
oppose  but  advance.  It  was  not  to  divide  but  multi|)ly.  The  growth  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  in  America  was  thus  toward  the  needs  rather  than 
toward  the  wealth  of  men.     Its  home  was  in  the  pioneer's  cabin;  its  house 


PRESBYTERIAN. 


1499 


of  worship  in  the  first  clearing.  The  history  of  the  nation's  growth  is  the 
history  of  its  expansion.  Each  wave  of  emigration  carried  on  its  crest  the 
life-boat  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  blue  banner  of  the  covenant.  Between  the 
Golden  Gate  and  Plymouth  Rock  we  are  preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Son 
of  God  in  upwards  of  twenty  languages,  and  there  is  no  part  of  this  broad 
land  in  which  the  Presbyterian  Church  is  an  exotic.  It  numbers  four  per 
cent,  of  the  population  in  the  state  where  Princeton  stands  ;  and  an  equal 
per    cent,    in     Indian    Territory.     One    branch    of    the    American    Presby- 


PRINCIP.^L  G.  M.  GRANT,  CANADA. 


terian  Church  alone  supports  1,723  Home  Missionary  pastors  and  37Q 
Home  Missionary  teachers,  whose  churches  last  year  received  over  10.000 
upon  confession  of  faith.  During  the  past  decade  the  population  of  the 
United  States  increased  twenty-four  per  cent,  and  the  membership  of  the 
Presbyterian  Churches  thirty-nine  per  cent.;  while  within  the  past  hundred 
years  the  population  of  the  country  has  been  multiplied  seven  times,  the 
membership  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  North  has  increased  forty-one  times 
Such  are  not  the  result  of  fortuitous  circumstances,  but  are  indicative  of  the 
blessing  of  God  upon  a  missionary  church. 

The  church  has  to-day  from  its  various  branches  in  almost  every  country 


1500  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

of  the  world  not  less  than  1,687  missionaries  in  the  foreign  field,  assisted  by 
6,953  native  helpers.  In  its  mission  churches  are  gathered  152,051  mem- 
bers, and  with  them  are  numbered  760,000  Christian  adherents.  During  the 
past  ten  years,  while  our  American  Presbyterianism  has  been  growing  at  the 
rate  of  39  per  cent.,  these  Presbyterian  missions  have  increased  at  an  aver- 
age rate  of  not  less  than  115  per  cent.  And  in  this  review  we  are  not 
permitted  for  lack  of  time  to  mention  the  vast  numbers  of  the  pupils  it 
gathers  into  Christian  schools,  the  hospitals  in  which  it  cares  for  the  sick,  or 
the  mission  presses  which  are  centers  of  light  in  the  midst,  often,  of  a  dark- 
ness that  may  be'felt. 

A  church  which  is  not  exalting  "  mercy,  judgment  and  truth  "  will  exalt 
"  mint,  anise  and  cummin."  The  cure  for  mere  sectarianism  is  evangelism. 
Breadth  of  labor  begets  breadth  of  view.  I  think  we  inay  justly  claim  that 
our  missionary,  necessities  enrich  the  church  with  a  more  practical  theology. 
In  any  future  modification  of  our  confessional  statements  it  is  these,  our  vast 
Diaspora  upon  missionary  grounds,  rather  than  our  metaphysicians  in  the 
study,  who  are  to  be  consulted,  and  whose  necessities  will  give  to  us  not  a 
a  new  theology,  but  one  whose  every  line  is  fitted  for  (;vangelism. 
_     ■■      •  "  .  ■  '-■-'•.'■- 

PRESBYTERIANISM  AND  EDUCATION. 

By.  Rev.  D.  S.  Schaff,  D.D.  .  v 

Christianity  is  the  sworn  friend  of  education.  '.Its  aim  is  to  develop  the 
entire  man.  ,  AH  his  faculties  are  noble  and  deserve  to  be  trained  unto  per- 
fection. The  intellect,  as  well  as  the  moral  powers.  It  is  the  function  of 
religion  to  cultivate.  Life  eternal  is  this,  to  know  God.  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  he  hath  sent. 

It  was  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries'  that  plans  for  popular 
education  got  their  mighty  impulse.  The  Protestant  Reformation  was  des- 
tined to  have  the  most  powerful  influence  in  developing  and  fostering 
universal  education.  Each  man  had  a  right  to  a  copy  of  the  Word  of  God, 
and  should  be  put  in  a  position  to  search  out  its  truths  for  himself  that  he 
might  be  able  to  give  a  reasonable  statement  for  the  hope  of  eternal  life. 

Presbyterianism,  sharing  the  aims  of  the  universal  Christian  Church,  in 
common  with  the  other  Protestant  systems,  foresees  the  movement  for  a 
sound  and  liberal  ministerial  training  and  popular  education. 

The  adaptation  of  Presbyterianism  to  foster  education  is  shown  in  the 
emphasis  it  lays  upon  the  sermon.  In  its  public  worship,  the  exposition  of 
the  Word  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  element.  The  minister  is  chiefly  a 
preacher  and  teacher.  The  sermon  is  not  principally  an  exhortation,  but  an 
instructive  discourse,  designed  to  present  to  the  mind  the  teachings  of  Script- 
ure and  to  train  the  mind  to  grasp  them  and  meditate  upon  them.  The 
worship  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  does  not  make  appeal  to  the  cesthetic 
tastes  or  to  the  emotional  nature  to  the  extent  the  worship  of  some  other 
churches  does.     Its  appeal  is  primarily  to  the  intellect  and  the  conscience. 


PRESBYTERIAN.  I5OI 

Again,  this  element  of  adaptation  appears  in  its  doctrinal  system.  Per- 
haps more  fully  than  in  any  other  branch  of  the  Christian  Church  has  doc- 
trinal preaching,  so-called,  been  characteristic  of  the  Calvinistic  pulpit. 
Daily  conduct  and  the  details  of  private  devotion  have  been  largely  left  to 
the  sanctified  judgment  of  each  individual  acting  out  from  broad  doctrinal 
principles.  The  catechisms  and  creeds  in  which  the  Presbyterian  Church 
has  laid  down  its  doctrines  were  intended  to  be  studied  by  the  people  at 
large. 

Presbyterianism  is  also  adapted  to  promote  education  by  the  stress  it 
lays  upon  the  activity  of  the  laity  in  the  administration  of  the  church.  The 
principles  it  finds  laid  down  or  implied  in  the  New  Testament  devolve  upon 
the  layman  an  equal  share  with  the  minititer  in  the  legislation  and  discipline 
of  the  church.  The  congregation,  through  its  representatives  in  the  session, 
the  Presbytery  or  classes,  the  Synod  and  the  General  Assembly,  can,  jointly 
with  the  clergy,  enact  and  execute  all  law  and  determine  all  doctrines. 

Then,  again,  the  Presbyterian  Church  has  always  emphasized  a  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures.  In  the  Bible  itself  is  the  authority 
of  the  Bible  lodged.  Not  the  clergy,  nor  yet  the  courts  of  the  church,  are 
ultimate  tribunals.  The  sanctified  intellect  of  each  individual  is  the  final 
judge.  Each  must  interpret  for  himself,  and  is  under  divine  obligation  to 
do  so.  As  the  Scriptures  are  the  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  conduct,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  church  to  put  them  into  the  hands  of  every  man,  and  to  see 
to  it  that  he  is  adequately  helped  to  an  intelligent  and  correct  understand- 
ing of  their  truths.  The  Scriptures  are  themselves  a  "'divine  library,"  and 
an  intelligent  acquaintance  with  their  history,  poetry,  biography  and  geog- 
raphy, and  their  teachings  concerning  God's  nature  and  man's  redemption,  is 
itself  a  liberal  education.  To  much  careful  and  constant  study  of  God's 
Word  the  Presbyterian  system  calls  all  men  as  their  duty  in  the  sight  of 
God. 

Briefly  as  to  the  history  of  education  in  America,  under  the  Presbyterian 
system,  Princeton  College,  chartered  under  the  name  of  the  College  of  New 
Jersey  in  1746,  is  the  oldest  of  Presbyterian  schools  still  extant.  It  has 
enjoyed  the  presidency  and  instruction  of  some  of  the  most  eminent  divines 
of  the  land,  from  Jonathan  Edwards,  Samuel  Davies  and  John  Witherspoon 
down  to  Archibald  Alexander,  the  Hodges  and  Dr  James  McCosh,  not  to 
speak  of  any  at  present  in  office.  It  is  probably  true  that  this  was  the  most 
important  enterprise  in  which  the  Presbyterian  Church  had  engaged  up  to 
that  time.  The  first  theological  seminary  in  the  country  was  founded  in 
1S04  in  New  York  City  by  the  Associate  Reformed  Church.  The  oldest  of 
American  existing  seminaries,  Andover,  founded  in  1807,  was  followed  by  the 
Dutch  Reformed  Seminary,  at  Rutgers,  1810,  and  Princeton  in  1812.  Lane, 
Auburn,  Union,  McCormick,  Xenia,  Allegheny,  Columbia,  Hampden  and 
Sidney,  Lancaster,  Nashville  and  other  seminaries,  representing  different 
types  of  the  Reformed  faith,  have  since  been  established. 


1502  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

The  Presbyterian  churches  have  sought  by  organized  agencies  to  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  education.  Through  her  board  of  education  (founded  in 
18 19)  the  Northern  Presbyterian  Church  aids  students  preparing  for  the 
ministry.  Her  Board  of  Freedmen,  in  addition  to  its  other  work,  plants 
schools  among  the  colored  people  of  the  South.  Her  Board  of  Publication 
sells  and  distributes  a  carefully  selected  literature.  Her  Board  of  Home 
Mission,  in  addition  to  its  other  work,  maintains  schools  in  the  Indian  Terri- 
tory, among  the  Mormons  and  in  Alaska.  The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions 
adds  to  the  direct  preaching  of  the  Gospel  the  noble  work  of  providing 
schools  and  a  liberal  education  in  pagan  lands. 

PRESBYTERIAN  REUNION. 
By  Principal  George   Monro  Grant. 

At  this  Congress  every  church  is  called  upon  to  review  its  history,  to 
state  its  distinctive  principles  and  to  ask  whether  it  has  sufficient  vitality  to 
adapt  these  to  changed  conditions  of  time,  country  and  society ;  in  a  word, 
whether  it  has  a  moral  right  to  continue  as  a  separate  organization,  and  if 
it  has,  why  it  does  not  present  an  unbroken  front  and  give  a  united  testi- 
mony to  an  assembled  world.  The  principles  of  a  church  constitute  the 
law  of  its  being.  They  may  be  obscured  for  a  time,  but  if  the  principles  be 
true  they  wUl  reassert  themselv^is.  Ti.ey  are  the  only  basis  on  which  a 
reunion  can  be  effected.  The  church  must  be  broad  enough  to  include  all 
who  are  faithful  to  its  basic  principles,  and  strong  enough  to  put  up  w'ith 
varieties  of  opinion"  not  mconsistent  with  its  life. 

Going  back,  then,  to  the  Reformation  to  discover  the  principles  of  Pres- 
byterianism,  we  find  that,  first,  the  reformers  were  men  of  faith,  and  the 
essence  of  their  faith  was  the  Gospel.  They  believed  that  God  had  revealed 
himself  to  Israel  as  a  God  of  redeeming  love,  by  ways,  methods  and  means 
suited  to  the  childhood  and  youth  of  the  world,  and  that  this  revelation  cul- 
minated in  Christ  and  his  Gospel.  As  the  revelation  was  recorded  in  Holy 
Scriptures  they  counted  these  beyond  all  price,  and  they  studied  them  under 
all  the  lights  of  their  time  with  all  the  fearlessness  of  men  of  science  who 
may  doubt  their  own  powers  but  never  doubt  the  truth  of  God.  The  first 
principle,  then,  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  is  that  the  church  must  be 
evangelical,  and  the  good  news  which  it  preaches  must  be  that  which  is 
contained  in  the  Word  of  God. 

Second,  the  reformers  were  churchmen.  They  did  not  believe  that  the 
individual  religious  sentiment  expressed  the  whole  religious  nature  of  men 
and  that  the  term  "  visible  church  "  was  erroneous.  They  believed  that  the 
Lord  founded  a  society  or  church,  gave  to  it  himself  as  Supreme  Lawgiver 
and  Head,  gave  an  initiatory  right  and  an  outward  bond  of  union,  a  definite 
portion  of  time  for  public  worship  and  special  service,  along  with  injunc- 
tions, aims,  promises  and  penalties  that  a  society  requires  for  its  guidance 
and  which  are  now  scripturally  fixed  for  all  time. 


PRESBYTERIAN.  1 5^3 

Third,  the  reformers  believed  in  publicly  confessing  their  creed,  or  set- 
ting it  forth  in  formal  statements  from  time  to  time.  These  confessions  were 
testimonies,  not  tests.  A  faith  in  the  Gospel  made  them  comparatively 
indifferent  to  formulas.  What  was  originally  a  testimony  has  since  been 
made  a  test.  It  is  the  greatest  error  and  misfortune  that  the  flower  of  the 
soul  of  one  generation  has  been  converted  by  a  strange  alchemy  into  an 
iron  bond  for  future  generations. 

Fourth,  the  reformers  asserted  the  democratic  principle  and  embodied 
it  in  representative  legislatures  and  courts  to  express  the  will  and  preserve 
the  unity  of  the  church.  They  discovered  the  individual,  and  gave  him  his 
rightful  place  in  the  church  and  in  society.  They  taught  that  man  as  man 
entered  into  union  with  God  by  a  spiritual  act,  and  that  every  man  who  did 
so  was  a  kmg,  a  priest,  and  a  prophet.  I  need  scarcely  point  out  how  far 
we  have  departed  in  practice  from  this  principle.  We  have  made  our 
church  government  aristocratic.  The  laity  are  wholly  unrepresented  in  our 
church  courts,  except  in  as  far  as  it  may  be  said  that  all  the  members  are 
laymen,  because  we  have  abolished  the  mediceval  distinction  of  clergy  and 
laity. 

I  have  sketched  the  principles  that  must  be  accepted  as  the  basis  of 
anv  future  union :  the  evangelical  principle,  the  church  principle,  the 
national  and  confessional  principle,  and  the  democratic  principle.  Are  we 
now  prepared  to  act  upon  these  principles  frankly  and  unreservedly  ?  If 
so,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  circumstances  in  which  we  meet  give  us  a  wider 
horizon  and  a  wider  outlook  than  Presbyterian  reunion,  though  that  might 
come  first. 

We  have  been  proud  of  our  Christianity  instead  of  allowing  it  to  crucify 
us.  So,  have  we  not  been  proud  of  our  Presbyterianism  instead  of  allowing 
it  to  purify  and  enlarge  our  vision  and  fit  us  for  service  and  sacrifice  in  our 
own  day  and  land,  along  the  lines  on  which  Luther,  Calvin  and  Knox 
labored,  until  God  called  them  tohimself  ?  We  have  thus  made  Presbyter- 
ianism a  sect,  forgetting  that  Knox's  prayer  wa»,  "  Lord,  give  me  Scotland 
or  I  die."  God  heard  and  answered  his  cry.  Should  not  your  prayer  be, 
"  Lord,  give  us  this  great  and  goodly  land,  as  dear  to  our  souls  as  Scotland 
was  to  Knox  ?  "  Remember,  that  we  shall  never  commend  the  church  to 
the  people,  unless  we  have  faith  in  the  living  head  of  the  church  ;  unless  we 
believe  with  Ignatius  that  where  Jesus  Christ  is,  there  is  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  with  Robert  Hall,  "  he  that  is  good  enough  for  Christ  is  good  enough 
for  me."  Alas,  our  churches  have  not  thought  so  ;  therefore,  our  history  is 
on  the  whole  a  melancholy  record.  The  ablest  expounder  of  the  New 
Testament  that  I  heard  when  a  student  in  Scotland  was  Morrison,  the 
founder  of  the  Evangelical  Union.  Him  the  United  Presbyterian  Church 
cast  out.  The  holiest  man  I  ever  knew  was  John  McLeod  Campbell,  whose 
work  on  the  "  Atonement "  is  the  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  great 
subject  that  the   nineteenth  century  has  produced.     Him   the  Church  of 


1504  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Scotland  cast  out.  The  most  brilliant  scholar  I  ever  met,  the  man  who 
could  have  done  the  church  greater  service  than  any  other  English  writer  in 
the  field  of  historical  criticism,  where  service  is  most  needed,  was  Robertson 
Smith.  Him  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  cast  out  from  his  chair.  Of 
course,  these  churches  are  ashamed  of  themselves  now,  but  think  of  what 
they  lost,  think  of  what  Christ  lost  by  their  sin,  and  if,  where  such  vast 
interests  are  concerned,  we  may  think  of  individuals,  think  of  the  unspeak- 
able crucifixion  of  soul  that  was  inflicted  on  the  victims.  It  would  ill 
become  me  to  suggest  that  you  do  not  do  these  things  better  in  the  United 
States.  Yet,  without  adverting  to  recent  cases  where  the  ashes  of  contro- 
versy are  not,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  saying,  that  the  church  which  cut  off 
at  one  stroke  the  Presbytery  of  New  Brunswick  and  subsequently  those  who 
formed  the  great  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church,  and  which  cut  off  at 
another  stroke  four  synods  without  a  trial,  need  not  hesitate  to  fall  on  its 
knees  with  the  rest  of  us  and  cry,  "  we  have  sinned."  Fathers  and  Brethren, 
God  give  us  the  grace  to  repent ;  and  strength  from  this  time  forth  to  go 
and  do  otherwise. 


CONGRESS   OF   THE    CUMBERLAND    PRESBY- 
TERIAN CHURCH. 

The  Rev.  David  M.  Harris,  D.D.,  of  St.  Louis,  presented  a  paper  on 
The  Doctrines  and  Genius  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church.  He 
said  :  "  Cumberland  Presbyterians  differ  from  other  orthodox  churches  on 
no  doctrines  absolutely  essential  to  salvation.  We  differ  from  other  Presby- 
terian churches'  standards  as  to  the  extent  of  the  atonement.  The  provisions 
of  salvation  are  coextensive  with  the  ruin  of  the  f^U  ;  the  salvation  of  Christ 
is  limited  to  believers.  The  application  of  the  atonement  is  not  limited  to 
an  elect  number.  Its  benefits  are  appropriated  by  an  individual  act  of 
faith.  If  none  but  regenerated  souls  can  exercise  faith,  salvation  is  con- 
ditioned, not  upon  belief  in  Jesus,  but  upon  some  arbitrary  decree.  If  a  man 
must  be  regenerated  before  he  can  believe,  he  is  saved  before  complying 
with  the  sole  condition  of  salvation.  God's  decrees  depend  on  his  fore- 
knowledge. We  cut  loose  from  all  doctrines  of  fatality  so  dishonoring  to 
God,  so  paralyzing  to  man.  Man  is  a  free  moral  agent,-  moral  because  free. 
Accountability  is  conditioned  upon  freedom,  a  freedom  arising  from  the 
nature  of  will  and  the  provisions  of  the  Gospel.  Whosoever  believeth  hath 
everlasting  life  ;  hence  our  doctrine  of  perseverance.  All  moral  powers  of 
the  universe  are  at  man's  disposal.  Perseverance  depends  on  the  nature  of 
the  covenant  of  grace.  The  renewed  will,  divine  providence  and  divine 
promise  cooperate  to  secure  eternal  life  to  man.  God's  pledge,  not  predes 
tination,  constitutes  man's  ground  of  everlasting  security.  Eternal  life  is 
God's  gift,  based,  not  upon  arbitrary  decree,  but  upon  a  condition.    Election 


CL'MI'.KKl.  AND    I'K  i:Sl'.\  1  1  .K  1  A  N   (  n.NCKI.sS. 

KKV.  !■;.  I).  i'i;ars(in. 

i^KV.  t',  II.  i;i:i.i.. 


KKV.  DAVID  M.  IIAKKIS 


95 


1506  THE    DExVOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

is  based  on  God's  foreknowled>je,  upon  man's  faith  and  good  works.  Else 
were  salvation  a  mechanical  operation  in  which  man  may  cooperate  or  not. 
To  select  a  certain  numijer  to  enjoy  its  blessings,  and  to  condemn  another 
number,  that  can  be  neither  increased  or  diminished,  is  arbitrary  and  merci- 
less. 1  speak  now  of  the  genius  of  Cumberland  Presbyterianism.  It  is 
Presbyterian  more  by  its  form  of  government  than  its  doctrinal  tenets.  It 
differs  in  no  essential  particular  from  Presbyterianism  in  Scotland  or  Amer- 
ica, yet  has  marked  peculiarities.  It  is  American,  democratic,  tolerant.  It 
grants  large  liberty  to  ministers  and  theological  teachers.  They  are  in  no 
danger  of  being  branded  as  heretics  if  they  entertain  their  own  views  on 
any  important  doctrine.  We  have  never  had  a  heresy  trial  of  more  than 
local  interest.  In  eighty  years  of  existence  we  have  never  been  threatened 
with  doctrinal  schism.  Again,  this  church  is  noted  for  cohesiveness.  It  has 
stood  calamity  after  calamity  without  loss  of  identity.  It  withstood  civil 
war  without  being  rent  asunder.  No  sooner  waj  it  ended  than  Cumberland 
Presbyterians  from  both  sides  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  held  fraternal 
intercourse.  Another  characteristic  is  loyalty  to  humanity.  The  spirit  of 
brotherhood  is  more  powerful  than  that  of  caste.  Out  of  3,000  churches  not 
one  rents  pews.  We  are  a  missionary  church.  While  we  do  not  give  as 
largely  as  older  churches,  we  are  in  our  building  period,  erecting  churches, 
endowing  colleges  and  schools,  and  supporting  the  destitute.  Our  ministers 
have  planted  thousands  of  churches  without  aid  from  any  board,  or  support. 
Thousands  have,  while  establishing  churches  among  the  poor,  worked  with 
their  own  hands.  In  Chicago  are  men  preaching  at  their  own  charges. 
Born  in  the  revival  of  1800  our  church  believes  in  such  methods,  and  the 
congregation  that  does  not  enjoy  periodic  revivals  is  not  prosperous.  Our 
growth  has  come  almost  exclusively  from  such  ingatherings.  Finally,  Cum- 
berland Presbyterianism  is  liberal." 

Rev.  C.  H.  Bell,  D.D.,  of  St.   Louis,  spoke  on   "  The  Mission  of   the 
Cumberland    Presbyterian  Church." 

This  church  has  from  its  birth  stood  for  an  evangelizing  Christianity.  Of  the 
three  causes  which  in  18 10  resulted  in  separate  church  action  by  the  revival 
party  not  the  least  was  the  lack  of  evangelical  spirit.  Other  Presbyleiians 
are  to  day  as  evangelical  as  Cumberland  Presbyterians,  but  those  who  then 
constituted  the  new  church  were  distinctly  evangelical  in  doctrine,  spirit  and 
method.  Cumberland  Presbyterians  have  met  a  felt  want  in  that  they  have 
fulfilled  their  mission  in  presenting  to  Christians  partial  to  the  Presbyterian 
form  of  government  a  home  in  which  creed,  teachings  and  polity  are  in  full 
accord.  It  was  our  mission  to  modify  Presbyterian  doctrinal  teachings,  hav- 
ing been  the  first  to  revise  the  standards  and  to  free  them  from  objectionable 
statements.  It  will  in  future  be  our  mission  to  expound  and  enforce  inspired 
truth  of  which  the  revised  confession  is  the  truest  symbol.  To  take  real  and 
active  part  in  preaching  and  teaching,  in  bearing  testimony  throughout  the 
home-land  and  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  is  our  supreme,  and  should 


REFORMED    EPISCOPAL.  "  .     I507 

be  our  all-absorbing,  mission.  For  this  only,  does  any  church  organization 
worthily  exist.  No  association  assuming  to  be  a  church  can  maintain  the 
right  to  be  recognized  as  such  unless  it  employ  its  forces  in  extending  the 
Redeemer's  kingdom.  Hence  it  is  our  mission  to  sound  out  the  Gospel  in  all 
lands.  For  this  we  have  the  heaven-given  right  to  exist,  sharing  the  toils  and 
enjoying  the  blessedness  of  service  with  all  Christians  workers. 

Rev.  E.  D.  Pearson,  D.D.,  of  Marshall,  Missouri,  spoke  on  "  The  His- 
tory and  Condition  of  Cumberland  Presbyterian  School." 

Educational  agencies  comprise  the  pulpit,  the  school,  the  press  and  know- 
ledge. Our  church  being  of  humble  origin  and  not  possessing  wealth  had  a 
severe  struggle  to  reach  her  present  educational  attainments.  Among  the  first 
efforts  to  supply  the  demand  for  preacliSng  was  the  location  of  a  college  at 
Princeton,  Kentucky.  In  after  years  we  educated  our  own  sons  and  daughters. 
We  have  Cumberland  University  at  Lebanon,  Tenn.;  Trinity  University  at  Tex- 
arkana,  Texas ;  Lincoln  University  at  Lincoln,  Ills.;  Waynesburg  College  at 
Waynesburg,  Tenn.;  Missouri  Valley  College  at  Marshall,  Mo.;  and  a  theo- 
logical seminary  at  Lebanon,  Tenn.  All  are  supplied  with  thoroughly  quali- 
fied professors.  We  have  many  schools  and  seminaries  doing  commendable 
work  but  unendowed.  Nearly  all  our  young  ministers  attend  our  theological 
seminary.  I  am  unable  to  state  the  aggregate  endowments  or  the  number  of 
pupils.  Never  have'  our  educational  interests  been  so  healthy,  and  schools 
and  colleges  are  ample  for  present  necessities.  Comparing  our  numerical 
strength  and  educational  facilities  with  those  of  sister  denominations,  we  do 
not  fall  behind  them  in  educational  work.  Present  attainments  betoken  future 
advance  far  surpassing  that  of  the  past.  Our  motto  is,  and  will  be  :  Onward 
and  upward. 


THE   CONGRESS   OF  THE   REFORMED    EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH. 

THE  HISTORIC  POSITION  OF  THE  REFORMED  EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH. 

By  the  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  Edward   Cheney,  D.D.,  Bishop 
OF  the  Synod  of  Chicago. 

The  Reformed  Episcopal  Church  is  simply  a  return  to  the  cardinal 
principles  of  the  Reformers  who  founded  the  Church  of  England,  and  a 
completion  of  the  work  which  they  sought  to  accomplish,  but  which  was 
checked  by  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  policy  of  Elizabeth  and  her  suc- 
cessors. 

The  causes. — The  most  distinctive  feature  of  the  Church  of  England  and 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  is  a  precomposed  form  of  public  worship. 
Such  a  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  obligatory  upon  all  congregations,  becomes 
a  most  efficient  educator  either  for  truth  or  error,  according  as  it  is  script- 


1508  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

ural  or  unscriptural.  The  men  who  founded  the  Church  of  England  had 
been  educated  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  only  gradually  came  into  the 
light.  The  first  prayer  book,  known  as  the  First  Prayer  Book  of  King 
Edward  VI.,  contained  many  errors.  That  liturgy  taught  that  the  Supper 
was  a  renewal  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  the  communion  table  an  "  altar," 
and  the  officiating  minister  a  sacrificing  "  priest."  Wjthin  three  years  from 
the  publication  of  the  first  prayer  book,  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  led 
Cranmer  and  his  associates  to  the  preparation  of  another  (A.D.  IS53)-  I' 
expunged  the  doctrine  that  the  "  real  presence  "  was  a  presence  in  the  bread 
and  in  the  wine.  It  distinctly  taught  that  kneeling  implied  no  worship  or 
adoration  of  the  elements.  It  also  forbade  auricular  confession.  After  the 
brief  reaction  under  Mary,  the'  counselors  of  Elizabeth  sought  to  recon- 
cile her  popish  subjects, by  changes  in  the  Prayer  Book.  In  the  same  liturgy 
were  the  germs  of  two  radically  different  systems.  The  work  of  the  Reform- 
ers was  weakened  and  changed  by  the  introduction  of  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices based  on  the  Church  of  Rome. 

In  the  United  States,  long  before  the  birth  of  the  Reformed  Episcopal 
Church,  the -Low  Church  party  felt  that  the  only  way  to  preserve  Protes- 
tantism in  the  Episcopal  Church,  was  to  eliminate  the  Romish  teachings 
from  the  Liturgy.  Petitions  for  such  revision  met  with  no  favor  from  the 
majority.  Those  who  advocated  revision  were  treated  as  disloyal.  The 
desire  of  the  Evangelical  party  for  revision  in  the  interests  of  Bible  truth 
overshadowed  all  other  causes. 

Inimediate  occasion  of  organization. — Both  systems  grew  apace.  Out  of 
Roman  doctrines  developed  ritualism.  But  on  the  other  side  was  growth 
also.  The  younger  Evangelicals  formed  a  society  for  thorough  study 
of  the  English  Reformation,  and  of  the  evolution  of  the  Liturgy.  The 
result  of  this  investigation  was  to  turn  their  minds  from  the  outward 
phenomena  of  mere  ritualism  to  its  causes.  Those  causes  lay  in  the 
very  structure  of  the  Prayer  Book.  It  became  perfectly  evident  that 
nothing  short  of  a  Protestant  revision  of  the  Prayer  Book  could  save 
the  church  from  its  steady  drift  toward  Romanism.  To  such  revision 
the  Evangelical  element  had  just  claim  in  that  the  second  Prayer  Book  of 
Edward  VI.  was  free  from  these  false  teachings.  That  liturgy,  rather  than 
the  later  product  of  the  effort  to  conciliate  Roman  Catholic  subjects,  should 
be  the  standard  of  a  church  which  the  Reformers  founded.  By  private 
efforts  and  by  great  public  meetings  they  pushed  the  cause  of  revision.  Nat- 
urally the  breach  grew  wider,  until  it  became  clear  that  only  by  a  separation 
could  revision  be  accomplished.  Why,  if  this  conviction  of  the  necessity  of 
a  separate  organization  in  order  to  secure  once  more  the  liturgy  of  Reforma- 
tion days  was  so  entertained,  did  it  take  practical  form  only  in  December, 
1873  ?  These  advocates  of  revision  knew  that  what  was  needed  was  a 
thoroughly  Episcopal  Church.  While  rejecting  as  unscriptural  the  notion 
of  apostolic  succession  in  the  bishops,  they  held  to  historic  succession  in  the 


REFORMED    EPISCOPAL.  I  509 

episcopate.  They  regarded  it  as  an  essential  feature  not  of  all  Christian 
churches,  but  of  a  truly  Episcopal  church,  that  a  bishop  should  perpetuate 
his  office,  and  that  the  episcopate  should  be  continued  by  the  consecration 
of  each  bishop  by  one  who  had  similarly  received  his  authority.  Thus,  such 
a  church  must  "claim  an  unbroken  historical  connection  through  the  Church 
of  England  with  the  Church  of  Christ  from  the  earliest  Christian  era."  To 
the  argument  that  the  custom  is  for  three  bishops  to  act  in  the  consecration 
to  the  episcopate,  and  that  consecration  by  only  one  was  invalid,  the  reply 
is  overwhelming.  The  Church  of  England  and  the  Protestant  Episcopa' 
Church  have  recognized  the  full  validity  of  the  episcopate  of  the  "Old  Cath- 
olic Church  "  of  Germany,  whose  first  bishop  had  but  one  consecrator.  High 
churchmen,  including  Dr.  Chapin,  the  learned  author  of  a  standard  work  on 
"  The  Primitive  Church,"  Bishop  Arthur  Cleveland  Coxe,  Canon  Liddon, 
and  even  Dr.  Pusey,  have  put  themselves  on  record  that  consecration  by  one 
bishop  is  valid.  In  November,  1873,  the  Rt.  Rev.  George  David  Cummins, 
D.D.,  Assistant  Bishop  of  Kentucky,  appeared  as  the  leader.  Firmly  con- 
vinced that  revision  of  the  Prayer  Book  would  alone  save  the  Episcopal 
Church  from  Romish  error,  and  that  such  revision  could  never  be  secured 
without  separation,  he  called  a  meeting  of  his  brethren,  clerical  and  lay,  not 
to  tear  down,  but  to  build  up.  He  would  lead  to  restore  the  foundations  of 
the  church  and  liturgy  of  the  Edwardcan  reformers.  Timidity  restrained 
the  vast  majority  of  the  ofd  Low  Church  party  from  participation.  A  mere 
handful,  without  one  organized  parish  in  existence,  without  any  pledges  of 
means  for  sustaining  the  effort,  and  in  the  face  of  bitter  opposition,  not  only 
from  natural  adversaries  but  from  former  associates  in  the  Low  Church 
party,  brought  into  being  "The  Reformed  Episcopal  Church."  They  rec- 
ommended temporary  use  of  "  the  Prayer  Book  of  1785,"  a  liturgy  largely 
prepared  by  Bishop  White,  and  on  the  basis  of  which  he  was  given  conse- 
cration to  the  episcopate  by  the  Church  of  England.  This  was  replaced 
within  two  years  by  a  careful  revision  of  the  standard  Prayer  Book,  in  which 
only  such  alterations  were  made  as  were  absolutely  necessary  to  fidelity  to 
the  Scriptures,  and  to  restore  the  work  of  the  English  Reformers. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to  trace  the  later  progress  of  this 
truly  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  But  through  disasters,  and  in  spite  of 
opposition,  it  has  grown.  Its  parishes  are  found  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific.  It  has  established  itself  in  Great  Britain.  Its  growth,  gauged  by 
historical  tests,  has  been  singularly  rapid.  Even  the  great  Wesleyan  church 
did  not  show  such  progress  in  its  first  twenty  years. 

The  Rt.  Rev.  Samuel  Fallows,  D.D.,  Presiding  Bishop,  spoke  on  "The 
Outlook  and  Field. 

Our  creed  is  not  a  cast-iron  frame,  but  like  that  skin  which  contains 
but  does  not  compress  the  body.  It  can  state  every  article  in  the  very  lan- 
guage of  Scripture,  and  thus  it  rests  upon  the  pure  teaching  of  God.  It  has 
brought  into  one  sphere  the  teachings  of  philosophy,  experience,  and  the 
infallible  Word. 


I  5  10  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

"  Every  man  when  he  prays  is  a  Calvinist,  and  when  he  preaches,  an 
Arminian."  This  church  brings  the  Calvinist  anil  Arminian  side  by  side. 
It  firmly  holds  with  the  Jew  the  unbroken  unity  of  God,  with  the  Unitar- 
ian the  oneness  of  the  Divine  Being  and  the  complete  humanity  of  Christ, 
with  the  Swedenborgian  the  Supreme  Deity  of  him  who  was  God  manifest 
in  the  flesh,  and  with  the- Primitive  Church  the  threeness  in  one  of  Father, 
Son  and  Holy  Ghost. 

It  has  carefully  provided  that  it  shall  not  have  hierarchs  to  lord  it 
over  God's  heritage.  The  general  council,  the  creation  of  the  clergy  and 
laity,  has  the  supreme  authoiity  in  the  ratification  of  the  election,  and  in. the 
consecration  of  its  bishops,  and  these  bishops  are  simply  first  among  their 
equals,  the  presbyters.  Above  bishops,  that  general  council  rises  as  the 
representative  of  the  entire  communion,  before  whose  legislation  and 
decisions  all  must  bow.  Woman  brings  her  counsel  and  vote  to  the  parish 
meeting.  This  church  is  flexible  in  polity.  It  is  endeavoring  to  adapt  its, 
methods  to  each  unfolding  period  of  time.  It  will  sacrifice  neither  meas- 
ures nor  men  to  the  unyielding  rigor  of  an  ecclesiastical  system.  Denying 
that  any  special  fcrm  of  church  government  is  an  absolutely  divine  appoint- 
ment, and  yet  justly  prizing  its  historic  episcopate,  it  will  be  pliant  in  every 
form  of  its  outward  economy  that  by  all  means  it  may  save  some.  The 
vital  truth  for  which  the  Congregationalist  contends  —  the  virtual  independ- 
ence of  the  local  church —  is  secured  by  the  system  which  this  church  has 
adopted.  All  communicants  and  stated  contributors  of  lawful  age,  have 
their  voice  in  the  election  of  the  officers  of  the  local  church,  and  all  such 
communicants  a  voice  in  the  election  of  representatives  in  general  council. 
Individualism  has  been  fully  recognized,  but  so  has  organization.  These 
grand  elements  in  progress  are  nowhere  so  completely  manifest  in  a  church 
organization  as  in  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church.  Thus  by  environment, 
doctrines,  polity,  broad  Christian  fraternity,  this  church,  the  last  born  and 
so  best  born,  is  prepared  to  meet  the  problems  which  confront  society,  and 
to  help  bring  about  practical  unity  of  the  various  branches  of  the  Church. 
It  is  also-  preeminently  fitted  to  bring  the  outlying  masses  in  living  touch 
and  sympathy  with  the  church.  Its  leading  ministers  and  laymen  are 
identified  with  all  movements  which  look  to  social  advancement,  and  thus 
to  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  With  them  the  question  is  how  to 
lift  men  through  loving  faith  in  the  Divine  Christ  to  the  glorious  prerogative 
of  the  sons  of  God. 

The  Rev.   Benjamin  T.  Noakes,  D.D.,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  presented  a 
paper  on  the  Doctrinal  Positions  of  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church. 

Mrs.  Alexander  C.  Tyng,  of  Peoria,  prepared  a  paper  on  Minor  Issues 
of  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church. 


CONGRESS  OF  THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  THE 

UNITED  STATES. 

This  congress  opened  at  the  Hall  of  Washington  on  September  2 1st. 
Papers  were  presented  from  the  Rev.  Wm.  Rupp,  D.D.,  of  Penn.,  from  Rev. 
T.  G.  Appei,  D.D.,  of  Penn.,  on  "  The  Progress  of  Theology  in  the  Reformed 
Church  in  the  U.  S." ;  by  Rev.  J.  H.  Dabbs,  D.D.,  of  Penn.,  on  "  The  Pro- 
gress of  a  Century,  1793-1893; "  by  Rev.  J.  A.  Peters,  D.D.,  of  Ohio,  on 
"  The  Literary  and  Theological  Institutions  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  the 
U.  S."  ;  by  Rev.  E.  R.  Eschbach,  D.D.,  of  Md.,  on  "  Our  Practical,  Benevo- 
lent Operations  ;  "  and  by  others. 

Dr.  Rupp  said,  among  other  things  :  "  The  Reformed  Church  is  an 
historical  church.  She  has  a  true  historical  origin  and  life.  She  is  not  an 
absolute  creation  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  on  the  contrary  has  her  roots 
in  the  past  being  and  life  of  the  church  universal  Hence  also  she  has  ever 
been  endowed  with  a  true  historical  sense  and  feeling  that  does  not  will- 
ingly break  with  the  past,  she  has  always  been  conservative  and  churchly, 
opposed  only  to  that  which  is  contrary  to  the  Word  of  God.  She  has  always 
preserved  the  churchly  style  of  architecture  in  her  houses  of  worship.  She 
has  always  recognized  the  altar  in  her  sanctuaries.  She  has  never  doubted 
the  propriety  of  organs,  of  church  bells,  or  of  hymns  of  modern  composition. 
She  has  preserved  the  church  year  with  its  sacred  seasons  and  memories. 
She  has  always  insisted  on  an  educated  ministry.  But  she  has  never  ceased 
to  practice  catechization  and  confirmation  as  the  best  method  of  bringing 
her  baptized  children  and  young  people  into  full  communion. 

But  the  Reformed  Church  is  also  progressive.  She  looks  to  the  future 
as  well  as  to  the  past.  Her  professor  of  theology  at  Mercersburg  aston- 
ished the  world  by  teachings  theory  of  historical  development  long  before 
the  names  of  Darwin  and  Spencer  were  heard  of.  History  means  progress- 
ive development  ;  and  this  implies  change.  In  the  progress  of  the  future 
there  will  be  some  day  an  American  church.  In  that  process  of  unifica- 
tion, as  well  as  in  the  works  of  converting  the  world  now,  the  Reformed 
Church,  whose  peculiarity  it  is  that  she  has  no  peculiarity,  will  have  a  work 
to  perform.  Her  Christological  theology,  putting  Christ  in  the  center  of 
her  faith,  will  especially  fit  her  for  the  work  of  mediation  and  reconciliation." 
Dr.  Appel's  paper  asked  the  question  :  "  Has  the  Reformed  Church  in  the 
United  States  really  produced  an  independent  theology  ?  I  think  we  may  say- 
it  has  in  its  general  spirit,  though  some  differences  have  been  developed  in 
the  different  theological  schools  of  the  church.  True,  there  is  no  one  system 
formulated  that  would  satisfy  in  all  its  details  all  these  theological  schools 
But  it  will  be  found,  we  thmk,  that  the  theological  agitations,  through  which 

15" 


1512  THE    DENQMlNATIOxMAL   CONGRESSES. 

the  church  has  passed,  have  led  to  a  type  of  theological  teaching  in  all  our 
theological  seminaries  which  is  distinctive.  Its  general  type  is,  of  course, 
reformed,  but  it  is  also  reformed  after  the  confession  of  the  Reformed  Church 
of  the  Palatinate  on  the  Rhine. 

Among  the  Reformed  churches  of  this  country  holding  the  Presbyterian 
polity  or  system,  our  reformed  theology  lays  more  stress,  we  believe,  than 
others,  upon  faithful  catechetical  instruction  as  a  means  of  preparing  the 
baptized  members  for  admission  to  full  communion  in  the  church.  The  sys- 
tem of  the  catechism  centers  in  the  believers'  personal  union  with  Christ, 
which  necessitates  the  view,  then,  that  the  person  of  Christ  is  central  in 
Christianity,  and  so  it  must  also  be  in  theology." 

Dr.  Peters  summed  up  the  facts  relative  to  the  literary  and  theological 
institutions  in  the  following  paragraph:  "The  whole  number  of  these  is 
nineteen.  In  five  of  these  institutions  instruction  in  theology  is  given;  four 
are  for  women  exclusively;  while  in  the  majority  of  the  others  the  principle 
of  co-education  has  been  adopted.  The  estimated  value  of  property,  in 
lands,  buildings,  and  scientific  apparatus  of  these  institutions  approximates 
an  aggregate  of  ^^700,000.  The  approximate  estimate  of  permanent  pro- 
ductive funds  is  $400,000.  The  number  of  teachers  of  theology  employed  is 
seventeen.  About  one  hundred  instructors  are  engaged  in  the  literary  insti- 
tutions; and  about  1,600  students  have  been  in  attendance  during 'the  past 
year.  The  number  of  graduates  sent  out  from  the  two  oldest  literary  insti- 
tutions and  from  the  oldest  college  for  women  has  been  1,480.  The  several 
theological  seminaries  have  graduated  fully  1,000  students." 

A  summary  of  Dr.  Eschbach's  paper  is  as  follows  :  Home  missions  were 
begun  in  1800  in  a  limited  way,  and  developed  with  the  growth  of  the  coun- 
try. Besides  support  of  evangelistic  movements  and  weak  churches  in  the 
West,  missions  are  carried  on  in  behalf  of  immigrants  at  New  York  harbor 
and  among  the  Hungarians.  Congregational  missionary  societies  and  the 
Women's  Society  have  been  formed.  The  whole  number  of  missions  on  the 
roll  of  the  Home  Board,  June  i,  1893,  was  137;  the  amount  of  money 
expended  the  past  year  was  almost  ;J40,000.  These  missions  comprehend 
140  congregations  and  9,210  communicant  members. 

The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  was  organized  in  1838.  The  work  is 
done  almost  entirely  at  Sendai  in  Japan.  Eight  adults  are  laboring  there. 
A  girls'  school,  a  college  for  men  and  boys,  a  theological  training  school, 
four  self-supporting  congregations,  twelve  organized  mission  churches, 
thirty-two  preaching  stations,  nine  native  ministers,  sixteen  unordained 
preachers,  three  colporteurs,  three  Bible  women,  and  1,842  communicant 
members  are  the  fruit  of  this  work.  The  mission  contributed  toward  self- 
support  last  year  $3,046.70. 

Beneficiary  education  is  in  charge  of  a  Beneficiary  Board.  The  aid 
usually  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  loan,  which  the  recipient  is  expected  to 
repay. 


kEFORMED  CHURCH   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.         I  513 

A  Board  of  Publication  was. organized  in  1844,  reorganized  and  estab- 
lished at  Philadelphia  in  1864.  The  Reformed  Publishing  Company,  with 
its  headquarters  at  Dayton,  O.,  and  the  German  Publishing  House,  located 
at  Cleveland,  O.,  are  two  other  publishing  establishments  under  the  direction 
of  particular  synods.  These  houses  publish  in  German  and  English  the 
hymn  books,  catechisms,  periodicals  and  other  documents  of  the  church. 

Sunday  schools  for  catechetical  instruction  have  an  important  place  in 
the  church  work,  though  but  slowly  appreciated,  owing  to  the  prior  occupa- 
tion of  the  field  by  the  parochiai  school.  In  1887  a  Sunday  School  Board 
was  organized.  In  1892,  1,563  organized  Sunday-schools,  containing  149,023 
scholars  were  reported. 

Among  benevolent  enterprises  are  to  be  mentioned  the  Bethany  Orphans' 
Home  at  VVommelsdorf,  Pa.,  where  450  children  have  been  cared  for;  the 
St.  Paul's  Orphans'  Home  at  Butler,  Pa.,  where  65  children  are  now  accom- 
modated ;  the  Orphans'  Home  at  Ft.  Wayne,  Ind.,  where  the  number  of 
children  is  58  ;  the  Yoar  Asylum  at  Detroit,  Mich.,  for  both  aged  and 
orphans;  the  Society  for  the  Relief  of  Ministers  and  their  Widows,  whose 
assets  are  ^532,656.79,  consisting  in  invested  funds  and  collections  from  the 
churches. 

The  paper  of  Rev.  J.  H.  Dabbs,  D.D.,  reviewed  the  history  of  a  century. 
After  tracing  the  history  of  affairs  in  the  mother  country,  he  continued, 
"The  Synod  of  the  German  Reformed  Church,  as  constituted  in  Lancaster, 
Pa.,  on  the  27th  of  April,  1793,  was  by  no  means  a  large  or  imposing  body. 
Thirteen  ministers  were  present,  and  nine  others  are  recorded  as  absent. 
Tiiere  are  no  extant  statistics ;  but  by  piecing  together  the  reports  of  earlier 
and  later  years,  it  is  possible  to  construct  a  table  which  may  be  presumed  to 
be  approximately  correct.  In  these  early  reports  the  number  of  families  alone 
is  given;  but  we  may  safely  reckon  three  communicants  to  every  family. 
In  this  way  it  appears  that  the  churches  connected  with  Synod  numbered,  in 
1793,  about  ten  thousand  confirmed  members.  Of  the  period  from  1793  to 
1825  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there  was  a  more  discouraging  one  in  our 
history,  and  it  is  only  by  taking  our  place  at  its  end  and  looking  backward 
that  we  discern  real  progress.  A  theological  seminary  had  been  founded. 
The  number  of  ministers  had  increased  from  22  to  87,  besides  nine  pastors 
who  belonged  to  a  schismatic  synod.  The  statistics  of  the  mother  synod,  when 
made  up  from  various  sources,  seem  to  indicate  that  the  number  of  communi- 
cants was  23,291.  The  membership  of  the  church  had,  therefore,  more  than 
doubled,  and  however  it  may  be  explained,  this  gloomy  period  was  in  fact  a 
season  of  actual  progress. 

"Shifting  the  scene  to  1863,  the  concluding  year  of  the  second  period 
of  our  independent  existence,  we  behold  a  surprising  change.  There  had 
been  conflicts  indeed,  and  losses,  but  the  church  was  evidently  pervaded  by 
a  new  life.  The  centre,  if  not  the  source,  of  that  new  life  was  undoubtedly 
the   Theological  Seminary  at  Mercersburg.      It  was  there  that  Rauch  wrote 


ISM  TFIE    DENOMINATIONAL  CONGRESSES. 

his  "  I'sychology,"  Nevin  published  his  "  Mystical  Presence,"  and  Schaff 
began  his  series  of  church  histories  which  are  known  and  admired  of  all 
men.  The  little  town  of  Mercersburg  gave  its  name  to  a  system  of  philoso- 
phy and  theology  which  was  hailed  by  some  as  a  glorious  light,  and  by 
others  as  a  destructive  heresy.  During  this  period  the  number  of  ministers 
increased  to  447  ;  there  were  1099  congregations  and  98,775  confirmed  mem- 
bers. The  Reformed  Church  had,  therefore,  in  the  second  period  of  this 
independent  existence,  more  than  quadrupled  its  ministry  and  membership. 
The  benevolent  contributions  of  the  tercentenary  year  were  $108,125.98. 

"  A  single  glance  at  our  records  shows  that  we  have  now  one  general 
synod,  eight  district  synods,  and,  in  round  numbers,  900  ministers  and  215,- 
000  members.  In  thirty  years  the  church  has  more  than  doubled  its  ministry 
and  membership.  A  chief  cause  of  its  prosperity  must  be  sought  in  its  lib- 
eral and  comprehensive  character.  The  pioneers  came  from  different  countries 
each_of  which  had  its  local  confessions  of  faith,  and  by  common  consent 
retained  the  Heidelberg  Catechism  alone — the  confession  whicli  was  most 
^broad  and  liberal  and  ecumenical.      -       . 

"During  its  whole  history  the  Reformed  Church  in  the  United  States  has 
taken  the  most  advanced  ground  on  the  subject  of  Christian  Union.  The 
proposed  union  with  the  Presbyterians  as  early  as  1743  ;  the  plan  to  introduce 
the  German  church-union  into  this  country,  about  18 19  ;  and  the  more  recent 
negotiations  with  the  Reformed  Church  in  America,  all  indicate  that  we  are 
willing  to  go  more  than  half-way  in  our  mutual  efforts  to  realize  the  grand 
ideal  of  our  Master."         ,      " 


PRESENTATION  OF  THE  SWEDISH  EVANGELICAL 
MISSION  COVENANT  IN  AMERICA. 

This  Congress  was  held  on  September  27,  and  papers  were  read  on  the 
history  and  present  condition  of  this  body.  The  history  of  the  Free  Religious 
movement  from  its  rise  in  north  Sweden  to  its  appearance  in  America  and 
growth  in  the  United  States  is  full  of  interest  to  the  lovers  of  spiritual  relig- 
ion. Its  first  leader  was  a  layman,  Rosenius,  who  by  his  preaching  and 
through  the  influence  of  his  magazine  Pletesteti  was  the  means  of  starting  a 
profound  and  lasting  revival  of  religion  in  many  parts  of  Sweden.  He  did 
not  withdraw  from  the  state  church  nor  did  he  encourage  others  to  withdraw, 
though  he  set  in  motion  the  impulses  which  brought  about  separation.  Upon 
his  death  in  1868,  his  work  was  taken  up  by  Prof.  P.  Waldenstrom,  Ph.D.. 
D.D.,  an  eminent  clergyman.  Under  him  Pieteslen  became  a  greater  power 
than  before.  Rosenius  had  marvelous  insight  into  the  human  heart  and 
knew  how  to  touch  and  move  men.  Waldenstrom's  strength  lay  in  his  insight 
into  the  Word  of  God  and  his  power  of  literary  expression.  The  work  cul- 
minated in  a  great  revival,  which  in  the  seventies  spread  all  over  Sweden. 


SWEDISH   KVANCF.I.ICAI.  MISSION  COVKNANT  CONGRESS. 
RKV.  I).  \VVA[.[.. 
kKV.  N'.  TkVK.MAN.  Ki;\'.  C  A.  IIJORK. 

KKV.  K.  wr,.  sK()(;si;kk(;. 

IvKV.  A.  IIAI.I.NKR.  RKV.  '  i  Tio  I  l(i(  ;KKr.Dl'. 

KK\'.  J.  A.  [ILT/IMAX. 


15^^  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Doctrinal  differences,  and  especially  the  question  as  to  who  should  partake 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  whether  believers  in  heart  or  also  those  formally  mem- 
bers of  the  state  church,  led  to  the  formation  of  free  societies  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  new  missionary  society  called  the  Swedish  Mission  Covenant, 
and  E.  J.  Ekman,  D.D.,  was  chosen  as  its  President.  Waldenstrom's  posi- 
tion towards  the  movement  has  been  friendly,  though  he  has  not  identified 
himself  entirely  with  it.  '  The  Covenant  has  engaged  in  widespread  mission 
activity  both  at  home  and  among  the  heathen. 

The  Free  Mission  movement  in  America  is  an  offshoot  of  the  original 
Swedish  Covenant,  its  members  being  either-  directly  connected  with  the 
home  body  or  influenced  by  its  literature  and  ideas.  In  1868,  in  Chicago, 
the  Mission  Church  was  established  and  incorporated  with  a  charter  permit- 
ting the  ordination  of  ministers.  Other  churches  springing  up  in  various 
towns  united  with  this  church  to  form  the  Swedish  Evangelical  Lutheran 
Mission  Synod  in  1873.  Another  Synod,  the  Swedish  Evangelical  Ansgarii 
Synod,  was  organized  in  1874.  The  two  bodies  united  in  1885  into  the 
Swedish  Evangelical  Mission  Covenant  in  America. 

The  Covenant  body  in  Sweden  numbers  about  800  churches,  with  a 
membership  of  .about  130,000.  It  has  missions  in  China,  Persia,  Russia  and 
Siberia,  and  on  the  Congo,  under  about  fifty  missionaries.  It  is  more  diffi- 
cult to  give  statistics  of  the  American  movement,  as  many  churches  work  in 
its  line  without  formally  uniting  with  it.  There  is  no  exaggeration  in  say- 
ing that  it  comprehends  a  membership  of  from  forty  to  fifty  thousand,  includ- 
ing about  350  churches,  of  which  1 16  have  formally  joined  the  Covenant, 
with  about  250  ministers  and  ten  missionaries  in  Alaska  and  five  in  China. 
The  college  and  semmary  had  last  year  150  students,  and  five  professors  and 
instructors.  The  hospital,  called  the  Swedish  Home  of  Mercy,  located  at 
Bowmanville  (Chicago),  111.,  accommodates  fifty  patients. 

The  basis  of  the  movement  is  the  Church  idea,  that  a  Christian  church 
is  a  free  union  of  persons  united  by  the  same  spiritual  life  on  the  foundation 
o'  a  common  faith  in  Christ  and  brotherly  love  and  confidence,  and  that  this 
union  ought  to  be  held  open  to  everyone  believing  in  Jesus  Christ  and  lead- 
ing a  true  Christian  life,  without  consideration  of  different  creeds  as  far  as 
these  do  not  deny  the  Word  of  God  and  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Script- 
ures. Each  such  church  is  self-governing  and  owes  no  authority  above  its 
own  in  all  local  matters.  Through  the  Covenant  each  church  is  bound 
closely  together  with  all  the  other  churches.  This  Covenant  is  not  a  church 
organization  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  a  mission  society  having  churches  as 
its  members.  These  churches  have  consolidated  because  of  the  missionary 
spirit  which  led  them  to  missionary  enterprises  too  large  for  any  single 
church  to  undertake. 

This  union  for  missionary  purposes  led,  however,  to  a  more  intimate 
consolidation  because  of  that  new  responsibility  which  this. union  gave  each 
church,  not  only  in  regard  to  the  common  missions,  but  also  in  regard  to  the 


THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY.  1517 

very  character  of  every  other  church.  To  the  annual  general  assembly  each 
church,  large  or  small,  is  free  to  send  two  delegates.  And  as  the  churches 
themselves,  through  the  delegates,  are  the  true  members  of  the  Jissembly, 
they  are  responsible  forthe  decisions  made.  Only  the  general  assembly  has 
power  to  admit  new  churches  mto  the  Covenant.  And  should  a  certain 
church  fall  so  grossly  in  errors  of  doctrine  or  life  as  to  forfeit  its  right  to 
be  further  called  a  Christian  church  the  Assembly  has  power  to  sever  such  a 
church  from  the  union.  Accordingly  each  church  stands  to  the  Covenant  in 
the  very  same  position  as  each  individual  to  the  church.  Both  stand  there 
of  free  choice,  both  h&ve  their  free  vote,  and  both  are,  after  the  vote  is  casty 
bound  to  the  decision  of  the  majority. 

There  is  no  common  fixed  creed  o*  special  doctrine  which. binds  the 
churches  together,  yet  they  are  harmonious  in  faith  and  preaching,  being  in 
sympathy  with  evangelical  orthodoxy  and  holding  to  the  New  Testament  as 
the  standard  of  life  and  thought.  Where  differences  of  theology  coexist 
with  a  pure  Christian  life  and  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  these  are  permitted  to . 
exist  as  unavoidable  in  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  truth.  Neither  is  there 
a  common  ritual  or  discipline,  not  even  for  baptism,  the  Lord's  Supper,  mar- 
riage, etc.  Each  preacher  and  each  church  is  free  to  adopt  their  own  order. 
The  harmony  m  the  midst  of  this  diversity  is  largely  owing  to  the  lively  and 
intimate  intercourse  of  churches  and  preachers.  Hospitality  is  especially 
insisted  on.  and  the  mission  conferences  held  by  each  church  once  or  twice 
a  year  are  attended  by  all  the  preachers  in  the  district.  Thus  the  churches 
know  all  the  preachers  and  the  preachers  are  at  home  in  all  the  churches. 
Great  emphasis  is  laid  in  preaching  on  the  word  for-word  exegesis  of  a 
Bible  text,  on  the  ground  that  the  pulpit  finds  its  only  justification  for  exist- 
ence in  expounding  the  very  words  of  the  Word  of  God. 


PRESENTATION    OF    THE    THEOSOPHICAL 

SOCIETY. 

By  William  Q.  Judge,  of  New  York. 

Held  September  isth  and  i6th  in  the  Art  Institute. 

The  Theosophical  Society  is  an  international  organization  with  three 
objects,  which  are  :  First,  to  establish  the  nucleus  of  an  universal  brother- 
hood without  distinctions  of  race,  creed,  sex,  caste,  or  color;  Second,  to 
promote  the  study  of  Aryan  and  other  religions,  literatures,  and  sciences,  and 
demonstrate  the  importance  of  that  study.  Third,  to  investigate  unexplained 
laws  of  nature  and  the  psychical  powers  latent  in  man.  It  was  founded  in 
New  York  in  November,  1875,  since  when  it  has  spread  until  it  now  has 
branches  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 

Looking  at  the  religious  side  of  the  movement,  the  claim  is  made  that 


I518  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

an  impartial  study  of  history,  religion,  and  literature  will  show  the  existence 
from  ancient  times  of  a  great  body  of  philosophical,  scientific  and  ethical 
doctrine  forming  the  basis  and  origin  of  all  similar  thought  in  modern  sys- 
tems. This  ancient  body  of  doctrine  is  known  as  the*  "  Wisdom  Religion," 
and  was  always  taught  by  adepts  or  initiates  therein  who  preserve  it  through 
ail  time.  The  initiates,  being  bound  by  the  law  of  evolution,  must  work  with 
humanity  as  its  development  permits.  Therefore  from  time  to  time  they  give 
out  again  and  again  the  same  doctrine  which  from  time  to  time  grows 
obscured  in  various  nations  and  places.  t- 

From  this  living  and  presently  acting  body  of  p'erfected  men,  H.  P. 
Klavatsky  declared  she  received  the  impulse  to  once  more  bring  forward  the 
old  ideas,  and  from  them  also  received  several  keys  to  ancient  and  modern 
doctrines  that  had  been  lost  during  modern  struggles  toward  civilization, 
and  also  that  she  was  furnished  by  them  with  some  doctrine  really  ancient 
but  entirely  new  to  the  present  day  in  any  exoteric  shape.  These  she  wrote 
among  the  other  keys  furnished  by  her  to  her  fellow  members  and  the  world 
at  large.         ."  .  •  - 

Theosophy  postulates  an  eternal  principle  called  the  unknown,  which 
can  never  be  cognized  except  through  its  manifestations.  This  eternal 
principle  is  in  and  is  every  thing  and  being.  It  periodically  and  eternally 
manifests  itself  and  recedes  again  from  manifestation.  In  this  ebb  and  flow 
evolution  proceeds  and  itself  is  the  progress  of  that  manifestation.  The 
perceived  universe  is  the  manifestation  of  this  unknown,  including  spirit  and 
matter,  for  theosophy  holds  that  those  are  but  the  two  opposite  poles  of  the 
one  unknown  principle.  They  co-exist,  are  not  separate  nor  separable  from 
each  other.  In  manifesting  itself  the  spirit-matter  differentiates  on  seven 
planes,  each  more  dense  on  the  way  down  to  the  plane  of  our  senses  than  its 
predecessor,  the  substance  in  all  -being  the  same,  only  differing  in  degree. 

In  theosophy  the  world  is  held  to  be  the  product  of  the  evolution  of  the 
principle  spoken  of,  from  the  very  lowest  first  forms  of  life  guided  as  it  pro- 
ceeded by  intelligent  perfected  beings  from  other  and  older  evolutions,  and 
compounded  also  of  the  egoes  or  individual  spirits  for  and  by  whom  it  eman- 
ates. Hence  man  as  we  now  know  him  is  held  to  be  a  conscious  spirit,  the 
flower  of  evolution.  He  is  in  miniature  the  universe,  for  he  is  as  spirit  mani- 
festing himself  to  himself  by  means  of.  seven  differentiations.  Therefore  is 
he  known  in  theosophy  as  a  sevenfold  being.  The  Christian  division  of  body, 
soul,  and  spirit  is  accurate  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  will  not  answer  to  the  prob- 
lems of  life  and  nature  unless — as  is  not  the  case — those  three  divisions  are 
each  held  to  be  composed  of  others,  which  would  raise  the  possible  total  to 
seven.  The  spirit  stands  alone  at  the  top,  next  comes  the  spiritual  soul  or 
Buddhi  as  it  is  called  in  Sanscrit.  This  partakes  more  of  the  spirit  than  any 
below  it,  and  is  connected  with  Manas,  or  mind,  those  three  being  the  real 
trinity  of  man,  the  imperishable  part,  the  real  thinking  entity  livjng  on  the 
earth  in  the  other  and  denser  vehicles  provided  by  its  evolution.     Below  in 


THEOSOPHICAI.  CONGRESS. 

OR.  J.  D.  BUCK. 

MRS.  ANMK  HKSANT.  MEKi.IK  M.  IHIRUS. 

I'ROK.  i;.  CM AKRAVARTI. 

william  ij.  juuck.  dr.  j.  a.  an'ukrs(jn'. 

(;ei>R(;k  k.  uri(;hi. 


1520  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

an  order  of  quality  is  the  plane  of  the  desires  and  passions  shared  with  the 
animal  kingdom,  unintelligent  and  the  producer  of  ignorance  flowing  from 
delusion.  It  is  distinct  from  the  will  and  judgment,  :ind  must  therefore  be 
given  its  own  place.  (Jn  this  plane  is  gross  life  manifesting  not  as  spir.t 
from  which  it  derives  its  essence,  but  as  energy  and  motion  on  this  plane.  It 
being  common  to  the  whole  objective  plane  and  being  everywhere,  is  also  to 
1)6  classed  by  itself,  the  portion  used  by  man  being  given  up  at  the  death  of 
the  body.  Then  last,  before  the  objective  body,  is  the  model  or  double  of  the 
outer  physical  case.  This  double  is  the  astral-body  belonging  to  the  astral 
plane  of  matter,  not  so  dense  as  physical  molecules  but  more  tenuous  and 
much  stronger,  as  well  as  lasting.  It  is  the  original  of  the  body  permitting 
the  physical  molecules  to  arrange  and  show  themselves  thereon,  allowing 
them  to  go  and  come  from  day  to  day  as  they  are  known  to  do,  yet  ever  retain- 
ing the  fixed  shape  and  contour  given  by  the  astral  double  within.  These  lower 
four  principles  or  sheaths  are  the  transitory  perishable  part  of  man,  not  him- 
self, but  in  every  sense  the  instrument  he  uses,  given  up  at  the  hour  of  death 
like  an  old  garment  and  rebuilt  out  of  the  general  reservoir  at  every  new 
birth.  The  trinity  is  the  real  man,  the  thinker,  the  individuality  that  passes 
from  honse  to  house,  gaining  experience  at  each  re-birth  while  it  suffers  and 
enjoys  according  to  its  deeds — it  is  the  one  central  man,  the  living  spirit-soul. 

Now  this  spiritual  man,  having  always  existed,  being  intimately  con- 
cerned in  evolution,  dominated  by  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  because  in 
himself  he. is  that  very  law,  showing  moreover  on  this  plane  varieties  of 
force  of  character,  capacity  and  opportunity,  his  very  presence  must  be 
explained  while  the  differences  noted  have  to  be  accounted  for.  The  doc- 
trine of  re-incarnation  does  all  this.  It  means  that  man  as  a  thinker,  com- 
posed of  soul,  mind  and  spirit,  occupies  body  alter  body  in  life  after  life  on 
the  earth,  which  is  the  scene  of  his  evolution,  and  where  he  must,  under  the 
very  laws  of  his  being,  complete  that  evolution,  once  it  has  been  begun,  in 
any  one  life  he  is  known  to  others  as  a  personality,  but  in  the  whole  stretch 
of  eternity  he  is  one  individual,  feeling  in  himself  an  identity  not  dependent 
on  name,  form  or  recollection. 

This  doctrine  explains  life  and  nature.  The  vast,  and  under  any  other 
doctrine  unjust,  difference  between  the  savage  and  the  civilized  man,  as  to 
both  capacity,  character  and  opportunity,  can  be  understood  only  througii 
this  doctrine,  and  coming  to  our  own  stratum  the  differences  of  the  same 
kind  may  only  thus  be  explained.  It  vindicates  Nature  and  God,  antl 
removes  from  religion  the  blot  thrown  by  men  who  have  pcstulated  creeds 
which  paint  the  Creator  as  a  demon.  Each  man's  life  and  charactei  are  the 
outcome  of  his  previous  lives  and  thoughts.  Each  is  his  own  judge,  his 
own  executioner,  for  it  is  his  own  hand  that  forges  the  weapon  which  works 
for  his  punishment,  and  each  by  his  own  life  reaches  reward,  rises  to  heights 
of  knowledge  and  power  for  the  good  of  all  who  may  be  left  behind  him. 
Nothing  is  left  to  chance,  favor,  or  partiality,  but   all  is  under  the  govern- 


TUliOSOFHICAL    SOCIETY.  I52[ 

iiiciU  of  law.  Man  is  a  thinker,  and  by  his  thoughts  he  makes  the  causes 
ff)r  woo  or  bliss  ;  for  his  thoughts  produce  his  acts.  He  is  the  center  for  any 
disturbance  of  the  universal  harmony,  and  to  him,  as  the  center,  the  disturb- 
ance must  return  so  as  to  bring  about  equilibrium,  for  nature  always  works 
towards  iiarmony.  Man  is  always  carrying  on  a  series  of  thoughts  which 
extend  back  to  the  remote  past,  continually  making  action  and  reaction. 
Ife  is  thus  responsible  for  all  his  thoughts  and  acts,  and  in  that  his  complete 
responsibility  is  established  ;  his  own  spirit  is  the  essence  of  this  law  and 
provides  forever  compensation  for  every  disturbance  and  adjustment  for  all 
effects.  This  is  the  law  of  Karma  or  justice,  sometimes  called  the  ethical 
law  of  causation. 

Among  other  subjects  dwelt  upon*  in  the  Theosophical  Congress  held 
on  the  15th  and  i6th  of  September,  the  ethics  of  theosophy  and  its  relation 
to  social  and  practical  life  were  emphasized  by  Mrs.  Annie  Besant.  Of  the 
law  of  Karma  it  was  said  :  "  Karma  means  action  and  it  covers  all  actions  of 
every  description  in  the  universe.  It  involves  an  unbroken  sequence  of 
cause  and  effect,  so  that  all  thought  and  all  action  form  but  a  single  chain 
out  of  which  no  link  can  fall  forever.  We  are  living  day  by  day  in  results 
which  we  have  created,  and  we  are  born  into  the  world  time  after  time  with 
our  life  cast  in  the  mold  which  we  have  made.  Each  is  responsible  for  his 
own  environment — for  the  fetters  which  bind  him  or  the  conditions  which 
bless.  This  is  not  fatalism,  for  the  very  volition  which  created  the  condi- 
tions of  to-day  is  at  the  same  time  creating  the  conditions  of  to-morrow. 
Thus  may  man  burst  his  fetters  and  stand  forth  free." 

"If  by  past  selfishness,  by  past  folly,  a  man  has  made  a  chain  which  he 
cannot  break,  he  asks:  'How  shall  I  break  it?'— what  shall  the  outcome 
be?  There  are  two  things  to  do.  One  is  to  cry  out  '  injustice,'  whereby  is 
sown  seed  for  a  new  harvest  of  pain  ;  the  other  is  to  understand  the  environ- 
ment, and  bravely,  manfully,  laboriously  face  the  situation  he  has  made — to 
cry  out,  '  I  have  sinned  ;  I  am  willing  to  suffer,'  and  so  out  of  knowledge 
grows  strength,  out  of  understanding  grows  courage  ;  understand  the  divine 
nature  and  you  will  rejoice  in  pain.  This  Karma  cannot  express  itself 
in  one  brief  life.  Some  of  it  may  be  discharged  ;  the  rest  is  reserved  for  the 
future.  Thus  continually  is  being  worked  out  individual,  racial  and  national 
Karma.  And  so  again  comes  back  the  idea  of  inseparable  brotherhood.  It 
is  not  worth  while  to  be  saved  unless  all  else  are  saved  with  us,  and  the  one 
vow  that  is  worth  while  to  be  taken  is  to  become  equal  to  the  lowest,  to  help 
him  to  rise  to  the  level  of  divinity." 

On  the  relation  of  theosophy  to  the  modern  social  problems  it  was 
remarked  :  The  employment  of  one  hour  daily  in  spiritual  devotion  for  the 
laborer  will  work  more  good  to  him  than  one  hundred  years  of  mere  mater- 
ialistic processes  for  his  relief. 

Let  us  first  look  to  the  genesis  of  action.  In  the  first  place  there  is  the 
thought,  then  there  is  the  image  of  the  thought  in  the  eternal   astral   light. 

96 


1522  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Lastly  there  is  the  precipitation  of  the  image  into  action  and  material  effort. 
It  is  only  because  we  are  blinded  that  we  lay  so  much  stress  on  the  empty 
action  and  so  little  on  the  mental  cause  of  the  action.  Theosophists  can 
never  forget  that  relief  on  the  physical  plane  is  and  can  be  but  palliative. 
Relief  is  not  on  the  material  plane,  but  on  the  plane  of  mentality.  If  to-day 
the  social  conscience  is  beginning  to  awaken,  if  men  are  beginning  to  give 
some  help  to  humanity,  it  is  because  there  has  been  formed  first  the  benefi- 
cent thought,  then  the  beneficent  image  of  the  thought  in  the  astral  light, 
and  finally  because  this  thought  has  become  a  beneficent  deed  ;  it  is  because 
the  seer  has  seen  a  vision  of  Utopia  and- out  of  it  has  come  the  better 
condition  which  we  see. 


THE  UNITARIAN  CONGRESS. 

Held  in  the  Art  Institute  September  aoth-aad. 

The  program  concerned  itself  with  the  study  of  Unitarian  history, 
doctrines,  its  influence  on  modern  civilization,  and  place  in  current  thought, 
Unitarian  organizations,  and  Unitarian  prospect^.  A  series  of  papers  were 
planned  which,  taken  collectively,  would  give  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  Uni- 
tarian movement ;  a  not  wholly  inadequate  epitome  of  Unitarian  thought 
and  influence  up  to  date. 

Unitarian  History. —  This  congress  helped  to  correct  the  popular 
fallacy  that  Ujiitarianism  is  a  Boston  notion,  or  at  least  that  it  is  native  only 
to  New  England.  Mr.  Slicer  in  his  study  entitled  From  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  to  the  Nicene  Creed,  showed  how  Christianity  began  in  Jewish  mono- 
theism. The  universalism  of  Paul  as  well  as  the  ethical  emphasis  of  Jesus 
represent  the  essential  inspirations  of  the  Unitarian  movement.  He  said: 
"No  father  of  the  church  for  three  hundred  years  lost  sight  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  absolute  Deity  and  its  representation  in  the  terms  of  human 
life  ;  always  the  Son  is  subject  to  the  Father."  He  traced  the  gradual  deteri- 
oration of  these  principles  in  the  organizing  struggles  of  the  early  centuries. 
''At  the  close  ofthe  fourth  century,"  he  said,  "the  church  has  gained  a  creed 
and  lost  an  empire.  Its  monotheism  has  been  swamped  by  its  explanations 
about  God  ;  the  reality  of  God  obscured  by  its  definitions  of  what  God  is 
like.  The  perdition  which  it  had  declared  to  be  the  punishment  of  sin  is 
now  the  price  of  a  mistake,  and  the  only  heresy  which  has  nothing  to  recom- 
mend it  has  now  become  universal.  It  is  the  heresy  which  declares  that 
intellectual  accuracy  is  the  condition  of  salvation  ;  and  that  a  formula  is  the 
guarantee  of  religion." 

Prof.  Bonet-Maury,  of  Paris,  in  a  learned  paper  traced  the  Growth  of 
the  Liberal  Movement  in  Switzerland  and  France,  closing  with  the  predic- 
tion that  the  day  is  coming  when,  by  the  imperceptible  evolution  of  mind,  the 
Liberals  will  gain  a  majority  in  the  Calvinistic  Church  of  France,  at  which 


UNITARIAN.  1523 

time  French  Protestantism  will  recognize  in  Channing  a  prophet  of  liberty, 
the  liberty  of  all  God's  children. 

Prof.  Gordon,  of  Manchester,  England;  Prof.  Bracciforti,  of  Italy,  and 
Rev.  Mr.  Hugenholtz,  of  Grand  Rapids,  presented,  respectively,  studies  of 
Unitarian  Development  among  the  non-Trinitarian  forces  of  Poland,  the 
Liberal  Thinkers  of  Italy,  and  the  Free  Churches  of  the  Netherlands. 

A  trilogy  on  the  History  of  Unitarianism  in  America  was  offered. 
Dr.  J.  H.  Allen  traced  it  through  the  pre-transcendental  period,  which  he 
limited  to  the  thirty  years  ending  with  1835.  And  its  field  was  confined  at 
first  within  a  radius  of  thirty-five  miles  of  Boston.  In  its  organization  it  was 
identified  with  the  "absolute  independence  of  each  congregation,  and  this 
justified  entire  freedom  in  doctrinal  ojbinion."  It  was  a  growth  and  not  a 
dissent ;  giving  large  place  to  laity  and  closely  identified  with  culture  and 
literature. 

Mr.  Batchelor  described  transcendentalism  in  America  as  "A  move- 
ment of  thought  of  which  Emerson  was  the  principal  exponent."  And 
further  on  he  asserts  that  "  in  all  its  forms,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
Unitarianism  was  from  the  beginning  essentially  transcendental,  as  it  is  in 
all  its  forms  to-day.  It  takes  for  ultimate  authority  the  law  of  reason  and  of 
right  revealed  in  the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  the  human  race." 

Mr.  Learned  started  with  the  assumption  that  "there  is  no  post-trans- 
cendental period  in  Unitarian  history;  that  transcendentalism  is  still  alive. 
The  impulse  given  to  our  churches  by  Emerson  and  Parker  has  never  died 
away."  And  he  proceeded  to  describe  the  struggles  within  the  Unitarian 
fellowship  to  realize  this  spirit  of  freedom  in  religion.  These  struggles 
result  now  in  the  organization  of  the  Free  Religious  Association,  and 
again  in  the  temporary  withdrawal  of  confidence  and  cooperation  from  the 
Western  Unitarian  Conference  on  account  of  its  so-called  ethical  basis  of 
fellowship,  but  all  resulting  in  the  growth  of  the  entire  fellowship,  and  in  an 
increase  of  the  spirit  of  association  and  a  wider  publication  of  its  message. 

U.NITARIAN  Doctrines. — Mr.  Hornbrooke  found  the  roots  of  religion 
planted  in  human  nature,  and  showed  how  Unitarians  believed  that  man  is 
led  into  the  knowledge  of  religious  truth  as  into  every  other  knowledge, 
through  ail  his  experiences.  "As  the  result  of  age  long  endeavor  man  can 
see  the  vision  of  the  king  in  his  beauty.  This  is  the  larger  vision  of  our 
hearts." 

Mr.  Crocker's  paper  on  Jesus  of  Nazareth  gave  as  the  result  of  modern 
scholarship  the  historical  picture  of  Jesus  as  "An  ascending  man  who  never 
separated  himself  from  his  fellow-men.  The  very  beauty  of  his  character 
consists  in  his  simplicity  and  humility  as  a  man,  his  trust  and  worshipful- 
ness  before  God." 

The  most  suggestive  and  impressive  session  of  the  congress  was  on 
Wednesday  evening,  at  which  Mr.  Crothers,  of  St.  Paul,  unfolded  the 
thought  of  God  as  the  divine  immanence  ever  present  as  revealed  in  law 


1524  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

which  is  love,  and  in  love  which  is  law.  And  Mr.  Simmons,  of  Minneapolis, 
gave  the  Modem  Thought  of  Man  as  being  the  Unitarian  thought;  man  as 
the  last  link  in  evolutiori,  holding  in  himself  the  defects  and  limitations  of 
the  lower  orders,  but  moving  upwards,  working  out  the  beast.  Mr.  Savage 
closed  with  the  high  thought  of  the  life  eternal,  the  hope  in  which  he 
believed  to  be  warranted  by  the  analogies  of  science,  the  promises  that  come 
through  the  psychical  researches  of  the  day,  as  well  as  through  the  inspiring 
testimony  of  the  soul  itself. 

Unitarian  Influence  on  Modern  Civilization  and  Relation 
TO  Current  Thought. — The  Rev.  Dr.  Crosskey,  of  Birmingham,  Eng- 
land, sent  an  interesting  and  learned  paper  on  Unitarianism  in  its  Relation 
to  Modem  Scientific  Thought,  in  which  he  claimed  that  the  Unitarianism 
that  was  in  harmony  with  science  was  the  one,  which,  in  its  positive  aspects, 
"  finds  at  once  the  briefest  and  the  profoundest  summary  of  its  principles  in 
the  two  great  commandments,  '  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself.'  And  in  its  negative  aspects  it  does  not  attempt  to  define  the 
nature  of  the  Eternal ;  it  does  not  admit  the  demand  of  any  book  or  church 
to  supersede  the  authority  of  the  mind,  heart  and  conscience  of  jpan,  in 
detennining  what  is  true,  loving  and  righteous.  It  knows  nothing  of  mirac- 
ulous interference  with  the  order  of  nature,  it  draws  no  distinction  between 
what  is  natural  and  what  is  revealed,  it  cannot  exempt  any  event  in  the 
outward  world  or  in  the  history  of  man  from  the.  law  of  evolution,  it  does 
not  distinguish  between  special  and  every-day  providence,  it  regards  the 
performance  of  rites,  ceremonies,  '  professions  of  faith '  and  '  articles,  of 
belief '  as  of  entirely  suljordinate  importance  compared  with  obedience  to 
the  physical,  intellectual,  moral  and  social  laws  under  which  we  live. 
Within  the  limits  of  these  negations  Unitarianism  is  sustained  by  modern 
science  with  authority  and  power." 

Prof.  Toy,  of  Harvard  College,  showed  how  Unitarians  were  readv  to 
accept  the  results  of  the  higher  criticism  concerning  our  Bible,  and  showed 
that  "The  best  in  religion  abides  the  impulse  of  an  ideal,  the  sense  of 
companionship  in  the  universe,  the  courage,  hope,  faith,  and  love,  that  are 
born  of  the  sense  of  the  presence  of  infinite  Tightness." 

Mr.  Thayer,  of  Cincinnati,  showed  Unitarianism  in  its  Relation  to 
Extra-Biblical  Religion.  "To  Unitarians  there  can  be  no  partial  revelation 
exclusive  to  our  system  of  religious  thought,  no  limited  salvation  as  a  conse- 
quence of  our  monopoly  of  revelation.  Tlie  mind  of  man  is  essentially  one 
in  all  ages  and  places.  All  have  need  of  revelation,  and  all  have  rights  to 
it.  If  the  evidence  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  Eternal  Father  has  ever 
touched  a  human  child,  it  is  equally  convincing  that  he  has  touched  many 
children  and  perhaps  all." 

Prof.  Peabody,  of  Harvard  College,  showed  how  Unitarians  have  been 
in  sympathy  with  all  forms   of    philanthropy,  particularly  such  as  require 


^' 


ki.izai'.ktu  cadv  sta.nton. 

"the  new   re[.r;i(in   will  teack    rnii    uiosity    ok    human  natuke   and   its    ini-iniii-; 

POSSIBILITIES  FOK  DKVELOl'MENT.  IT  WILL  I  EACH  THE  SOLIUAKITV  OE  1HE  HACK  — THAT  ALL 
MUST  RISE  OR  KALL  AS  ONE.  ITS  CREED  WILL  RE  JtSIICE,  LIliEUTV,  EilLALIlV  I  OK  ALL  THE 
CHILOKEN  OF  EAKTII." 


1526  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

intelligence,  cooperation  and  the  application  of  scientific  knowledge  in  the 
furthering  of  the  same.  Witness  the  names  of  Mary  Carpenter,  Dorothea 
Dix,  Samuel  G.  Howe,  Dr.  Bellows,  and  many  others. 

Rev.  A.  M.  Lord,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  showed  Unitarianism's  place  in 
literature  as  attested  by  the  names  of  Channing,  Margaret  Fuller,  Alcott, 
Dwight,  Elizabeth  Peabody,  and  Emerson.  In  criticism  there  are  the 
names  of  Ripley,' Whipple,  Hedge,  Ticknor,  and  Lowell.  In  history  Pal- 
frey and  Bancroft,  Prescott  and  Motley.  In  statesmanship  and  oratory, 
Everett,  Sumner  and  Curtis.  In  poetry,  Bryant,  Lowell,  Longfellow, 
Holmes.  . 

Rev.  A.  P.  Putnam,  of  Concord,  sent  a  paper  on  Unitarians'  Contribu- 
tion to  the  Hymnology  of  Modern  Times,  which  showed  how  the  liberal 
faith  has  inspired  the  singers  of  our  day. 

In  this  connection,  perhaps,  might  be  mentioned  the  successful  Woman's 
Meeting  held  Friday  afternoon.  Notwithstanding  many  apologies  for  hold- 
ing a  separate  meeting  at  all  in  a  fellowship  where  woman's  right  to  be 
heard  is  so  freely  recognized,  and  where  she  has  exercised  that  right  so 
effectively,  the  meeting  seemed  to  have  justified  itself  in  the  four  suggestive 
studies,  of  Woman's  Theological  Emancipation  as  furthered  by  Judaism, 
presented  by  Miss  Mary  M.  Cohen,  of  Philadelphia ;  by  the  Universalists, 
by  Mrs.  Jane  Patterson,  of  Boston  ;  by  the  Unitarians,  by  Rev.  Marion  Mur- 
dock,  of  Cleveland  ;  and  by  the  Free  Religious  Association,  by  Mrs.  Ednah 
D.  Cheney,  of  Boston. 

Unitarian  Organizations.  —  Rev.  Grindall  Reynolds,  Secretary, 
reported  for  the  American  Unitarian  Association  organized  in  1825,  which 
now  represents  a  general  constituency  of  some  250  or  300  churches,  with  a 
creditable  headquarters  building  in  Boston  and  a  missionary  income  of  about 
$40,000  a  year. 

W.  H.  Lyon,  Secretary  of  the  National  Conference,  organized  in  18S6, 
reported  for  this,  the  only  purely  representative  body  that  is  national  in  its 
character.  It  holds  biennial  meetings,  generally  at  Saratoga.  The  meet- 
ings are  largely  attended.  In  the  main,  the  conference  contents  itself  with 
stimulating  thought  and  generosity  which  the  other  more  executive  and  mis- 
sionary bodies  undertake  to  administer.  Rev.  Mr.  Steinthal  reported  fortiie 
Unitarian  organizations  of  England  ;  Mr.  Fretwell  for  those  of  Transylvania, 
which  was  supplemented  by  a  written  report  from  Bishop  Ferencz  of  Kol- 
osvar. 

F.  L.  Hosmer,  Secretary  of  the  Western  Conference,  reported  for  this 
jjody,  organized  in  1852,  and  traced  its  growth  and  struggles.  Further 
reports  of  the  missionary  organizations  and  activities  by  C.  W.  Wendte  for 
the  Pacific  Coast,  D.  W.  Morehouse  for  the  Central  States,  G.  L.  Chaney  for 
the  Southern  Conference,  W.  H.  Lyon  for  the  Sunday  School  Society,  which 
has  its  headquarters  at  Boston,  and  A.  W.  Gould  for  the  Western  Sunday 
School  Society.     George  W.  Cooke  showed  the  development  of  cooperative 


UNITARIAN.  1527 

study  and  the  use  of  the  church  for  intellectual  development,  appropriating 
non-biblical  material  for  the  development  of  character  under  the  name  of 
the  Unity  Club  ;  and  the  Rev.  B.  R.  Bulkeley,  of  Concord,  traced  a  similar 
development  of  a  more  devotional  and  specifically  religious  character  by  the 
organization  among  the  young  people  of  many  parishes  of  what  is  known  as 
the  Young  People's  Guilds. 

The  Unitarian  Promise. —  The  last  meeting  was  given  to  the  Uni- 
tarian Promise,  and  was  a  fitting  close  to  the  week's  study  of  high  problems. 
The  addresses  were  made  by  Rev.  Caroline  J.  Bartlett,  Dr.  Edward  Everett 
Hale  and  VVm.  C.  Gannett,  the  latter  address  being  read  by  another;  Rev. 
Ida  C.  Hultin  presided.  The  gist  of  the  meeting  may  be  fairly  represented 
by  the  following  extracts  from  Mr.  Ciannett's  paper :  "  Let  our  Unitarian 
motto  be  "spiritualize,"  not  "organize."  Our  part  is  to  grow  inwardly,  any 
way;  outwardly,  if  inward  growth  allow  it.  If  no\..  No.  Organization  is 
well  enough  and  should  be  seen  to,  but  it  is  not  Jesus'  work,  or  any  prophet's 
work  ;  and  the  useful  scribes  and  priests  always  abound  to  do  it.  Aim  to  be 
a  church  prophetic,  a  church  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  To  that  end  be  willing  to 
be  small  ;  expect  to  be  small.  We  love  respectability  ;  dread  respectability, 
with  its  expediencies,  its  policies,  its  safeties,  its  complacencies,  lest  we  cease 
to  be  of  that  which  is  making  the  old  new,  and  begin  to  be  of  that  which  is 
making  the  new  old  !  Further,  be  ready  to  join  with  other  liberal  faiths  in  a 
new  organization.  Welcome  every  true-hearted  attempt  in  that  iiirection. 
Be  hmnble  in  the  matter.  Stand  not  for  special  fccognltion.  Such  new 
organization  to-day  would  almost  surely  take  a  republican,  not  monarchical, 
form  ;  would  be  a  "  many-in  one."  Members  would  probably  not  ,give  up 
old  names  or  associations  or  separate  activities.  No  need  to  disown  old  his- 
tory in  order  to  make  new.  There  would  be  functions  corresponding  to 
national  functions,  and  church  rights  corresponding  to  state  rights.  This  Par- 
liament with  its  congresses  suggests  a  possible  model  for  beginnings;  and 
let  the  future  shape  the  future  forms.  But  this  century  ought  not  to  close 
without  seeing  such  a  federation  of  the  liberal  faiths.  Finally,  it  is  yet  10 
mean  a  thought  of  brotherhood;  a  recognition  that  we  are  all  members  of 
each  other  in  a  sense  so  real  that  no  parable  can  hint  it,  and  no  .science  yet 
describe  it;  a  recognition  that  this  trusteeship  for  each  other  applies  not  only 
to  the  outermost  we  call  our  "  property,"  but  as  really,  to  the  innermost  we 
call  our  "  faculty."  A  brotherhood  which  shall  be  a  realizing  that  we  only 
attain  true  selfhood  by  unselfish  processes;  and  that  whatever  unites  us  into 
oneness  with  our  fellows  in  this  world,  until  we  share  their  aches,  their  pov- 
erties, their  disinheritance  from  life's  good  thingg — that  this  unites  us  also 
into  oneness  with  that  which  we  call,  not  fellow-man,  but  "  God."  So  that 
love  to  man  is  love  to  God,  and  only  in  proportion  to  such  love  we  live. 

The  Unitarian  Congress  was  not  without  its  genial  moments  of  fraternal 
contact  with  the  representatives  of  the  far  East.  Mr.  Dharmapala,  the  Bud- 
dhist representative  from  Ceylon,  Mr.  Ghandi,  from  the  Jain  community  in 


1528  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

India,  Mr.  Nagarkar,  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj  of  Bombay,  were  among  those 
presented  to  the  Congress.  And  the  most  memorable  session  was  that  in 
which  the  Unitarians  and  the  representatives  of  the  Free  Religious  Associa- 
tion met  in  joint  meeting  in  Washington  Hall  under  the' chairmanship  of 
Col.  T.  VV.  Higginson,  to  listen  to  the  eloquent  Mazoomdar  in  an  address  on 
the  Brahmo-Somaj  and  its  Relation  to  the  Religion  that  is  to  Triumph, — 
"  infinite  faith,  endless  morality,  the  supreme  solidity  of  personal  character, 
alliance  with  all  systems  of  faith,  brotherhood  with  men  of  conflicting  ideas 
and  beliefs,  finding  God  in  nature,  in  science,  and  in  the  human  heart." 


CONGRESS  OF  THE  UNITED  BRETHREN  IN  CHRIST. 
.  '  By  I.  L.  Kephart,  D.D.  .  '. 

HeJd  in  the  Art  Institute  September  14th. 

Having  been  invited  by  the  officials  of  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary 
to  have  its  members  take  part  in  the  great  Parliament  of  Religions,  the  bish- 
ops of  the  church  appointed  a  committee  to  take  the  matterin  hand,  arrange 
for  the  time  and  place  of  holding  the  meeting,  and  to  prepare  and  publish  a 
program  of  exercises.  The  committee  consisted  of  Bishop  E.  B.  Kephart, 
D.D.,  LL.D. ;  President  W.  M.  Beardshear,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  the  Iowa  State 
Agricultural  College ;  and  Rev.  W,  M.  Weekley,  of  Freeport,  III.  They 
arranged  and  published  a  program,  specifying  September  14  as  the  day  to 
be  observed  as  Presentation  Day  for  the  United  Brethren  Church.  The  per-, 
sons  assigned  to  general  duties  on  the  program  were  duly  notified,  and  the 
secretary  of  the  committee.  Rev.  W.  M.  Weekley,  gave  special  attention  to 
advertising  the  meeting  through  the  columns  of  the  church's  organ,  by  send- 
ing out  programs  and  writing  personal  letters  to  leading  men  of  the  church 
in  all  its  borders. 

On  the  day  appointed,  representative  men  and  women  of  the  church 
assembled  in  Washington  Hall  of  the  Memorial  Art  Palace,  especially  set 
apart  for  this  meeting.  The  hall  was  fairly  well  filled,  and  the  hours  from 
9  A.M.  to  12:30  P.M.  were  occupied  with  the  exercises.  In  proportion  to  the 
total  membership  of  the  denomination  (204,000),  the  attendance  was  much 
above  that  of  the  majority  of  the  special  denominational  congresses. 

Bishop  J.  Weaver,  D.D.,  the  senior  bishop  of  the  church,  presided,  and 
Rev.  W.  M.  Weekley  served  as  secretary.  Bishops  Kephart,  Ilott  and 
Mills  were  also  present.  Rev.  W.  J.  Shuey,  agent  of  the  church's  publish- 
ing house,  located  in  Dayton,  Ohio,  offered  prayer,  and  a  brief  introductory 
address  was  delivered  by  the  presiding  officer. 

Rev.  A.  W.  Drury,  D.D.,  professor  of  systematic  theology  in  the 
church's  theological  seminary,  read  a  paper  on  "  The  Origin  of  the  Church 
of  the  United   Brethren  in  Christ."     The  distinctive   characteristics  of  the 


I J  «*»•■■  •»  mt' 


1530  THE   DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

church  were  concisely  outlined,  its  origin  accurately  stated,  and  the  reasons 
for  its  continued  existence  as  a  spiritual,  reformatory  agency  were  clearly  set 
forth. 

Bishop  J.  S.  Mills,  D.D.,  Ph.D.,  read  a  paper  on  "The  Polity  of  the 
Church,"  forcibly  demonstrating  the  adaptation  of  the  polity  of  the  denom- 
ination to  the  demands  of  the  age,  the  people,  and  the  country,  and  its 
special  force  in  the  promotion  of  vital  godliness  among  the  masses. 

A  paper  on  "The  Doctrines  of  the  Church,"  prepared  by  Rev.  J,  W. 
Etter,  D.D.,  editor  of  the  Sunday  school  literature  of  the  church,  owing  to 
the  doctor's  unavoidable  absence,  was  read  by  Bishop  J.  W.  Hott,  D.D. 
This  paper  set  forth  the  distinctive  doctrines  held  by  the  church  in  common 
with  all  Arminian  denominations. 

.  President  T.  J.  Sanders,  Ph.D.,  of  Otterheim  University,  read  a  paper 
on  "  The  Educational  Work  of  the  Church,"  in  which  he  outlined  the  rise 
and  progress  of  the  schools  of  the  denomination,  emphasizing  the  ^niport- 
ance  of  the  work  done  and  the  necessity' for  vigorously  pushing  this  branch 
of  church  work.  -  ■   ■ 

Rev.  Wm.  McKee,  treasurer  of  the  church's  missionary  society,  read  a 
paper  on  "The  Mission  and  its  Claims  upon  the  Denomination."  The  key- 
note of  this  paper  was :  "  The  cry  of  the  heathen  ringing  out  from  across  the 
seas,  '  come  over  and  help  us,' is  a  personal  call  to  our  church, -and -woe  J)e 
to  us  if  we  do  not,  to  the  extent  of  our  ability,  heed  this  call." 

Rev.  J.  A.  Wilier,  D.D.,  Ph.D.,  President  of  Central  College,  Kansas, 
discussed  "  The  Sunday  School  Work  of  the  Church." 

The  last  paper  read  was  by  I.  L.  Kephart,  D.D.,  editor  of  the  Religious 
Telescope,  the  official  organ  of  the  church,  on  "  The  Church  and  Questions  of 
Moral  Reform."  The  attitude  of  the  church  throughout  its  history,  on  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  for  beverage  purposes,  on  the 
slavery  question,  and  on  oath-bound  secret  societies,  was  concisely  presented. 
On  the  first  two,  its  attitude  has  ever  been  and  still  is  that  of  uncompromising 
opposition.  On  the  last  one,  up  to  1885,  the  law  of  the  church  was  so  inter- 
preted, and  in  most  parts  so  enforced  as  to  exclude  all  members  of  secret 
orders,  and  even  members  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  from  mem- 
bership in  the  church.  This  rule  has  been  changed,  and  now  the  church 
receives  and  welcomes  into  its  communion  all  whom  it  believes  God  has 
received,  upon  their  seeking  such  membership  ;  and  it  relegates  to  the  domain 
of  the  individual  conscience,  the  question,  whether  or  not  a  man  can  be  a 
Christian  and  belong  to  an  oath-bound  secret  society. 

The  reading  of  the  papers  having  been  concluded,  resolutions  strongly 
endorsing  the  World's  Parliament  of  Religions,  and  expressive  of  high  appre- 
ciation of,  and  thanks  for  the  courtesy  extended  this  church  by  the  officials 
of  the  Parliament,  were  adopted  by  a  rising  vote,  the  doxology  was  sung, 
and  the  assembly  adjourned  sine  die. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  this  assembly  convened  at  a  time  when  the 


UNIVERSALIST.  I53I 

rush  to  Jackson  Park  and  the  great  attractions  there  were  at  their  height,  the 
fact  that  so  many  of  its  memhers  turned  aside  to  attend  the  meeting  is  truly 
gratifying  to  the  church  as  a  whole,  and  a  special  evidence  that  the  commit- 
tee who  had  the  matter  in  hand  did  their  work  well. 

That  the  meeting  was  happily  conceived  and  well  planned  was  evident 
to  all  present.  That  it  was  of  special  advantage  to  the  church  at  the  time,  and 
will  be  of  great  advantage  to  it  in  the  years  to  come,  there  caji  be  no  doubt, 
It  advertised  favorably  the  denomination,  directed  public  attention  to  its 
work,  and  awakened  among  its  own  people  a  deeper  feeling  of  churchliness, 
increased  hope  for  the  triumph  of  Christianity,  and  greater  zeal  for  the  pros- 
perity of  their  own  religious  denomination.  » 


CONGRESS  OF  THE  UNIVERSALIST  CHURCH. 

This  Congress  convened  September  nth.  Rev.  A.  J.  Canfield,  D.D., 
Chairman  of  the  General  Committee,  presided,  and  jiiade  an  address  of  wel- 
come. He  then  called  upon  the  Rev.  Augusta  J.  Chapin,  D.D.,.  Chairman 
of  the  Woman's  Committee.  She  said  :  "  It  is  peculiarly  appropriate  that 
the  Universalist  Church  should  bear  a  part  in  this  first  Parliament  of 
Religions,  for  it  has  been  a  pioneer  along  this  road  and  appears  in  the  very 
vanguard.  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  the  com- 
mon destiny  of  the  race  are  familiar  truths  to  us,  and  we  readily  recognize 
that  they  are  the  logical  basis  for  calling  this  great  Parliament. 

The  purpose  of  the  present  Congress  is  to  set  before  the  world  our 
denominational  position,  thought  and  methods.  The  program  has  been 
carefully  elaborated  and  is  intended  to  cover  our  past  history  and  teachings, 
our  present  attitude  toward  science  and  the  religious  and  social  problems  of 
our  time,  and  our  outlook  toward  the  future.  The  Universalist  Church  has 
come  to  take  its  part  and  to  contribute  its  best  to  the  success  and  interest  of 
the  great  occasion.  And  as  Chairman  of  the  Woman's  General  Committee, 
as  well  as  of  the  special  committee  of  women  of  our  own  church,  I  bid  you 
welcome. 

Able  and  appropriate  responses  were  made  by  Mrs.  M.  Louise  Thomas 
for  the  East,  Amos  Crum,  D.D.,  for  the  West,  Mrs.  H.  B.  Manford  for  Cal- 
ifornia, and  others  representing  different  sections  and  interests. 

The  first  paper  presented  was  by  Rev.  J.  Coleman  Adams,  D.D.  His 
topic  was  "Universal  Holiness  and  Happiness  the  Final  Result  of  God's 
Government."     He  said  : 

"The  Divine  Fatherhood  demands  a  doctrine  of  human  destiny  which 
sees  a  human  race  developing  toward  peace  and  harmony  and  looks  toward 
a  great  day  of  reconciliation,  unclouded  by  the  rebellion  of  a  single  human 
being.     The  Divine  Fatherhood  is  not  victorious  until  changed  to  a  glad 


1532  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

obedience.  Heaven  is  not  simply  a  well-policed  city.  God  does  not  triumph 
by  siiutting  up  the  evil  in  a  prison,  but  by  securing  repentance  and  reforma- 
tion. When  God  trium[)hs  he  will  sweej)  the  Held.  When  God  makes  the 
way  of  transgressors  hard,  and  when  he  causes  the  path  of  the  just  to  shine 
brighter  and  brighte."  unto  the  perfect  day,  he  indicates*  the  direction  in 
which  our  race  is  to  move." 

The  Rev.  E.  H.  Capen,  D.D.,  President  of  Tufts  College,  was  the  next 
speaker.  He  treated  a  three-fold  theme  :  Punishment  Disciplinary  ;  The 
Atonement ;  Life  a  School.  Dr.  Capen  began  with  the  statement  that  the 
idea  of  punishment  as  attached  to  sin  is  native  to  the  mind.  Universalism 
asserts  with  all  emphasis  that  punishment  is  inflicted  neither  on  account  of 
injured  innocence,  nor  the  anger  of  God.  It  has  its  place  in  a  great  plan 
which  contemplates  the  perfection  of  humanity. 

In  this  view  of  punishment  we  have  the  key  to  the  Universalist  doctrine 
of  atonement,  which  is  reconciliation.  The  aim  of  the  Gospel  is  to  take 
away  sin  and  remove  alienation.  The  object  which  it  proposes  is  to  restore 
men  to  their  natural  relation  with  God  and  put  them  on  the  side  of  his 
righteousness.  Jesus  is  the- mediator  between  God  and  man  to  effect  the 
necessary  reconciliation.  Life  is  a  school.  We  are  here  for  instruction, 
dicipline,  development, —  for  the  attainment  of  the  perfected  and  ideal 
manhood. 

The  Rev.  J.  Smith  Dodge  spoke  on  Man  :.  Intellect  Aspirations, 
Affections. 

The  purpose  of  the  address  was  to  show  that  the  intellect,  aspira- 
tions and  sentiments  of  man  imply  a  common  destiny  of  good  for  the  race. 
They  fairly  represent  the  spiritual  constitution  of  man  ;  each  increasingly 
demands  some  scheme  of  human  well-being  which  shall  include  the  entire  race; 
and  as  each  is  met  by  a  corresponding  capacity  of  human  development, 
the  divine  wisdom  has  in  this  way  made  known  the  end  towards  which  it 
works — the  universal  blessedness  of  man. 

A  paper  on  Divine  Love,  Justice,  Power  and  Wisdom,  by  Rev.  Edgar 
Leavitt,  illustrated  the  harmony  of  these  attributes  in  the  divine  being, 
reconciled  the  apparent  conflict  of  justice  and  mercy,  and  exhibited  all 
God's  laws  as  phases  of  divine  love  working  together  to  produce  holiness  in 
the  universal  creaton. 

The  Rev.  Edwin  C.  Sweetzer,  D.D.,  followed  with  a  paper  on  Univer- 
salism the  Doctrine  of  Nature.  The  special  points  considered  were  science 
as  indicating  the  unity  of  forces  ;  hence,  the  unity  of  final  cause.  The 
position  that  Universalism  is  the  doctrine  of  nature  could  never  before  have 
been  maintained  with  so  much  reason,  for  never  before  were  the  facts  of 
nature  so  extensively  known  or  so  well  understood.  The  philosophical 
concept  of  the  correlation  and  conservation  of  forces  testifies  to  the  univer- 
sality of  things  and  indicates  God.  It  shows  a  progressive  universe  and 
prophesies   a   perfected   humanity.     Equally,  then,  by  those  teachings  of 


SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY. 


1534  THE    DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

nature  which  indicate  that,  from  the  beginning,  the'author  of  the  race  has 
designed  its  ultimate  perfection  and  by  those  which  indicate  the  unity  which 
binds  its  members  together,  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that  it  can  have 
but  one  destiny.  That  destiny  will  not  be  accomplished  till  all  shall  have 
come  in  a  perfect  manhood,  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of 
Christ. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  E.  L.  Rexford  was  the  next  speaker,  and  his  topic  "  The 
Intrinsic  Worth  of  Man."  He  spoke  of  the  value  of  man,  hinted  at  the  mys- 
t::ry  of  being,  and  doubted  whether  any  one  could  estimate  the  value  of  a 
human  soul. 

.  An  Essay  by  Rev.  George  H.  Emerson,  D.D.,  was  read. 
'  The  Rev.  C.  H.  Eaton,  D.D.,  spoke  on  "Christ  and  the  Nature  of  Salva- 
tion." The  modern  conception  of  salvation  emphasized  character.  It  dealt 
with  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  independent  of  time  and  place.  Salvation 
was  a  state  and  a  process.  •  It  was  the  creation  of  a  new  personality.  Hell 
was  a  spiritual  and  personal  fact.  Heaven  was  a  state  rather  than  a  locality. 
The  soul  was  organized  for  truth  and  love,  and  this  was  one  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  salvation.  The  main  characteristic  was  faith. 
The  Universalist  emphatically  denied  the  total  depravity.  Partial  salvation 
is  the  denial  both  of  the  teaching  of  revelation  and  of  reason.  Wherever  a 
sinner  turns  in  disgust  from  his  sin,  wherever  trembling  lips  are  lifted  in 
prayer  for  help,  Christ  responds  with  effective  aid.  Death  and  the  grave 
can  raise  no  barrier  between  the  souls  of  the  outcast  and  the  saving  grace  of 
Christ.  This  conception  of  Christ  in  his  relation  to  salvation  lifts  him  above 
all  mere  mechanics  of  religion  and  makes  him  the  personal  Saviour  of  each 
soul,  through  the  impartation  of  the  divine  love. 

The  Rev.  Massena  Goodrich  read  a  paper  on  the  Higher  Criticism 
which  showed  the  friendly  attitude  of  the  Unviersalist  Church  toward  liberal 
scholarship. 

A  paper  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Sawyer,  D.D.,  on  the  "Causes  of  the 
Obscuration  of  Universalism  During  the  Middle  Ages,"  designated  lack  of 
organization,  political  reasons,  and  heathen  accretions.  He  described  the 
change  that  came  over  Christian  thought  until  the  doctrine  was  finally  con- 
demned by  the  Emperor  Justinian.  Probably  the  influence  of  Augustine 
gave  the  first  impulse  that  resulted  in  the  obscuration  of  the  doctrine. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Blanchard  spoke' upon  the  three-fold  topic, 
Peace,  War  and  National  Honor. 

The  three-fold  topic  of  the  Rev.  Olympia  Brown  was.  Crime,  Capital 
Punishment,  and  Temperance. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  George  L.  Perin,  missionary  in  Japan,  said  :  "The 
organization  of  its  mission  in  Japan  was  the  most  logical  thing  the  Univer- 
salist Church  ever  did.  The  motive  is  the  desire  to  impart  the  great  truths 
of  Universalism  because  men  need  them.  Its  aim  is  to  convert  men  to  the 
Christian  life.     Its  method  is  to  educate  native  preachers,  and  develop  a 


UNIVERSALIST.  ■     1535 

Japanese  church.  The  results  vindicate  the  movement  thus  far :  I.  A 
theological  school  established  with  ten  students.  2.  A  girls'  school  with 
native  teachers  and  fifty  pupils  in  Shizuoka.  3.  The  school  in  Tokyo  with 
ten  pupils,  and  foreign  teachers.  4.  Two  organized  churches,  with  two 
buildings  and  two  pastors,  five  preaching  stations,  six  evangelists.  5. 
A  monthly  magazine  printed  in  Japanese  and  contributed  to  largely  by 
native  writers.  6.  More  than  a  million  pages  of  books  and  pamphlets 
translated  and  published." 

Kev.  A.  N.  Alcott  spoke  on  "Christian  Ethics,  and  Business  and  Polit- 
ical Successes." 

A  paper  by  the  Hon.  Hosea  W.  Parser  set  forth  existing  conditions  of 
"Denominational  Organization  and  Polity ;  the  Position  of  Woman  in  the 
Universalist  Church,  and  Sunday  School  Interests." 

The  Rev.  Dr.  A.  J.  Canfield  presented  a  paper  on  "  The  Renaissance 
of  Universalism." 

Mrs.  M.  R.  M.  Wallace  gave  an  account  of  the  missionary  organizations 
of  women  existing  in  nearly  ievery  state. 

Mrs.  Cordelia  A.  Quimby,  President  of  the  Woman's  Centenary  Asso- 
ciation, presented  a  history  of  this  important  missionary  organization,  which 
is  both  national  and  international  in  its  scope. 

Rev.  Dr.  Nehemiah  White  spoke  on  "Love  as  the  Basis  of  Education." 

Friday,  September  15,  was  Presentation  Day.  This  program  was 
followed  : 

Universalism  the  Doctrine  of  the  Scriptures,  Rev.  Dr.  Alonzo  Ames 
Miner,  LL.D. 

Universalism  the  Doctrine  of  the  Christian  Church  during  the  First 
Five  Centuries,  Rev.  Dr.  John  Wesley  Hanson. 

Universalism  a  System  of  Truths,  not  a  Single  Dogma  ;  God's  Uni- 
versal Paternity;  Man's  Universal  Fraternity,  Rev.  Dr.  Stephen  Crane. 

The  Divine  Will  Omnipotent ;  the  Human  Will  Forever  Free  ;  Man 
Necessarily  Redeemable,  Rev.  Dr.  C.  Ellwood  Nash. 

The  Atttitude  of  the  Universalist  Church  toward  Science,  Fresident  I. 
M.  Atwood,  D.D. 

The  Contribution  of  Universalism  to  the  Faith  of  the  World,  Rev.. Dr. 
James  M.  Pullman. 


INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 


CONGRESS  OF  MISSIONS  * 

The  Congress  of  Missions  followed  immediately  upon  the  Parliament  of 
Religions  and  continued  for  eight  days  with  three  daily  sessions.  The 
Woman's  Congress  of  Missions  under  the  direction  of  a  committee  of  which 
Mrs.  F.  W.  Fisk  was  chairman,  united  with  the  general  congress  during  part 
of  the  sessions  of  three  days.  The  delegates  to  these  congresses  comprised 
missiotiaries,  beneficiaries  of  missionary  labor,  ojficers  of  missionary  societies 
and  others  interested.  The  papers  and  addresses  were  given,  for  the  most 
part,  by  those  who  had  gained  their  information  at  first  hand,  and  who  could 
thus  speak  with  authority.  While  there  was  no  disposition  to  exaggerate 
what  had  already  been  accomplished,  or  to  underestimate  the  difficulties  still 
in  the  way,  yet  the  prevailing  tone  of  the  congress  was  hopeful.  The  ques- 
tions discussed  were  those  having  a  vital  relation  to  the  work  that  needs  to 
be  done  now. 

Cooperation  in  Missionary  Work. — The  Rev.  Walter  Manning 
Barrows,  D.D.,  Chairman  of  the  Congress,  said  in  his  introductory  address: 
The  committee  to  which  has  been  intrusted  the  work  of  preparation  for  this 
congress  has  endeavored  to  give  the  subject  of  cooperation  the  most  promi- 
nent place.  The  lack  of  cooperation  in  the  past  has  been  the  scandal  of 
'^hristendom.  Lucan  said  to  the  Romans,  "Vou  have  turned  your  arms 
against  each  other,  when  you  mijjht  have  been  sacking  Babylon."  So  pro- 
fessing Christians  have  often  turned  their  arms  against  each  other,  when,  if 
united,  they  might  have  been  storming  that  Babylon  of  sin  referred  to  by  St. 
John.  It  is  certain  that  the  world  will  never  be  Christianized  by  a  church 
divided  into  an  hundred  sects  working  independently  of  one  another  and 
often  at  cross  purposes,  wasting  on  internal  strifes  energies  that  ought  to  be 
directed  against  a  common  foe.  It  will  only  be  when  the  whole  "body  is 
fitly  framed  and  knit  together  through  that  which  every  joint  supplieth"  that 
this  work  will  be  accomplished.     The  church  is  not  an  end  in  itself.     It  is 

•General  Committee —Rev.  Walter  Manning  Barrows,  D.D.,  Chairman  ;  Wm.  E. 
Blackstone,  Vice-Chairman ;  Rev.  Alvirus  N.  Hitchcock,  Ph.D.,  Secretary;  Rev.  E.  M. 
Wherry,  D.D.,  Corresponding  Secretary;  Rev.  Moses  Smith,  Rt.  Rev.  Samuel  Fallows, 
D.D  ;  Rev.  Frank  M.  Bristol,  D.D. ;  Rev.  Theo.  N.  Morrison,  Rev.  O.  P.  Gifford,  D.D. ; 
Rev.  J.  J.  Keller,  Pres.  Wm.  R.  Harper,  LL.D. ;  Rev.  A.  J.  Canfield,  D.D. ;  Rev.  Geo.  E. 
Youngdahl,  Charles  S.  Holt,  Esq. ;  Rev.  E.  C.  Ray,  D.D. ;  W.  B.  Jacobs,  Esq. ;  Peter  Sin- 
clair, Esq. ;  Rev.  L.  G.  Abrahamson,  Rev.  R.  Blomendal,  Rev.  John  Schneider,  Rev.  H.  W. 
Roth,  D.D. ;  Rev.  Wm.  T.  Meloy,  D.D. ;  Rev.  W.  F.  Black,  Rev.  Charles  M.  Morton. 

•536 


CONGRESS   OF   MISSIONS.  1537 

simply  a  means  to  an  end  ;  and  that  end  is  not  merely  fellowship  or  the  up- 
buildmg  of  the  membership  in  the  Christian  life,  but  the  upbuilding  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  in  the  world.  "The  church,"  said  Phillips  Brooks,  "  must 
put  off  her  look  of  selfishness.  She  must  first  deeply  feel  and  then  frankly 
say  that  she  exists  only  as  the  picture  of  what  the  world  ought  to  be.  Not  as 
the  ark  where  a  choice  few  may  take  refuge  from  the  flood,  but  as  the  piom- 
ise  and  potency  of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  she  must  offer  herself 
to  men." 

There  are  indications  to  show  that  Christians  are  beginning  to  appreci- 
ate the  importance  of  cooperating  with  one  another.  The  time  may  not  have 
come  and  may  never  come  for  fusion  on  any  large  scale,  but  the  time  has 
certainly  come  for  cooperation  on  a  larger  scale. 

The  Rev.  George  W.  Knox,  D.D.,  of  Tokio,  Japan,  read  a  paper  on 
Denominational  Comity  AND  Cooperation. 

The  Rev.  Edwin  M.  Bliss,  formerly  of  Constantinople,  now  of. New 
York  City,  read  a  paper  on  COOPERATION  APPLIED  :  Practical  Methods. 
He  said:  Cooperation  in  mission  work  is  the  working  together  of  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  the  Christian  Church  with  God,  to  evangelize  the  world 
and  build  up  the  kingdom  of  God.     It  is  applicable  to  every  department  of 

Christian  effort In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note 

the  advance  that  is  indicated  by  the  use  of  the  term  cooperation.  A  few 
years  ago  the  great  word,  in  speaking  of  the  relations  of  missionary  societies 
to  each  other,  was  comity.  Comity  is  but  a  form  of  courtesy.  I  will  not 
interfere  with  you  and  I  shall  expect  that  you  will  not  interfere  with  me.  It 
almost  necessitated  separate  fields,  separate  developments,  separate  results. 
Cooperation  is  something  far  more  than  this.  It  recognizes  that  each  sepa 
rate  body  has  a  place  and  can  do  a  work  which  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
best  success  of  all.  Let  us  look  at  what  is  already  bemg  done.  In  the 
field  of  home  missions  two  events  stand  out  very  prominently.  First,  the 
action  of  the  home  missionary  societies  of  the  Congregational,  Presbyte- 
rian and  Reformed  Churches,  and  second,  the  inter-denominational  com- 
mission of  the  state  of  iMaine.  The  Baptists,  Christians,  Congregationalists, 
Free  Baptists  and  Methodists;  comprising  eight-ninths  of  the  evangelical 
Christians  of  the  state  of  Maine,  have  covenanted  to  promote  cooperation  in 
the  organization  and  the  maintenance  of  churches  in  their,  state,  to  prevent 
that  waste  of  resources  and  effort  in  smaller  towns,  and  to  stimulate  mis- 
sionary work  in  destitute  regions. 

Turnini?  to  the  foreign  work,  two  events  attract  particular  notice.  The 
great  conference  in  London  in  i888,  and  the  inter-denominational  conference 
of  foreign  missionary  boards  and  societies  in  the  United  States  and  Canada 
held  in  New  York  City  in  January,  1893.  •  •  •  What  methods  may  be 
adopted  to  secure  the  application  of  these  principles  ?  The  first  and  most 
obvious  is  a  better  mutual  acquaintance  on  the  part  of  missionaries  and  the 
boards  and  the  general  public,  as  to  the  work  of  different  societies  ;  this  to 

97. 


1538        THE    INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

be  secured  by  increased  consultation  and  wider  diffusion  of  missionary 
intelligence.  It  is  marvelous  how,  when  Christian  people  get  together, 
and  actuated  by  a  common  influence  really  seek  to  understand  each  other, 
the  occasions  for  misunderstanding  or  separation  disappear. 

After  the  discussion  of  this  subject  by  the  Congress,  the  Rev.  E.  M. 
Wherry,  D.D.,  introduced  the  followir«g  resolution,  which  was  adopted  : 

Since  the  question  of  missionary  cooperation  is  one  of  vital  importance 
to  the  success  of  the  work,  and  since  the  members  of  this  congress  are  con- 
vinced that  the  time  has  come  for  practical  endeavor  in  this  direction,  be 
it  resolved,  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  prepare  a  memorial  on  this 
■  4  subject  and  address  it  to  all  missionary  societies  throughout  the  world, 
urging  upon  them  the  importance  of  establishing  a  World's  Congress  of 
Missions  to  secure  a  better  organization  of  missionary  forces. 

The  committee  appointed  consisted  of  Rev.  John  Henry  Barrows,  D.D., 
Chicago  (Presbyterian);  President  James  B.  Angell,  LL.D.,  Ann  Arbor; 
Michigan  (Congregationalist);  Rev.  Alexander  Mackay-Smith,  D.D., 
Washington,  D.  C.  (Protestant  Episcopal);   Right  Rev.  Charles  E.  Cheney, 

<  D.D.,  Chicago  (Reformed  Episcopal);   Rev.  Luther  F.  Townsend,  D.D., 

i  ,  Boston  (Methodist  Episcopal);  Rev.  A.  J.  Gordon,  1).D.,  Boston  (Baptist); 

}  Rev.  John  Brown,  D.D.,   Bedford,  England   (Congregational);   Rev.   Dr. 

t  Oswald,  Chicago  (Evangelical  Lutheran);   Rev.  J.  J.  Lummenbell,  D.D., 

Lewisburg,  Pa.  (Christian);  Rev.  David  J.  Burrill,  D.D.,  New  York 
(Reformed  Church  of  America). 

The  True  Aim  and-  Methods  of  Missionary  Work. — The  Rev. 
George  Washbi;rn,  D.D.,  of  Constantinople,  presented  a  paper  on  this 
subject.  It  is  through  the  heart  rather  than  the  intellect,  through  those 
affections  which  are  universal  and  peculiar  to  no  race  or  religion  or  civil- 
ization, that  we  must  make  our  first  advance.  The  Moslem  must  first  find 
Christ  in  the  missionary  before  he  can  find  him  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  He 
must  recognize  the  missionary  as  a  friend  before  he  will  try  to  comprehend 
him  as  a  teacher.  Whatever  work,  then,  will  bring  the  missionary  and -the 
Moslem  together,  make  them  friends,  and  thus  help  them  to  understand  each 
other,  is  not  only  a  legitimate  but  an  essential  form  of  missionary  work.  It 
may  be  at  a  given  time  and  place,  better  missionary  work  to  import  plows 
than  tracts,  to  help  a  fisherman  mend  his  net  than  to  repeat  to  him  the 
catechism,  to  dig  a  well  than  to  preach  a  sermon,  to  found  a  college  than  to 
build  a  church,  to  study  the  Koran  than  to  read   the  Bible,  if  these  things 

open  the  way  to  win  men's  confidence  and  sympathy The 

true  aim  of  missionary  work  is  to  make  Christ  known  to  the  world. 
Nothing  is  foreign  to  this  work  which  reveals  his  spirit  or  is  characteristic 
of  his  kingdom,  and  nothing  is  essential  to  it  which  is  peculiar  to  any  sect, 
race  or  civilization. 

Our  second  question  is  of  equal  importance  :  fVAat  should  the  mission- 
ary expect  to  accomplish? 

There  are  two  extreme  views.     The  one  considers  the  missionary  simply 


CONGRESS  OF  MISSIONS.  1539 

as  a  witness  of  the  truth.  He  cannot  hope  to  convert  the  world,  but  can 
testify  of  Christ  to  all  nations;  and  when  he  has  done  this  Christ  himself 
will  come  and  establish  his  kingdom  in  his  own  way.  And  in  this  view  it  is 
sometimes  said  that  the  missionary  work  might  be  finished  in  a  few  years  if 
the  church  did  its  duty.  In  my  wide  acquaintance  with  missionaries  I 
never  chanced  to  meet  one  who  had  any  sympathy  with  this  view,  and  we 
may  dismiss  it  as  unworthy  of  attention.  The  opposite  view,  that  the 
heathen  world  generally  is  to  be  converted  to  Christ  by  the  direct  work  of 
foreign  missionaries,  was  once  a  popular  theory  and  has  still  considerable 
influence.  It  is  the  theory  assumed  by  t^ose  who  ridicule  missions  and  treat 
the  work  as  a  failure,  but  I  know  of  no  experienced  missionary  who  holds  it, 
and  it  is  really  as  absurd  and  unfoundea  as  the  other. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  no  more  possible  to  convert  a  nation  once  for  all 
than  it  is  to  educate  it  once  for  alU  The  work  has  to  be  begun  anew  with 
each  new  generation,  and  the  law  of  all  progress  in  the  world  is  develop- 
ment through  conflict.  There  is  no  reaSbn  to  expect  that  this  conflict  with 
evil  or  the  missionary  work  of  the  church  will  ever  come  to  an  end  until  the 
end  of  the  world. 

In  the  next  place  it  is  a  manifest  impossibility  for  foreigners  to  evange- 
lize a  nation  that  has  an  established  religion  and  civilization,  although  savage 
tribes  have  been  thus  converted  and  civilized.  Even  if  it  were  possible,  the 
Christian  Church  has  never  yet  shown  any  inclination  to  furnish  the  men  and 
the  money  to  carry  out  such  a  plan  as  this. 

The  true  ana  now  generally  accepted  answer  to  the  question  what 
a  missionary  ought  to  expect  to  accomplish  is  the  golden  mean  between  these 
two  extremes.  He  is  not  simply  a  witness  bearer,  nor  does  he  expect  per- 
sonally to  evangelize  a  nation.  He  goes  out  as  a  messenger  of  glad  tidings, 
and  his  first  work  is  to  find  one  man  who  will  receive  the  message  and  start 
a  progressive  series.  He  goes  as  a  messenger  and  remains  as  a  helper. 
.  .  .  Very  few  missionaries  in  semi-civilized  countries  have  personally 
won  as  many  souls  to  Christ  as  the  average  pastor  of  an  American  church. 
It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  he  should.  The  conversion  of  the 
nation  is  the  work  of  the  people  themselves,  not  of  a  foreigner  ;  for  the  new 
faith  must  be  assimilated  and  brought  into  relation  with  the  character,  civil- 
ization and  habits  of  thought  of  the  nation  before  it  can  exert  a  general 
controlling  influence  over  the  people.  The  end,  therefore,  which  the  mis- 
sionary may  hop?  to  attain  is  the  establishment  of  a  living,  native  Christian 
church,  strong  enough  to  stand  by  itself  and  evangelize  the  nation. 

The  Rev.  J.  T.  Gracey,  D.D.,  President  of  the  International  Missionary 
Union,  spoke  on  the  subject  of  Native  Agencies  the  Chief  Hope  of 
National  Evangelization.  He  took  substantially  the  same  ground  as 
Dr.  Washburn,  advocating  the  organization  of  schools  for  training  the  native 
Christians  for  missionary  work.  He  spoke  in  terms  of  warm  admiration  of 
the  willingness  of  the  native  Christians  to  support  this  work  and  their  hero- 


l."'.t 


1540        THE    INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

ism  in  bearing  the  persecutions  to  which  they  are  subjected.  He  prophesied 
that  some  day  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  native  missionaries  there  would  rise 
men  to  do  what  Luther  did  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  Rev,  William  Miller,  D.D.,  of  Madras,  India,  presented  a  paper 
on  Educational  Agencies  in  Missions.  He  advocated  education  in 
missions  as  a  strengthening,  training,  developing  agency,  and  also  as  a  pre- 
paratory agency.  Both  in  its  theory  and  its  practice,  the  church  maintains 
that  while  the  simple  presentation  of  the  message  of  forgiveness  and  love 
through  the  cross  of  Christ  is  the  highest  form  of  Christian  effort  and  the 
central  means  of  building  up  the  church,  there  is  yet,  according  to  the  divine 
plan,  both  room  and  need  for  humbler  agencies,  to  work  in  auxiliary  subot- . 
dination  to  it.  The  church's  aim  has  been,  through  study  of  God's  ordinary 
methods  of  procedure,  to  become  an  instrument  in  making  thein  effectual ;  to 
lay  itself  along  the  line  of  the  divine  purpose,  and,  seeking  no  glory  for  her- 
self, to  do  intentionally,  and  therefore  mortf  rapidly,  a  work  that  must  be 
done  somehow  if  the  dfVine  purpose  are  to  be  fully  carried  out  in  any  land 

or  among  any  race '  With  views  like  these,  schools,  of  which 

,some  were  to  become  colleges,  were  established.  In  these  the  minds  were 
to  be  formed  and  trained  of  those  who  were  within  the  Hindu  community 
and  who  could  not  fail  to  affect  that  community  in  all  its  thoughts  and  ways. 
In  such  institutions,  all  truth  that  could  help  to  form  thought  and  character 
aright  was  to  be  inculcated  as  opportunity  served,  and  all  to  be  so  inculcated 
as  to  set  in  the  forefront  that  revelation  of  love  which  is  the  key  to  human 
history  and  the  germ  of  all  (rue  progress.  As  the  most  important  among 
truths  of  this  kind,  the  words  of  Scripture,  and  especially  the  words  of 
Christ,  were  to  be  studied.  The  Scriptures  were  to  be  the  spear-head,  all 
other  knowledge  the  well-fitted  handle.'  The  Scriptures  were  to  be  the  heal- 
ing essence,  all  other  knowledge  the  congenial  medium  through  which  it  is 
conveyed. 

The  aim  of  those  who  work  in  this  way  is  to  be  instruments  in  helping 
and  hastening  the  changes  in  the  thoughts  and  character  and  tendencies  of 
men,  which  are  necessary,  according  to  the  ordihary  government  of  the 
world,  for  the  thorough  accomplishment  of  God's  great  design.  Now  a 
divine  preparation  has  never  yet  been  a  short  or  easy  thing.  It  is  not  the 
leveling  of  a  single  wall  or  the  opening  of  a  single  door.  If  it  be  likened 
to  any  of  the  works  of  nature,  it  is  rather  the  process  by  which,  through 
hidden  agencies  beneath  and  the  influence  in  many  a  recurring  season  of 
rain  and  sunshine  from  above,  the  exhausted  ground  has  its  fertility  restored. 
Or  if  it  be  likened  to  one  of  the  works  of  men,  it  is  rather  the  digging  of  a 
canal  by  which  huge  ships  are  to  pass  from  one  of  two  widely  severed  oceans 
to  the  other.  Such  a  work  requires  many  things  before  the  progress  that 
has  been  made  grows  plain.  It  requires  much  weary  travel  for  careful  study 
of  the  ground.  It  requires  the  organization  of  a  staff  and  the  collection  of 
materials.   It  requires  patient  study  and  invention  to  overcome  unlooked-for 


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1542        THE    INTER. DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

obstacles.     It  retiuires  time  of  no  stinted  length  before  it  can  be  fairly  esti- 
mated, and  time  in  still  larger  measure  before  its  full  benefit  is  felt.     Now  it 
has  just  been  shown  that  it  has  not  been  by  any  means  for  the  whole  of  the 
sixty  years  since   they  began,  that   preparatory  educational   agencies  have 
been  maintained  with  a  right  understanding  of  their  proper  function.    Even 
yet,  it  is  but  partly  that  they  are  thus  maintained.     And  the  introduction  ot 
Christian  thought  by  means  of  advanced  education  has  not  stood  alone. 
Other  schemes  of  thought  than  the  Christian  have  necessarily  presented 
themselves  to  the  minds  that  have  been  stirred  from  the  torpor  that  has 
crept  over  their  race  for  centuries.     In  all  its  working,  even  in  the  lands 
where  it  is  strongest,  the  leaven  of  the  Gospel  has  given  life  to — it  is  part  of 
its  function  to  give  life  to — antagonism  as  well  as  approval.     It  proclaims 
peace  on  earth,  yet  it  brings  not  peace  but  a  sword.     Every  line  of  thought 
which  such  antagonism  has  suggested  in  Europe  and  America — sum  it  up 
under  the  title  of  rationalism,  of  agnosticism,  or  what  you  will, — has,  or  is 
fast  coming  to  have,  its  representatives  in  India.     And  in  India  such  forms 
of  thought  find  fitting  channels  ready  for  them.     Hinduism  is  not  the  idol- 
atry and  unrooted  polytheism  of  savages.     The  idolatry  which  has  spread 
over  it  till  it  seems  to  the  superficial  observer  to  be  itself,  is  merely  a  corrup- 
tion and  excrescence.     Within,  there  are  aspirations  as  lofty  and  philoso- 
phies as  subtle  as  formed  the  environment  of  the  early  church  at  Ephesus 
and  Alexandria.     To  these  the  touch  of  Christian  education  has  given  new 
life,  as  in  the  nature  of  the  case  it  was  sure  to  do.     Few  things  are  so  prom- 
inent in  the  India  of  to-day  as  the  attempt  to  read  Christian  thought  and 
Christian  ethic  and  as  much  as  may  be  of  the   Christian   spirit  into  the 
forms  of  the  ancient  system.     In  trying  to  do  this  some  of  those  with  whom 
•  the  new  influences  are  strongest  are  earnestly  engaged,  and  more  will  be  so 
engaged  ere   long.     Some  are   doing  this  with  the  vain  desire  of  arresting 
the  spread  of  Christianity.     Some  are  doing  it  who  know  well  that  they  and 
those  whom  they  influence  are  on  the   high   road   to   a  full  confession  of 
Christ.     But  those  who  are  so  engaged,  whether  from  the  one  motive  or  the 
other,  have  of  course  in  the  meantime  the  support  of  the  multitude,  to  whom 
in  a  superficial  way  the  customs  of  the  past  are  dear  ;  and  the  loud  approval 
of  the  multitude  gives  excuse  to  the  hostile  and   the  thoughtless  to  declare 
that  the  revival  of  Hinduism  has  been  the  sole  outcome  of  Christian  educa- 
tion.    To  men  who  have  thought  of  how  humanity  is  actually  trained,  it  is 
needless  to  point  out  that  such  a  phase  as  this  was  bound  to  come.     The 
fact  that  it  has  come  in  India  will  be  to  such  men  an   important  element  in 
the  truth  that   a   divine   preparation  is  being  made,    however   it   may  be 
regarded  by  those  who  look  only  on  the  surface   as  a   sign  of  failure.     .    . 
.     .     Educational  institutions  in  which  the  foremost  vouths  of  all  faiths  and 
classes  commingle  freely, — in  which  all  truth  is  taught  zealously  and  taught 
in  its  connection  with  Him  who  is  the  center  of  the  world's  development 
and  the  rightful  king  of  men, — in  which  the  dominating  principle  is  reli- 


CONGRESS   OF    MISSIONS.  1543 

ance  on  the  guidance  and  the  strength  of  the  God  of  all  the  ages — such 
institutions  will  be  admitted,  by  every  one  who  has  head  to  understand  and 
heart  to  sympathize  with  the  divine  ways,  to  be  invaluable  outposts  of  the 
Christian  army.  They  can  never  be  the  sole  dependence  of  the  church 
universal  in  any  land  ;  but  it  is  plain,  if  anything  is  plain,  that  they  must 
very  greatly  increase  the  good  effect  of  every  other  agency  she  employs. 

The  Rev.  Alvirus  N.  Hitchcock,  Ph.D.,  of  Chicago,  read  a  paper 
on  Missionary  Societies:  Their  Place  and  Function  in  the 
Work  of  the  Church. 

Rev.  C.  P.  Hard,  M.A.,  of  India,  read  a  paper  on  the  Environment 
OF  the  Native  Convert:  Caste,  Polygamy  and  other  Hereditary 
Customs.  * 

The  Rev.  George  Smith,  LL.  D.,  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  read  a  paper 
entitled :  A  Geographical  Survey. 

The  Rev.  H.  C.  Haydn,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  presented  a 
paper  on  Obstacles  to  Foreign  Missionary  Success. 

The  Rev.  F.  F.  Ellinwood,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  gave  an  address  on 
the  Reflex  Influence  of  Foreign  Missions. 

Citizen  Rights  of  Missionaries. — The  Rev.  W.  Elliott  Griffis, 
D.D.,  of  Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  presented  a  paper  on  this  subject.  He  quoted  the 
words  of  Secretary  of  State  Everett,  written  in  1853,  and  also  the  statement 
made  by  the  late  Mr.  Blaine  to  the  effect  that  all  American  missionaries  sta- 
tioned in  foreign  lands  were  entitled  to  the  protection  of  the  United  States 
government  without  discrimination.     Dr.  Griffis  continued  : 

When  a  missionary's  life  or  property  is  endangered,  the  government  is 
as  fully  bound  to  protect  him  as  in  the  case  of  the  merchant  or  the  traveler, 
and,  in  case  of  loss  or  destruction  of  property,  to  seek  to  obtain  redress.  As 
the  government  knows  not,  nor  inquires  into  the  religion  of  its  citizens,  so  it 
knows  not  nor  inquires  into  his  opinions  regarding  Christianity.  The  gov- 
ernment knows  only  citizens,  not  traders  or  missionaries.  To  abate  by  one 
jot  the  demand  for  justice  in  the  case  of  the  penniless  missionaries,  while  a 
fleet  is  sent  to  indicate  the  majesty  of  the  flag  when  money  is  to  be  collected, 
is  to  debase  authority  to  the  level  of.  barbarism.  If  American  missionaries 
at  Ponape  are  imprisoned  and  their  property  confiscated,  and  little  or  no  notice 
taken  of  it  at  Washington,  when  a  whole  squadron  was  sent  to  Naples  to 
collect  money  for  Baltimore  insurance  companies,  then  something  is  wrong 
in  the  policy  of  the  United  States  government,  or  we  as  a  nation  have  fallen 
away  from  a  high  standard. 

If  a  war  be  begun  with  Corea,  and  400  natives  are  slaughtered  with 
Dahlgren  howitzers  and  Bridgeport  rifles  because  certain  American  marauders 
in  the  schooner  General  Sherman  have  been  attacked,  while  the  Turks  are 
allowed  to  burn  mission  premises  and  assault  American  women,  then  we  can- 
not help  thinking  there  is  either  inconsistency  or  weakness  at  Washington. 
Does  the  government  say  that  it  can  make  absolutely  no  discrimination 


1544        THE    INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONCiRESSES. 

between  its  citizens  abroad  ?  Then  let  us  have  interpretations  and  mani- 
festations showing  that  it  makes  no  discriminations  between  the  great  coun- 
tries, like  Spain  or  the  Ottoman  empire,  and  little  ones  like  Naples  or  Corea, 
and  that  its  pleasure  is  equal  in  acting  as  the  dun  or  as  the  protector. 

Gen.  B.  R.  Cowan,  U.  S.  Circuit  Court,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  read  a  paper 
on  The  Responsibilities  of  Christian  Governments  as  to  Hu.man 
Rights. 

The  Rev.  S.  T.  Baldwin,  D.D.  of  New  York,  prepared  a  paper  on 
Christian  Government  and  the  Opium  Traffic. 

Prof.  G.  F.  Wright,  D.D.,  of  Oberlin  College,  presented  a  paper  on 
Science  and  Missions. 

The  Parliament  of  Religions. — The  Congress  of  Missions,  follow- 
ing as  it  did  immediately  upon  the  Parliament  of  Religions,  it  was  natural 
that  there  should  be  many  references  to  it  by  the  missionaries  and  others. 
These  were  quite  uniformly  of  a  friendly  character.  It  was  believed  that 
great  good  would  result  to  the  cause  of  missions  from  this  gathering  upon 
one  platform  of  the  representatives  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world. 
This  gathering  was  only  made  possible  by  the  missionary  work  of  the  last 
century. 

Rev.  Thomas  Craven,  of  Lucknow,  India,  said  :  1  have  attended  the 
Parliament  of  Religions,  and  upon  the  platform  have  seen  many  distin- 
guished gentlemen  of  India  who  could  not  have  appeared  here  but  for  the 
work  of  the  Christian  religion  in  India.  The  old  caste  rules  would  have 
made  that  impossible.  I  consider  the  very  presence  of  Mozoomdar  and 
of  other  speakers  from  India  was  of  itself  a  testimony  to  the  power  of  Chris- 
tianity in  India.  Their  very  language  was  a  testimony.  It  was  the  Chris- 
tian missionaries  who  carried  the  English  language  to  the  East  Indies.  The 
first  instructor  of  the  people  in  this  language  was  Dr.  Duff,  of  the  Free 
Church  of  Scotland,  and  the  first  Anglo-Indian  dictionary  was  made  by  a 
Baptist  missionary.  I  have  sat  here  and  listened  to  the  charges  made  by 
these  gentlemen  that  it  was  Christianity  that  had  taken  the  drink  habit  to 
India.  That  statement  is  not  true.  Long  before  England  went  to  India 
the  toddy  of  the  palm  and  the  toddy  of  the  hemp  and  of  opium  was  in  use 
among  the  indigent  classes  of  India,  who  could  not  afford  to  buy  the  high- 
priced  liquors  which  were  brought  from  foreign  lands.  And  who  is  it  now 
that  is  making  the  fight  against  all  forms  of  intemperance  in  India?  A 
Hindu  ?  A  Mohammedan  ?  A  Buddhist  ?  No  ;  it  is  John  Evans,  a  Bap- 
tist missionary.  He  it  is  who  is  making  war  both  upon  the  home  made 
drinks  indulged  in  by  the  lower  classes  and  the  liquors  which  are  imported 
into  India. 

Mr.  Joseph  Cook,  of  Boston,  in  his  address  on  The  Century  of 
Modern  Missions  a  Prophecy  of  P^inal  Triumph,  said  :  What  has  the 
science  of  comparative  religions  to  say  as  to  victories  and  hopes  of  Christian 
missions  ?     In  reply  to  this  question  you  will  allow  me  to  be  specific,  for  we 


CONGRESS   OF   MISSIONS.  1545 

are  yet  listening  to  the  echoes  of  a  most  memorable  Parliament  of  Relig- 
ions, and  I  speak  as  if  in  the  presence  of  the  body  which  has  made  the  spot 
on  which  we  are  assembled  historic  ground.  All  ethnic  religions  have  been 
explored  in  outline,  and  many  of  them  in  great  detail.  This  is  a  condition 
of  affairs  which  until  within  twenty-five  years  would  not  have  been  possible. 
Until  the  last  half  century  it  was  hardly  possible  to  obtain  in  the  Occident 
any  adequate  information  regarding  Brahmanism,  Buddhism,  Mohammedan- 
ism and  the  other  Oriental  religions  which  were  represented  by  their  teach- 
ers on  this  very  platform  in  the  month  just  closed. 

What  is  the  result  of  our  later  information  of  these  religions  ?  No  other 
religion  now  known  to  man  can  be  called  a  serious  rival  to  Christianity. 
Not  one  of  the  great  ethnic  non-Christi.in  faiths  has  the  hope  of  converting 
the  world.  I  know  that  some  of  them  are  enlarging  the  territory  in  which 
they  are  accepted,  but  even  Mohammedanism,  which  has  made  the  greatest 
gains,  has  increased  only  ii  per  cent  in  India  in  the  time  that  Christianity 
has  increased  64  per  cent.  It  is,  I  suppose,  within  the  last  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury that  Mohammedanism  has  given  up  the  hope  of  converting  Africa,  and 
in  the  same  time  Buddhism  and  Brahmanism  have  given  up  the  hope  of 
converting  Asia.  We  are  to  use  the  principles  of  a  Christian  philosophy,  of 
course,  to  judge  what  is  worth  saving  and  what  is  to  be  cast  away  in  the 
chaos  of  decay  brought  to  us  by  the  advancing  science  of  comparative  relig- 
ion, but  as  a  religion  only  that  which  saves  the  soul  is  worth  saving. 

Max  Miiller  himself  has  published  the  opinion  that  it  is  mere  futility  to 
assume  that  the  Bible  is  to  be  dazzled  by  any  other  sacred  book.  Until 
twenty-five  years  ago  there  had  been  some  expectation  on  the  part  of 
rationalism  that  we  might  at  least  be  able  to  put  on  the  shelf  very  near  our 
Bible  some  of  these  books.  But  the  more  the  study  of  comparative  religion 
has  progressed,  the  more  the  brilliancy  of  the  Word  of  God  has  come  forth 
until  the  most  advanced  scholars  in  this  study  admit  that  there  is  no  book 
that  can  be  put  on  the  same  shelf  with  the  Bible,  or  on  any  shelf  that  is  not 
far  away  from  that  on  which  the  Bible  lies. 

There  is  an  absolute  gospel  consisting  of  self-evident  truth  and  the 
record  of  Christ,  and  we  must  accept  nothing  which  does  not  come  on  the 
absolute  authority  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  rules  of  life.  This  is  the 
sieve  through  which  all  conclusions  must  be  passed.  Using  this  sieve  with 
respect  to  the  Parliament  of  Religions,  missions  appear  more  necessary  than 
they  did  before  the  Parliament  met. 

What  have  been  the  choice  results  of  this  Parliament  in  the  field  of 
comparative  religion  ?  Chief  among  the  salient  features  of  that  great  body 
is  the  fact  that  it  would  not  listen  to  a  defense  of  polygamy. 

Among  the  grand  things  we  heard  in  the  Parliament  of  Religions  were 
the  denunciation  of  international  injustice,  and,  God  be  praised,  the  Parlia- 
ment by  its  plaudits  showed  its  protest  against  the  opium  traffic  and  slavery. 
God  be  praised  that  our  relation  with  China  and  the  Geary  law  were  con- 


1546        THE    INTER-DKNOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

demned  in  the  overwhelming  applause  with   which  China's  representative 
was  greeted. 

The  Parliament  expressed  its  abhorrence  of  caste,  it  gave  a  hearing  to 
every  cause  of  philanthropy  and  reform,  and  exalted  the  religion  of  con- 
science. 

Very  little  was  said  of  idolatry,  but  idolatry  is  a  fact  in  non-Christian 
faiths.  Idolatry  is  practiced  all  over  India.  I  do  not  say  that  there  was 
any  idolatry  in  the  fact  that  one  of  the  speakers  exhibited  a  statue  of 
Buddha  while  he  was  speaking.  1  do  not  think  there  was  anybody  on  the 
platform  that  need  be  called  an  idolater.  These  representatives  of  the 
Orient  religions  seem  to  have  cast  idolatry  in  your  great  lake  ;  and  God 
grant  that  when  they  go  home  they  may  cast  it  into  the  Indian  Ocean.  But 
nothing  was  said  of  this  side  of  the  non-Christian  faiths,  and  we  notice,  too, 
that  very  little  was  said  of  the  doctrine  of  reincarnation  and  other  peculiai 
features  of  Hinduism. 

Reports  of  Missionary  Success  were  presented  as  follows  : 

Among  Aboriginal  Americans.    Bishop  Whipple,  of  the  Protest 
ant  Episcopal  Church ;  Rev.  Edgerton  R.  Young,  of  the  Canadian  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church  ;  Miss  Mary  C.  Collins,  of  the  Congregational  Church  ; 
Mrs.  Amelia  S.  Quinton,  President  of  the  Indian  Association. 

Africa.  Bishop  William  Taylor,  Africa  ;  Prince  Momolu  Massaquoi 
and  Mrs.  M.  R.  Brieriey,  of  West  Africa  ;  Miss  Mary  G.  Burdette,  Africans 
in  America. 

India.  Rev.  Geo.  F.  Pentecost,  D.D.,  London  ;  Miss  Sorabji,  Bombay  ; 
Kev.  Drs.  Deese  and  Wilson,  missionaries  to  India. 

Siam.     Rev.  Dr.  McGilvary. 

Ottoman  Empire.  Rev.  H.  H.  Jessup.  D.D.,  the  Rev.  Geo.  A.  Ford 
and  Dr.  Geo.  E.  Post,  Beirut,  Syria  :  Rev.  J.  L.  Barton,  Harpoot,  Turkey  ; 
Rev.  James  S.  Dennis,  D.D.,  of  Syria, 

China.     Rev.  Geo.  T.  Candlin  and  Rev.  Gilbert  Reid. 

Japan.     President  Kozaki,  of  the  Doshisha  College,  Tokio,  Japan. 

France.  Rev.  Charles  Faithful,  Marseilles  ;  among  the  poor  in  Paris, 
Miss  de  Broen,  of  the  Belleville  Mission. 

Spain.     Rev.  Fritz  Fliedner. 

South  America.     Rev.  Thomas  B.  vVood,  LL.D.,  Callao,  Peru. 

Mexico.     Rev.  J.  Milton  Green,  D.D. 

Among  the  Jews.  Wm.  E.  Blackstone,  Esq.,  Chicago  ;  Bishop  W.  R. 
Nicholson,  D.D.,  Philadelphia;  Prof.  H.  M.  Scott,  D.D.,  Chicago  Theologi- 
cal Seminary. 

Among  the  Lepers.     W.  C.  Bailey,  Esq.,  Edinburgh,  Scotland. 

Cooperative  Agencies.  The  Rev.  .A.i.bert  S.  Hunt,  D.D.,  of  New 
York  spoke  on  Bible  Societies  as  a  Cooperative  .\gency  in  Mission- 
ary Work. 

When  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  was  formed  the  Bible  had 


CONGRESS   OF    MISSIONS.  1547 

been  translated  into  less  than  forty  languages.  Several  versions  were  obso- 
lete and  others  demanded  revision.  Then,  too,  the  Bible  was  so  costly  that 
its  possession  was  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor.  No  one  dreamed 
that  each  person  could  ever  acquire  a  copy  of  his  own.  The  Bible  Society 
began  to  multiply  versions,  to  publish  volumes  of  the  Scriptures  by  t£ns  of 
thousands,  and  to  supply  them  to  the  various  peoples  of  the  earth  at 
nominal  prices,  or  even  without  price.  This  work  has  expanded  from  year 
to  year,  and  especially  during  the  past  twenty  years,  until  the  Scriptures 
have  been  issued  in  nearly  400  languages  or  dialects,  and  until  the  Bible,  ia 
all  parts  of  the  world,  is  the  cheapest  of  all  books. 

The  total  issues  of  Bible  societies  thus  far,  exceed  the  most  enthu- 
siastic anticipations  of  their  founders.  4  The  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society  has  issued  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  millions  of  vol- 
umes;  the  American  Bible  Society  nearly  fifty  seven  millions;  and  the 
Bible  Society  of  Scotland  more  than  thirteen  millions,  making  an  aggregate 
for  the  thsee  leading  Bible  societies  of  the  world  of  two  hundred  and  six 
millions  two  hundred  and  one  thousand  four  hundred  and  four  volumes 
(206,201,404). 

The  Rev.  S.  H.  Virgin;  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York,  presented  a  paper 
on  Tract  and  Book  Societies  as  Cooperative  Agencies,  in  which  he 
showed  that  the  ignorance  of  spiritual  truths  that  exists,  the  wrong  teaching 
that  prevails,  the  false  doctrines  that  are  in  vogue,  and  the  era  of  doubt  in 
which  we  live,  all  demand  an  abundance  of  religious  literature. 

The  Rev.  N.  D.  HlLLis,  D.D.,  Evanston,  Ills.,  in  an  address  on  The 
Peril  of  Our  Nation  Through  Illiteracy  in  Morals,  said: 

The  International  Sunday  School  Association  report  eleven  million 
children  and  youth  in  Protestant  Sunday  Schools,  while  the  Catholics  have 
four  millions  under  religious  instruction.  This  leaves  ten  millions  practically 
outside  of  all  church  influence.  This  fact  is  big  with  peril.  It  represents 
danger  portentous.  The  need  is  urgent.  The  opportunity  is  strategic.  The 
sole  remedy  is  plain.  Ethics  and  morals  must  be.  relnthroned  in  the  public 
schools.  Protestants  and  Catholics  have  been  at  variance.  The  expulsion  of 
the  Bible  from  schools  has  led  the  Protestant  to  place  his  children  in  private 
schools,  and  the  Catholic  to  found  parochial  schools.  Thus  the  common 
schools  have  suffered  on  two  sides.  The  time  is  ripe  for  compromise.  Dr. 
John  Henry  Barrows,  with  representatives  of  all  the  Protestant  churches,  and 
Cardinal  Gibbons,  with  his  prelates,  have  found  common  standing  ground  for 
religious  conference.  Surely  they  can  also  find  common  ground  for  the 
instruction  of  the  youth  of  the  land  in  good  morals.  If  the  Parliament  of 
Religions  is  not  mist  and  moonshine,  conference  should  be  had  and  agree- 
ment reached  as  to  certain  common  principles  of  ethics  to  be  taught  in  our 
schools.  As  for  example,  the  ten  commandments,  teaching  the  youth  how  to 
carry  himself  in  the  home,  the  market  place  and  the  forum  ;  the  sermon  on 
the  mount,  presenting  the  positive  virtues  bearing  upon  conduct  and  char- 


1548        THE    INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

acter  ;  the  supremacy  of  conscience,  individual  responsibility  for  influence, 
and  the  Lord's  Prayer  called  "  the  Universal  IVayer."  On  these  ethical  prin- 
ciples hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets.  They  contain  moral  leaven  for 
raising  and  lightening  the  dead  social  lump.  Obedience  to  these  laws  is  lib- 
erty ;  disobedience  slavery.  They  concern  all  men  as  men.  They  are  as 
binding  upon  every  child  as  the  law  of  food,  air,  exercise.  Let  President 
Barrows  call  a  conference  of  these  assembled  delegates  to  confer  and  agree 
now  and  here  upon  some  common  ethical  principles  to  be  taught  m  the  com- 
mon schools.  The  people  of  this  nation  through  their  school  boards  have 
been  eager  for  such  a  conference  and  agreement  for  the  last  ten  years. 

No  church,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  will  prove  itself  an  enemy  of  the  pub- 
lic schools  by  refusing  cooperation.  Having  proclaimed  our  fraternalism 
from  this  national  housetop,  let  us  also  proclaim  our  practical  plans  for  les- 
sening the  nation's  want  and  misery  through  moral  illiteracy.  Doubtless 
there  have  been  some  mistakes  upon  both  sides.  If  so,  let  the  past  perish 
save  as  it  guards  us  against  future  blunders.  The  crying  need  of  the  hour  is 
agreement  upon  the  part  of  Catholics  and  Protestants  to  reenthrone  ethics 
and  morals  in  the  public  schools. 

'  Home  Missions. — The  different  aspects  of  the  home  missionary 
work  were  presented  by  the  Rev.  Alexander  Mackay-Smith,  D.D.,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C;  The  Rev.  Graham  Taylor,  D.D.,  Chicago  Theological^em- 
inary ;  the  Rev.  John  McNeil,  of  London  ;  the  Rev.  D.  J.  Burrell,  D.D.. 
New  York;  the  Rev.  P.M.  Bristol,  D.D.,  Chicago;  the  Rev.  Wm.  C. 
Roberts,  D.D.,  New  York  ;  Mr.  Thomas  Kane  and  Mr.  Peter  Sinclair,  of 
Chicago;  Rf.  Rev.  Charles  E.  Cheney,  D  D.,  Chicago;  Mrs.  Lucy  Rider- 
Meyer,  M.D.,  Chicago;  Miss  Dora  Stephenson,  London;  Chaplain  Allen 
Allensworth,  United  .States  ;  Captain  Pattie  Watkins,  Salvation  Army,  Chi- 
cago ;  Mrs.  F.  J.  Willing,  New  York  ;  .Mrs.  Emily  K.  Bishop,  Dayton,  O.; 
Mrs.  Flora  K.  Regal,  Oberlin,  O.;  Mrs.  Darwin  R.  James,  Brooklyn. 

Special  Responsibility  of  Yoi;.vg  People  and  their  Societies 
was  the  subject  of  an  address  by  the  Rev.  Francis  E.  Clark,  D.D.,  President 
United  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor;  Rev.  Edwin  A.  Schell,  General  Sec- 
retary Epworth  League,  Chicago ;  and  Mr  Robert  Speer,  Secretary  Presby- 
terian Board  Foreign  Missions,  New  York. 

Women's  Organizations.— Miss  Ellen  C.  Parsons,  of  New  York,  read 
a  paper  in  which  she  treated  the  history  of  organized  effort  among  women 
in  behalf  of  missions.  "  It  was  not  patriotism,  warning  of  the  menace  in 
an  incoming  tide  of  immigrants — that  came  later;  it  was  not  national 
remorse  demanding  reparation  to  the  exiled  Indian  ;  it  was  not  even  the 
last  command  of  Jesus,  'disciple  all  nations,'  like  a  clarion  call  to  the  con- 
science ;  it  was  a  human  cry,  appealing  expressly  to  woman's  tenderness, 
and  it  pierced  her  heart.  It  sounded  out  from  that  black  heathenism,  ages 
old,  lost,  vast,  awful — the  heartbreak  of  motherhood,  the  stifled  cry  of  dis- 
torted childhood.     This  was  what  happy  women  heard  in  their  happy,  pro- 


SUNDAY    REST   CONGRESS.  ^549 

tected  homes."  Other  aspects  of  the  subject  were  treated  by  Mrs.  Benjamin 
Douglas,  of  California;  Mrs.  A.  F.  Schauffler,  of  New  York;  Miss  Sybil 
Carter,  of  the  Episcopal  Board  ;  Mrs.  M.  Louise  Thomas,  of  New  York  ; 
Mrs.  Charlotte  M.  Yonge,  and  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Charles,  of  England. 

Women  under  the  Ethnic  Religions  was  the  subject  of  a  paper  by 
Mrs.  Moses  Smith,  of  Chicago. 

Medical  Missions  was  the  subject  of  a  paper  by  Mrs.  J.  T.  Gracey. 

Poems  were  read  by  Edna  Dean  Proctor  and  Emily  Huntington  Miller. 

The  closing  addresses  of  the  Congress  were  by  the  Rev.  Arthur  T. 
Pierson,  D.D.,  on  "Thy  Kingdom  Come,"  and  Mr.  Dwight  L.  Moody  on 
"The  Power  of  the  Spirit." 


THE  SUNDAY  REST  CONGRESS. 

Held  in  Art  Institute  September  28-30. 

The  program  of  the  congress  divided  the  question  of  Sunday  Rest  into 
its  physiological,  economic,  social,  political  and  religious  relations.  The 
papers  under  each  of  these  heads  were  supplemented  by  brief  addresses,  and 
by  reports  on  the  recent  progress  of  the  movement  in  various  countries. 

I.  On  the  Physiological  Relations  of  Sunday  Rest,  a  paper  by  Dr. 
Samuel  B.  Lyon,  of  New  York,  showed  the  responsibility  of  the  physician 
with  respect  to  this  subject,  the  prominent  position  which  preventive  medi- 
c?he  was  now  assuming  ;  that  its  efforts  were  largely  directed  to  promoting 
the  power  of  resistance  to  the  attacks  of  the  micro-organisms  which  are 
recognized  as  largely  the  causes  of  disease  ;  and  that  inasmuch  as  immunity 
from  germ  disease  is  largely  in  proportion  to  the  vigor  of  the  individual,  it 
is  of  immense  importance  to  secure  hygienic  conditions,  among  which  peri- 
odic rest  is  most  important.  He  quoted  numerous  testimonies'  from  recent 
medical  authorities  in  Europe  as  tu  the  effect  of  uninterrupted  labor  in 
the  conditions  in  which  it  is  usually  carried  on,  in  lowering  the  vitality 
and  impairing  the  power  of  resisting  disease.  He  showed  especially  the 
bearing  of  these  facts  upon  the  liability  to  mental  disorders,  which  have 
been  greatly  increasing  among  us  of  late.  Institutions'  for  the  insane  all 
over  the  world  are  filled  with  people  to  whom  the  stress  of  life  has  come 
with  a  weight  under  which  their  frail  natures  have  broken.  The  physician 
may  not  from  his  professional  standpoint  say  what  particular  day  should  be 
observed  as  a  day  of  rest.  He  may  only  insist  upon  the  great  necessity  of 
periodic  intermission  of  labor.  If  he  is  also  a  student  of  social  conditions, 
and  a  believer  in  the  law  of  Moses  and  Christ,  he  will  join  hands  cordially 
witii  those  who  view  the  subject  from  this  point  alone,  and  say,  "by  all 
means  let  the  day  of  rest  be  that  which  by  tradition  in  all  the  lands  of  Chris- 
tendom has  been  for  time  immemorial  set  apart  for  rest  from  labor  and  the 
worship  of  God. 


1550        THE    INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

Dr.  N.  S.  Davis,  of  Chicago,  briefly  confirmed  the  conclusion  of  the 
paper  by  facts  from  his  own  experience.  He  showed  the  deterioration 
which  comes  from  a  continuous  routine  of  work  taxing  always  the  same  fac- 
ulties and  muscles,  which,  not  sufficiently  counteracted  by  sleep,  need  a 
change  of  at  least  one  day  in  the  week,  to  break  up  the  monotony  and  to 
maintain  the  workman  in  health  and  efficiency,  whether  he  worked  with 
mind  or  body. 

2.  The  Economic  and  Industrial  Relations  of  the  Sunday  Rest  natur- 
ally occupied  the  largest  proportion  of  the  time  of  the  congress.  George 
E.  McNeill,  of  Boston,  made  an  earnest  and  pathetic  plea  for  Sunday  rest, 
on  economic  and  also  on  ethical  grounds.  Then  followed  a  series  of  able 
reports  on  the  results  of  Sunday  rest  in  various  industries ;  two  of  these,  by 
M.  Gibon  of  Paris  and  .M.  Baumgartner,  of  Rouen,  gave  some  striking  and 
surprising  results  of  Sunday  rest,  in  iron,  glass  and  other  industries  in 
France.  Thomas  Weir  presented  some  striking  facts  concerning  silver  and 
other  mining,  contrasting  the  results  in  the  character  and  comfort  of  the 
men  and  in  the  economical  working  of  the  mines  where  Sunday  rest  is  granted 
with  the  more  common  practice  of  working  seven  days  in  the  week.  Similar 
testimony  as  to  the  practicability  and  economy  of  Sunday  rest  in  the  oil 
industries  was  presented  by  W.  J.  Young. 

-  But  the  most  important  of  the  discussions  under  this  head  was  on  the 
Sundajr  railway  traffic.  E.C.  Beach,  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  presented 
the  question  from  ihe  side  of  the  railway  managers,  recognizing  the 
evils  of  Sunday  labor,  and  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  further  restricting  it. 
Shippers  of  freight  insisted  on  its  speediest  transpoitation,  and  the  competi- 
tion of  rival  lines  made  it  impossible  to  resist  the  demands  of  shippers.  Mr. 
Beach  presented  responses,  in  answer  to  a  circular  letter  of  inquiry,  from  the 
managers  of  railways  operating  118,000  miles  out  of  the  total  railway  mile- 
age of  196,000.  These  replies  show  a  remarkable  unanmiity  in  favor  of 
restricting  Sunday  traffic  to  the  lowest  practicable  limit,  and  as  to  the 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  further  restriction  for  the  reasons  above  indicated. 

In  criticism  of -the  positions  taken  in  this  paper  L.  S.  Coffin,  formerly 
member  of  the  State  Board  of  Railway  Commissioners  of  Iowa,  and  who 
appeared  before  the  congress  as  the  authorizecj  representative  of  various 
orders  of  railway  employes  with  an  aggregate  of  nearly  100,000  members, 
presented  the  employes'  side  of  the  question.  By  the  use  of  refrigerator 
cars  the  necessity  for  Sunday  labor  in  connection  with  perishable  freight 
was  entirely  obviated  ;  and  if  Sunday  traffic  were  not  profitable  the  railway 
companies  would  decline  it.  There  is  need  of  federal  legislation  to  stop 
the  transportation  of  the  mails  on  Sunday,  and  to  restrict  Sunday  labor 
under  the  provisions  of  the  inter-state  commerce  regulations. 

3.  The  Social  and  Moral  Relations  of  the  Sunday  rest,  were  presented 
in  a  paper  by  O.  Prunier,  of  Paris,  secretary  of  the  French  Association  for 
Sunday  Observance,  who  showed  the  higher  morals  of  the   man  and  the 


SUxNDAY    REST   CONGRESS.  "  1 55 1 

family  when  emancipated  one  day  in  the  week  from  the  yoke  of  toil,  and  to 
whom  Sunday  brought  the  opportunity  of  new  and  higher  thoughts  and 
associations.  Alice  L.  Woodbridge,  of  New  York,  pleaded  the  cause  of 
women  in  factories,  stores  and  domestic  service,  urging  that  not  only  should 
they  have  rest  on  Sunday,  but  such  opportunity  by  shorter  hours  of  labor 
during  the  week  for  self-improvement  and  recreation  as  would  prepare  them 
for  the  highest  duties  of  Sunday.  She  dealt  largely  with  the  question  of 
child-labor,  stating  that  in  the  United  States  alone  in  l88o,  1,118,356  child- 
ren, between  the  ages  of  10  and  16,  were  employed  in  mines,  factories  and 
stores.  Mrs.  Florence  Kelly,  state  inspector  of  factories  in  Illinois,  enforced 
the  views  of  the  preceding  papers.  She  described  a  recent  visit  to  a  can- 
ning establishment  where  were  employecJ  upwards  of  600  people,  of  whom 
40  were  children  under  the  legal  age  ;  on  the  wall  she  found  this  sign  : 
"  Until  further  notice  these  works  will  run  from  7  A.M.  to  9  P.M.  every  day, 
including  Sunday.  Refusal  to  comply  with  this  will  be  ground  for  immedi- 
ate discharge."  Miss  Jane  Addams,  of  Hull  House,  Chicago,  illustrated  by 
facts  which  came  under  daily  observation,  the  necessity  of  weekly  relief 
from  incessant  work,  and  that  only  by  cooperation  could  the  Sunday 
rest  be  preserved.  Mrs.  J.  H.  Knowles,  of  Newark,  N.  J.,  in  a  paper 
on  the  home  and  family  life,  presented  a  beautiful  picture  of  what 
Sunday  in  the  home  was  capable  of  being,  and  of  the  effect  of  such  training 
upon  the  public  life  of  our  country.  Mrs.  Henrotin,  who  occupied  the  chair 
of  the  congress  at  the  session  at  which  the  preceding  papers  were  read, 
took  occasion  to  express  her  conviction,  contrary  to  what  she  had  at  first 
held,  that  the  practical  closing  of  the  exposition  on  Sunday  had  been  an 
advantage  to  the  working  classes,  inasmuch  as  large  numbers  of  merchants 
and  other  employers  had  given  one  or  two  half  holidays  in  each  week  to 
their  employes  to  visit  the  fair. 

4.  Political  Relations  of  the  Sunday  ResC.  William  Allen  Butler,  LL.D., 
of  New  York,  treated  Sunday  laws,  their  grounds  and  limitations.  He  dis- 
cussed fully  the  objections  which  in  various  directions  have  been  brought 
against  our  American  Sunday  legislation.  While  the  root  of  the  weekly 
rest  as  an  institution  is  found  not  so  much  in  national  law  as  in  moral  obli- 
gation, its  incorporation  into  the  general  order  of  society  is  a  result  of  civil- 
ization aided  by  Christianity,  both  combining  to  give  to  its  support  the  con- 
sent of  the  communities,  and  establishing  it  as  an  institution  favorable,  if  not 
indispensable,  to  the  physical,  moral  and  social  needs  of  mankind.  It  is, 
therefore  alike  the  province  and  duty  of  the  government  to  maintain  it  for 
the  public  use  and  enjoyment.  Sunday  laws  are  properly  maintained  as 
civil  regulations  governing  men  as  members  of  society.  Obedience  to  such 
laws  is  properly  claimed  and  enforced.  The  vital  principal  which  gives 
strength  and  stability  to  the  world's  day  of  rest,  at  once  the  pledge  and 
guarantee  of  its  perpetuity  and  its  beneficent  power,  is  the  faith  of  human- 
ity that  it  is  a  gift  of  God. 


1552         THE    INTER-DENOMINATIONAL   CONGRESSES. 

An  interestingpaper  wasread  by  Major  General  Howard  on  the  Sunday 
rest  in  the  public  service  and  especially  in  the  army  and  navy.  He  quoted 
the  regulations  by  which  unnecessary  Sunday  labor  was  prevented,  and  the 
day  observed  in  accordance  with  the  laws  and  customs  of  our  people. 
Ex-Postmaster-General  John  Wanamaker  presented  the  laws  and  regula- 
tions which  govern  the  postoffice  department  in  its  various  branches  with 
reference  to  Sunday  labor,  and  gave  an  account  of  the  usages  of  the  British 
postoffice  as  furnished  him  in  a  letter  from  the  English  Postmaster-General. 

The  question  of  Sunday  laws  was  further  discussed  by  Judge  Doolittle, 
who  presided  at  this  session  of  the  congress,  and  by  President  Rogers  of  the 
Northwestern  University.  Following  along  somewhat  different  lines  from 
those  of  Mr.  Butler's  paper  they  reached  the  same  conclusion. 

5.  In  no  way  was  the  characteristic  breadth  and  liberality  of  the  con- 
gress shown  more  strikingly  than  in  its  treatment  of  the  relations  of  the 
Sunday  rest  to  religion.  As  the  different  branches  of  the  Christian  church 
may  be  supposed  to  differ  somewhat  in  their  views  of  this  subject,  it  was 
right  that  this  topic  should  be  presented  by  representatives  of  more  than  one 
of  the  denominations.  Cardinal  Gibbons  set  forth  the  Roman  Catholic 
views  of  the  Sunday  observance  in  a  paper  which  more  than  one  earnest 
Protestant  who  heard  it,  was  prepared  to  accept  it  as  presenting  substan- 
tially his  own  views.  The  view  of  the  Lutheran  church,  which  constitutes 
one  of  the  largest  denominations  of  this  country,  was  presented  by  Prof. 
Spaeth  of  the  Lutheran  Theological  Seminary,  Philadelphia,  and  also 
briefly  by  Dr.  Heilmann,  a  Lutheran  pastor  of  Chicago.  Dr.  Atterbury,  as 
the  secretary  of  an  association  in  which  representatives  of  various  denomi- 
nations are  united,  presented  what  may  be  regarded  as  the  commonly 
accepted  views  of  the  so-called  Evangelical  denominations.  In  view  of  the 
important  place  which  the  Sabbath  has  always  held  in  the  social  and  relig- 
ous  life  of  the  Hebrew  people,  a  distinguished  Jewish  rabbi,  Dr.  Felsenthal, 
was  heard  with  interest  in  a  paper  on  the  Sabbath  in  Judaism.  He  showed 
that  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  was  far  from 
being  that  narrow  and  burdensome  institution  which  it  was  so  often  regarded  ; 
it  has  endowed  the  laws  with  strength  to  withstand  the  almost  unceasing 
and  pitiless  attempts  to  exterminate  their  race  and  religion  ;  it  had  blessed 
and  dignified  their  family  life.  The  laws  of  our  American  states  ought  to 
protect  every  congregation  assembled  on  their  Sabbath  for  divine  worship 
in  a  church  or  a  chapel  or  a  synagogue  or  mosque  or  any  other  place 
against  being  disturbed  in  their  worship;  and  they  can  and  ought  to  guar- 
antee to  each  person  in  our  land  even  to  the  poorest,  one  day  of  perfect  rest 
in  each  week  of  seven  consecutive  days.  All  further  legislation  is  unneces- 
sary and  would  be  un-American.  Let  us  trust  in  the  power  of  public  opin- 
ion.' Relying  upon  that  great  power  and  upon  the  divine  blessings  of  our 
Heavenly  Father,  all  of  us  can  look  hopefully  toward  the  future  and  can  rest 
assured  that  the  land  in  all  times  to  come  will  have  a  Sabbath,  a  real  genu- 
ine Sabbath. 


SUNDAY    REST   CONGRESS.  1553 

A  thoughtful  and  suggestive  discussion  of  the  relations  of  the  Sunday 
observance  to  the  individual  religious  life  was  presented  by  Rev.  W.  J.  A. 
Stewart,  Baptist  pastor,  of  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

6.  After  a  paper  by  Rev.  W.  R.  Huntington,  D.D.,  of  Grace  Church, 
New  York,  in  which  with  clear  and  careful  discrimination  he  traced  the  perils 
which  menace  the  Sunday  rest  in  countries  like  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain,  where  it  is  most  fully  enjoyed,  reports  were  presented  of  various 
associations  and  movements  for  securing  and  protecting  Sunday  rest.  Mr. 
Deluz,  secretary  of  the  late  Paris  Congress  and  of  the  International  Federa- 
tion, who  has  perhaps  had  more  to  do  with  the  progress  of  the  cause  on  the 
continent  than  any  other  living  man,  reported  the  striking  results  which  have 
been  obtained  within  a  recent  period  in  several  of  the  states  of  Europe,  for 
the  relief  of  large  classes  of  wage-earners  from  the  burden  of  uninterrupted 
toil,  while  as  yet  the  work  seems  only  to  have  begun.  Mr:  Chas.  Hill,  secre- 
tary of  the  Workingmen's  Lord's  Day  Rest  Association  of  England,  reported 
the  features  of  the  contest  in  Great  Britain  to  maintain  the  ground  which  had 
long  been  held  against  the  influences  which  insidiously  are  irfvading  the 
weekly  rest.  The  Rev,  Dr.  Geo.  S.  Mott,  president  of  the  recently  formed 
American  Sabbath  Union,  presented  the  history  of  Sabbath  association  and 
efforts  in  our  own  country  for  the  past  half  century. 

The  closing  address  of  the  Congress  was  made  by  Archbishop  Ireland, 
who  had  presided  at  one  of  the  previous  sessions.  He  called  attention  to  the 
weakening  of  our  reverence  for  Sunday  as  the  chief  cause  of  the  infringe- 
ments that  are  being  made  upon  its  observance.  Christians  should  remem- 
ber that  every  weakening  of  the  Sunday  tends  to  its  total  obliteration.  We 
are  making  our  citizens  pure  money-making  machines  ;  we  are  too  anxious 
to  be  rich,  and  are  willing  to  sacrifice  to  that  end  every  tradition  and  reduce 
men  to  the  level  of  the  beast. 

Among  the  results  which  it  is  hoped  will  follow  from  this  Congress  are: 

A  wider  and  more  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  Sunday 
rest  and  of  the  duty  of  protecting  it  by  wise  and  just  laws. 

A  greater  cooperation  of  Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants  in  maintain- 
ing the  Sunday  rest.  '  • 

A  fuller  recognition,  on  the  part  of  wage-earners,  of  the  efforts  which 
Christian  men  and  philanthropists  are  making  to  secure  to  them,  as  far  as 
practicable,  their  right  to  Sunday  rest. 

A  better  understanding  of  the  peril  to  the  weekly  rest  from  such  use  of 
it  on  the  part  of  wage-earners  as  robs  others  of  their  equal  right  to  its  benefit. 

The  manifested  agreement  of  Christians  of  different  denominations  as  to 
the  divine  authority  of  the  institution,  and  the  duty  of  so  using  it  as  to  pro- 
mote the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  physical  well-being  of  man  and  society. 


98 


OTHER  CONGRESSES. 

It  will  further  indicate  how  full  and  comprehensive  was  the  religious 
presentation  raade  in  connection  with  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary  if  a 
brief  enunciation  be  made  of  the  other  congresses  held  in  connection  with 
the  Parliament  of  Religions. 

On  the  3d  of  September  the  Welsh  churches  of  all  denominations  united 
in  a  congress  which  was  held  in  the  Hall  of  Columbus,  with  afternoon  and 
evening  meetings  in  the  First  Methodist  church.  The  services  were  almost 
entirely  in  the  Wdsh  language.  The  venerable  Rowland  Williams,  the  fam- 
ous pulpit  orator  of  Wales,  delivered  a  sermon  on  "  The  Manifestation  of 
Christ  in  the  Flesh.".  A  paper  on  "The  Reformation  and  the  Welsh"  was 
given  by  Rev.  J.  Evans.  "The  Present  Condition  of  the  Welsh  People"  was 
presented  by  Mrs.  V.  Morgan.  "Christianity  in  the  Heart  and  in  the  Evferj- 
Day  Life"  was  presented  by  Rev.  Rosina  Davies,  and  Rev.  Dr.  H.  O.  Row- 
lands spoke  of  "The  Religious  Characteristics  of  the  Welsh." 

The  Free  Religious  Association  of  America  held  a  Congress  in  the  Hall 
of  Washington  on  the  20th  of  September,  at  which  addresses  were  made  by 
Col.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  President  William  J.  Potter,  Francis  E. 
Abbott,  Mrs.  Anna  Garlin  Spencer,  Jenkin  Lloyd-Jones,  Minot  J.  Savage,  and 
others. 

On  the  22d  of  September  a  Congress  of  the  King's  Daughters  and  Sons 
was  held  in  the  Hall  of  Washington,  with  addresses  by  Mrs.  Mary  Lowe 
Dickinson,  Mrs.  Isabella  C.  Davis,  Mrs.  Howard  M.  Ingham  and  Mrs.  Clar- 
ence Beebe. 

A  Congress  of  Evolutionists  was  held  in  some  of  the  larger  and  smaller 
halls  of  the  Art  Institute  extending  from  September  27  through  September 
29.  The  program  included  addresses  by  B.  F.  Underwood,  E.  P.  Powell, 
Prof.  E.  D.  Coppee,  Dr.  Martin  L.  Holbrook,  Mr.  Charles  S.  Ashley,  Prof. 
E.  S.  Morse,  Prof.  E.  S.  Bastin,  Prof.  George  Gunton,  and  many  others. 

On  the  27th  of  September  a  Congress  was  held  of  the  International 
Board  of  Women's  Christian  Associations,  with  addresses  by  Mrs.  S.  L. 
Winters,  Rev.  Augusta  J.  Chapin,  D.D.,  Miss  C.  V.  Drinkwater,  Mrs.  John 
Leslie,  and  others. 

On  the  7th  of  October  there  was  a  Congress  of  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Associations,  addressed  by  Miss  Effie  K.  Price,  Lord  Kinnaird  and 
others.  The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  also  held  an  interesting 
Congress. 


ISS4 


PART   FIFTH. 


REVIEW   AND   SUMMARY. 


THE  THREE  STATUES* 

Behind  the  brilliant  throng  of  living  forms, 

Silent  and  pale  the  antique  figures  stand, 

The  scroll  half-opened  in  the  time-stayed  hand. 

Masters  who  fronted  all  the  tides  and  storms 

Of  ancient  thought  and  civic  strife,  are  ye 

With  sounds  unwonted  puzzled  and  distraught  ? 

Floods  all  the  inlets  of  your  narrower  thought 

A  universal  brotherhood's  profounder  sea! 

Beside  you  see  the  clearer-visioned  child; 

Closely  she  holds  the  life-encircling  nest. 

While  from  her  finger-tips,  or  east  or  west. 

On  favoring  breezes  or  'gainst  tempest  wild, 

With  wing  elate  birds  speed  their  world-round  way, 

And  greet  with  song  the  world's  sure-dawning  day. 

Edward  Dwight  Eaton. 
Beloit  College,  Wis. 


*  At  the  rear  of  the  platform  at  the  Parliament  of  Religions  there  stood  statues  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Cicero,  and  ofTi  maiden  holding  a  nest  of  fledglings,  one  of  which  she  was  letting 
fly  from  her  up -raised  right  hand. 


1556 


PART  FIFTH. 


REVIEW  AND  SUMMARY. 

By  THE  Chairman  of  the  Parliament,  Rev.  John  Henry  Barrows. 


CHAPTER  FIRST. 

THE  CONDUCT,  SPIRIT   AND  PERSONNEL   OF   THE 

PARLIAMENT. 

A  GREAT  variety  of  opinioqs  has  been  expressed  by  lead- 
ing participants  in  the  Parliament  and  by  others  as  to  its 
nature  and  effects.  To  Nagarlcar,  it  is  "a.  foretaste  of  universal 
brotherhood  ;  "  to  Joseph  Cook,  "  a  resplendent  service  to 
Truth;"  to  Dr.  Morgan  Dix,  "a  masterpiece  of  Satan;"  to  Dr. 
Boardman,  "a  lengthening  of  the  cords  of  Zion  and  a  strength- 
ening of  its  stakes  ;"  to  Dr.  Schaff,  "  a  new  epoch  in  the  history 
of  Religion,  stimulating  efforts  for  the  reunion  of  Christen- 
dom ; "  to  Prof.  Richey,  "  a  valuable  setting  forth  of  the  relations 
of  Christianity  and  Natural  Religion;"  to  Dharmapala,  "a 
mighty  influence  in  expanding  the  religious  ideas  of  Christen- 
dom;" to  Prince  Wolkonsky,  "an  immeasurable  educational 
force  in  abating  national  prejudices;"  to  Kiretchjian,  a 
movement  sure  to  result  in  "  a  rich  harvest  of  right  thinking 
and  right  doing;"  to  Prof.  Minos  Tcheraz,  supremely  impor- 
tant, for  having  "  laid  the  basis  of  universal  tolerance  ; "  to 
Lakshmi  Narain,  of  the  .\rya  Somaj,  useful  to  all  who  "  take 
interest  in  the  study  of  Religions;"  to  Vivekananda,  an  indi- 
cation "  that  the  Lord  is  working  everywhere."  The  young 
Brahman,  Mr.  Narasima,  valued  the  Parliament  as  an  oppor- 
tunity for  widening  Christian  knowledge  of  other  faiths  and  of 
showing  Christendom  its  sins. 

The  history  and  proceedings  of  the  Parliament  of  Relig- 
ions have  been  given  in  such  a  way  that  every  reader  may 
easily  draw  his  own   inferences,  unbiased   by  editorial  opin- 

XSS7 


'-•*-■' 


1558  REVIEW   AND    SUMMARY. 

ion.  Now  that  the  history  is  closed,  the  editor  of  these 
volumes  is  at  full  liberty  to  review  the  utterances  recorded, 
and  thus  furnish  one  contribution  to  the  criticism  of  the  first 
great  gathering  of  the  world's  religious  leaders.  Before  doing 
this,  a  few  memorabilia  may  be  added,  which  will  show  either 
the  world-wide  interest  in  this  Congress,  or  some  omitted 
details  in  its  conduct. 

A  Committee,  of  which  Rev.  Jenkin  Lloyd-Jones  was  Chair- 
man, and  Dr.  William  Hayes  Ward,  Prof.  Henry  Copp^e, 
Richard  Watson  Gilder,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps-Ward, 
Prof.  William  C.  Wilkinson  and  Bishop  John  H.  Vincent,  were 
members,  furnished  a  number  of  selected  hymns  for  the  Par- 
liarijent,  fitted  to  express  the  sentiments  of  the  universal  heart. 
Among  those  which  were  sung  were  "  Nearer,  ray  God,  to 
Thee,"  "  Come,  Thou  Almighty  King,"  "  All  People  that  on 
Earth  do  Dwell,"  "  O  Life  that  Maketh  all  Things  New," 
and  **  God  is  Love,  His  Mercy  Brightens."  It  was  not  possible 
to  follow  completely  the  order  of  the  subjects  laid  down  in  the 
original  program — the  elements  were  too  various,  the  presence 
of  speakers  was  not  always  assured, — but  the  variety  of  themes 
treated  on  certain  days  augmented  popular  interest.  The  total 
attendance  at  the  Parliament  was  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand. 

Many  letters,  some  of  them  equal  to  treatises  in  length, 
printed  pamphlets,  petitions  and  poems  of  various  merit,  were 
contributed  to  the  Parliament.  Among  these  may  be  men- 
tioned a  lengthy  communication  from  Manisharker  Vithalji, 
Head  Pontiff  of  the  Rasesha  Religion,  sent  from  Jamnagar: 
an  interesting  autobiographical  communication  from  Swami 
Shugun  Chandra,  late  Kayastha  Missionary,  Kunjah,  India. 
Mr.  Lakshmi  Narain,  Barrister-at  law,  of  Lahore,  Secretary  of 
the  Kayastha  Provincial  Society,  of  Benares  and  Gorakhpur,  was 
a  delegate  from  that  body  to  the  Parliament.  .  He  was  also 
commended  by  the  Kayastha  Provincial  Societies  of  Oudh, 
Allahabad,  Central  India,  Hyderabad  and  Moradabad.  An 
elaborate  answer  to  some  religious  questions  propounded  by  the 
Chairman  was  sent  by  Bishun  Dass,  a  Brahman  Free  Thinker, 


SPIRIT  OF  THE    PARLIAMENT.  1559 

Punjab,  India,  and  also  by  Satya  Charan  Deb  of  Kanchrapara, 
Bengal.  Goolam  Mohammed  bin  Haji  Hafez  Sadek  Randeri, 
from  Surat,  India,  communicated  to  the  Parliament  a  pamph- 
let on  "The  Touchstone  of  Philosophies,"  a  treatise  on  some  of 
the  tenets  of  the  Mussulman  faith.  A  pamphlet  of  one  hundred 
and  one  pages  on  the  Zoroastrian  Religion,  was  sent  by  the 
learned  Ervad  S.  D.  Bharucha,  of  Bombay.  Abou  Naddara, 
of  Paris,  sent  a  number  of  interesting  tracts  on  Mohammedan- 
ism. Mr.  A.  Ranganadam  and  Mr.  V.  Ethirajen,  of  Madras, 
India,  presented  to  the  Chairnlan  an  interesting  acrostic 
sonnet,  commending  the  work  of  the  Parliament.  Many 
thousands  of  pamphlets  were  sent  to  the  Congress  by  the 
Buddhists  of  Japan  and  Ceylon.  Ishar  Parshad,  of  Lahore, 
sentan  essay  on  Religion. 

One  feature  of  the  Parliament,  not  heretofore  mentioned,  was 
the  inquiry  rooms  which  were  set  apart  for  any  religious  body 
that  desired  to  have  a  place  of  meeting  at  which  questions  could 
be  answered  by  those  competent  to  answer  them.  ~The  Cath- 
olics and  Buddhists  availed  themselves  of  this  opportunity. 
An  eye-witness  reports  :  "  The  Catholic  clergy  have  been  in  con- 
stant attendance  in  the  hall  set  apart  for  their  use,  which  has 
been  thronged  with  students  many  hours  each  day.  The  Bud- 
dhists, represented  by  Mr.  Hirai  and  Mr.  Dharmapala,  were  sur- 
rounded by  curious  and  eager  auditors."  Among  the  most 
interesting  speakers  among  the  Catholics  was  MonsignorSeton. 
Too  much  cannot  be  said  in  commendation  of  the  spirit 
which  prevailed  in  this  great  meeting.  It  was  a  novel  sight 
that  orthodox  Christians  should  greet  with  cordial  words  the 
representatives  of  alien  faiths  which  they  were  endeavoring  to 
bring  into  the  light  of  the  Christian  Gospel;  but  it  was  felt  to 
be  wise  and  advantageous  that  the  religions  of  the  world,  which 
are  competing  at  so  many  points  in  all  the  continents,  should 
be  brought  together,  not  for  contention  but  for  loving  confer- 
ence, in  one  room.  Those  who  saw  the  Greek  Archbishop, 
Dionysios  Latas,  greeting  the  Catholic  Bishop  Keane,  with  an 
apostolic  kiss  on  the  cheek  and  words  of  brotherly  love;  those 
who  heard  Bishop  Keane  relate  how  Archbishop  Ireland  and 


1560  REVIEW   AND   SUMMARY. 

himself,  finding  that  they  were  unable  to  enter  the  Hall  of 
Columbus  on  account  of  the  throng,  went  to  the  Hall  of  Wash- 
ington and  presided  over  the  Jewish  Conference;  those  who 
witnessed  the  enthusiasm  with  which  Christians  greeted  a  Bud- 
dhist's denunciation  of  false  Christianity  ;  and  the  scores  of 
thousands  who  beheld  day  after  day  the  representatives  of  the 
great  historic  religions  joining  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  felt  pro- 
foundly that  a  new  era  of  religious  fraternity  had  dawned. 

The  Parliament  was   not  a  place   for  the  suppression  of 
opinions  but  for  their  frankest  utterance,  and  what  made  it  so 
supremely  successful  was  mutual  tolerance,  extraordinary  cour- 
tesy, and   unabated   good  will.     Christians   who   entered  the 
Hall  of  Columbus  with  timidity  and  misgivings  found  them- 
selves entirely  at  home  in  an  atmosphere  charged  with  relig- 
ious  enthusiasm.      They  felt  that   the  spirit   and   principles 
involved  in  summoning  the  non-Christian  religions  to  a  con- 
ference in  that  great  hall  were  precisely  the  spirit  and  princi- 
ples'with  which  a  Christian  missionary  invites  a  Moslem  and  a 
Brahman  into   his  own  house — the  spirit   of  love,  inquiry,  a 
desire  for  mutual  understanding,  a  desire  to  learn  as  well  as  to 
teach.     President  Bonney's  wise  arrangement  that  each  sect, 
should  hold  a  separate  congress  in  connection  with  the  greater 
meeting  added  to  the  freedom  of  spirit  with  which  the  various 
faiths,  gathering   in  the   Hall   of  Columbus,  were  disposed  to 
seek   points   of  agreement  rather  than  of  divergence,  and,  in 
the  case  of  Christians,  to  consider  chiefly  those  larger   things 
which  are  common  to  all  branches   of   the   Church   Universal. 
"It  must  not  be  imagined,"  as  Dr.  Gilbert   has  written  in  the 
Review  of  the  Churches,  "  that  all  the   speakers  piped  low  and 
soft.     Not  at  all.     There  wereclouds  big  with  thunder,  and 
there  were   thunders  with   lightnings   in  them  that  smote  as 
with  strokes  from  God's  own  right  hand."     The   Parliament 
did  not   suppress   the  individuality  and  frankness  of  its  mem- 
bers.    What  made  this  meeting  glorious  was  its  entire  freedom 
from  ecclesiastical  control  and  the  usual  restrictions  of  con- 
ferences, assemblies  and  synods.     A  great  degree  of  forbear- 
ance   and    patience    was    required    and    illustrated    at    some 


SPIRIT   OF   THE    PARLIAMENT.  I  $6 1 

moments  in  the  Parliament;  but  it  was  one  of  the  wonders  of 
this  meeting  that  its  members  so  generally  and  generously 
observed  the  spirit  enjoined  by  the  Chairman  in  his  opening 
address.  The  amount  of  friction  was  not  considerable.  The 
Parliament  was  a  conference  which  proved  the  supreme  value 
of  courtesy  in  all  theological  argument,  and  showed  that  the 
enlightened  mind  of  the  nineteenth  century  looks  with  scorn 
upon  verbal  ruffianism,  such  as  prevailed  in  the  sixteenth.  It 
has  been  often  remarked  that  this  meeting  was  very  generous 
and  indiscriminate  in  its  applause,  but  it  was  made  up  of  a 
vast  variety  of  elements,  changing  to  some  extent  every  day, 
and  sometimes  it  applauded  not  so  much  the  sentiments 
uttered  as  the  clearness  and  boldness  and  aptness  with  which 
they  were  spoken.' 

Much  might  be  rightly  said  of  the  high  character  and  abil- 
ity of  those  who  composed  this  historic  assembly,  not  only  the 
speakers,  but  the  vast  and  changing  congregation  of  hearers. 
The  Parliament  was  rigidly  purged  of  cranks.  Many  minor 
sects,  however,  tried  earnestly  to  secure  a  representation,  for 
which  there  was  neither  time  nor  fitness.  People  sought  to 
make  the  Parliament  a  medium  of  all  sorts  of  propagandism, 
but  without  success. 

The  absence  of  the  Methodist  Bishops,  whose  regular 
appointments  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  attend,  was 
deeply  deplored.  Whether  we  adopt  Bishop  Dudley's  criti- 
cism of  the  Anglican  Church  and  say  that  it  missed  a  great 
opportunity,  whether  we  say  with  Mr.  Haweis  of  London  that 
the  Church  of  England  made  another  of  its  historic  mis- 
takes, no  member  of  the  Parliament  will  forget  the  profound 
impression  produced  by  the  speakers  representing  the  Angli- 
can communion,  or  will  fail  to  regret  the  absence  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  who  would  have  certainly  found  himself 
at  home  in  this  interesting  and  devout  assembly.  One  Ameri- 
can voice  silenced  by  death,  that  of  Phillips  Brooks,  would 
have  been  most  welcome  at  the  Parliament.  Among  the  Bap- 
tists present  were  Drs.  Boardman,  Lorimer,  Whitman,  Moxom, 
Howe,  Henderson,   Small,   Professors   Lyon,  Goodspeed  and 


1562  REVIEW   AND   SUMMARY. 

Wilkinson.  Among  the  eminent  Presbyterians  present  were 
Drs.  Niccolls,  W.  C.  Roberts,  Henry  M.  Field,  Philip  Schaff, 
whose  death  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Parliament  has  been 
universally  lamented.  President  Scovel,  Principal  Grant,  S.  J. 
McPherson  and  George  F.  Pentecost.  A  Prince  of  Russia,  a 
Prince  of  Siam,  and  an  African  Prince  contributed  to  the 
interest  of  the  meetings.  No-  more  picturesque  figure  was 
present  than  the  Archbishop  of  Zante,  representing  the  Greek 
Church,  and  by  his  side  were  his  archdeacon,  Homer  Paratis, 
and  Father  Phiambolis  of  Chicago.  There  were  missionaries 
and  missionary  teachers  like  Washburn  of  Constantinople, 
Phillips  and  Hume  of  India,  Faber,  Reid  and  Candlin "  of 
China,  McGilvary  and  McFarland  of  Siam,  Post  and  F'ord 
of  Syria,  Haworth  of  Japan,  and  Gulick  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands.  India,  mother  of  religions,  was  represented  by  the 
spiritually  minded  Mozoomdar,  a  master  of  eloquence,  Vive- 
kananda,  "  the  orange  monk,"  who  exercised  a  wonderful  influ- 
ence over  his  auditors,  the  keen  and  courteous  Nagarkar,  the 
attractive  Narasima,  the  acute  and  philosophical  Ghandi,  the 
metaphysical  Chakravarti,  MissSorabji  of  Bombay"  that  exquis- 
ite specimen  of  redeemed  Parsee  Womanhood,"  Mr.  Dhar- 
mapala  of  Colombo;  and,  through  papers  contributed,  by~the 
wise  and  discriminating  Slater  of  Bangalore,  Rev.  J.  T.  Scott, 
the  learned  Parsee  scholars  Modi  and  Barucha  of  Bombay, 
such  distinguished  representatives  of  Brahmanism  as  D'vivedi 
and  Aijanger,  and  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Sumangala,  Buddhist  High 
Priest  of  Ceylon.  Japan  was  represented  by  the  Buddhist 
priests  Ashitsu.Toki,  Soyen  and  Yatsubuchi  ;  Mr.  Kawai  of  the 
Nichiren  Sect;  Shibata,  high  priest  of  Shintoism;  the  elo- 
quent layman  Hirai;  by  the  Rev.  J.  T.  Yokoi  and  President 
Kozaki  of  the  Doshisha  University.  China  was  represented  by 
Pung  Kwang  Yu,  Dr.  Martin,  Dr.  Blodget,  Rev.  George  T. 
Candlin,  Mr.  Yen  and  Mr.  Ho;  Mohammedanism  by  Moham- 
med Alexander  Russell  Webb  of  New  York,  and  J.Sanna  Abou 
Naddara  of  Paris.  Count  Bernstorff,  a  grand  specimen  of 
German-Christian  manhood,  spoke  for  the  Evangelical  Church  of 
Germany.    The  Parliament  was  enriched  by  contributions  from 


SPIRIT   OF   THE    PARLIAMENT.  I  563 

such  scholars  as  Max  Miiller,  d'Harlez,  Dawson,  Bruce,  Drum- 
inond,  Conrad  von  Orelli,  Fisher,  Valentine,  Jean  R^ville,  Albert 
Reville,  Tiele  and  Goodspeed,  and  by  eminent  philanthropists 
and  social  reformers  like  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Lyman  Abbott, 
Joseph  Cook,  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  Richard  T.  Ely, 
Washington  Gladden,  and  Aaron  M.  Powell.  The  Catholics 
were  headed  by  Cardinal  Gibbons,  who  in  his  opening  address 
touched  all  hearts,  and  by  Bishop  Keane,  arare  combination  of 
evangelical  earnestness  and  tenderest  catholicity.  This  delega- 
tion was  exceedingly  strong,  and  ^U  the  Catholic  speakers  kept 
strictly  within  the  prescribed  limits  of  the  Parliament,  stating 
their  own  views  with  frankness  and  ability  and  refraining  from 
criticism  of  others.  Bishop  Keane  had  put  the  different  topics 
into  the  hands  of  specialists,  all  of  whom  were  excellent  speak- 
ers. Bishop  Arnett,  who  made  friends  for  Africa  with  every 
word  he  spoke,  the  venerable  Bishop  Payne,  Bishop  Handy  and 
others  represented  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Suc- 
cessful evangelists  like  B.  Fay  Mills  were  there,  Seventh  Day 
Baptists  like  Dr.  Lewis,  United  Brethren  like  Landis,  preachers 
of  the  Reformed  Church  like  Dr.  Burrell  of  New  York,  Armen- 
ians like  Prof.  Tcheraz  —  that  tower  of  gentle  strength  —  and 
Rev.  A.  G.  Assadourian  who  brought  "  friendly  and  abundant 
greetings  from  the  Protestant  Armenian  congregations  in  Tur- 
key, and  especially  the  salutations  and  love  of  the  Bithynian 
Synod  of  Constantinople,"  of  which  he  is  the  Secretary.  The 
absence  of  General  William  Booth  and  of  Commander  Balling- 
ton  Booth  was  greatly  deplored.  General  Booth  wrote  from 
London  :  "  You  have  an  opportunity  of  influencing  the  whole 
world  with  the  spirit  of  our  common  Christianity  without  parallel 
in  ancient  or  modern  times."  In  the  absence  of  the  great  lead- 
ers of  the  Salvation  Army,  Brigadier-General  Fielding  told  of 
the  methods  and  aims  of  that  great  movement,  and  as  an 
evidence  of  the  growth  of  the  Army  during  the  twenty-eight 
years  of  its  existence,  made  the  statement  t,hat"it  has  four 
thousand  three  hundred  and  ninety-seven  mission  stations, 
seventy-four  homes  of  rest  for  officers,  sixty-six  training  schools 
for  the  training  of  officers,  sixty-four    slum  posts,   forty-nine 


1564  REVIEW    AND    SUMMARY. 

rescue  homes  for  fallen  women,  twelve  prison-gate  homes, 
fifty-two  food  and  shelter  depots,  thirty-four  factories  and 
employment  offices,  five  farm  colonies,  two  hundred  and  fif- 
teen social  institutions  connected  with  General  Booth's  scheme, 
thirteen  thousand  seven  hundred  and  thirteen  officers;  that  its 
War  Cry  has  a  circulation  of  five  hundred  and  eighty  thous- 
and five  hundred  and  thirty-two,  and  that  last  year  more  than 
thirteen  million  persons  attended  its  indoor  meetings  in  the 
United  States." 

Among  the  Congregationalists  present  at  the  Parliament 
or  contributing  to  it,  were  Noble,  Gladden,  Mills,  Phillips, 
Pratt,  Fisher,  Abbott,  Cook,  Washburn,  Munger,  Dike,  Brand, 
Headland,  Martin,  Clark,  Blodget,  and  Hume.  Among  the 
Unitarians  were  Hale,  Jones,  Julia  Ward  Howe,  Mrs.  E.  R. 
Sunderland,  Carpenter,  Peabody,  Mrs."  Fannie  B.  Williams  and 
Alger.  Among  the  Methodists  were  Candlin,  Terry,  Lee, 
Bishop  Arnett,  Baldwin,  Carroll,  Townsend  and  Bristol. 
Among  the  Anglicans  were  Bishop  Dudley,  Haweis,  Momerie, 
Richey  and  Canon  Fremantle.  Harvard  College  furnished  a 
strong  delegation  in  Professors  Toy,  Peabody  and  Dwight.  The 
Universities  of  Yale  and  Chicago  were  well  represented. 
Rabbi  Wise,  Rabbi  Gottheil  and  Dr.  E.  G.  Hirsch,  heading  the 
notable  company  of  Jewish  scholars  in  attendance,  proved  that 
eloquence  still  belongs  to  the  countrymen  of  Isaiah.  Dr. 
Francis  E.  Clark,  of  Boston,  the  gentle  wise-man  who  heads 
one  of  the  chief  Christian  movements  of  our  time,  the  founder 
of  the  Christian  Endeavor  Societies,  made  a  valuable  con- 
tribution to  the  Parliament.  One  important  feature,  as  it  is 
well  known,  was  the  presence  and  participation  of  women,  and 
several  of  the  papers  presented  by  them  were  among  the  most 
excellent  and  timely  that  were  listened  to  during  the  Parlia- 
ment's sessions. 

With  such  an  illustrious  company  in  friendly  council  for 
seventeen  days  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  mental  and  spirit- 
ual horizon  of  many  minds  was  indefinitely  enlarged.  It  was 
felt  that  all  God's  words  are  precious,  whether  spoken  in  the 
twilight  or   in  the  noonday  of  revelation  ;  it  was  felt  that  the 


SPIRIT   OF   THE    PARLIAMENT,  I  565 

so-called  heathen  religions  must  not  be  judged  solely  by  their 
idolatries  and  cruel   rites  any  more  than  apple  trees  should  be 
judged  by  their  worst  fruits;   it  was  felt  that  to  put  charity  in 
the  place  of  scorn,  and  to  increase  mutual  respect,  were  alone 
sufficient  to  justify  the  Parliament  ;  it  was  felt  that  icy  barriers, 
as  Prof.  Tcheraz  intimated,  melt  away  at  the  glance  of  the  sun 
of  love;  it  was  perceived  that  there  is  no  good  reason  why  the 
world-wide    process    of  comparison    of  the    religions    of    the 
world  should  not  be  made  easier  by  such  a  conference  ;  it  was 
seen  that  the  same  problems,  similar  schools  of  thought,  sim- 
ilar theological   divergencies,    appear   in    all   lands  wherever 
human  nature  is  undergoing  the  process  of  evolution  ;  it  was 
made  evident  that  enlightened  Christendom  will  never  here- 
after imagine  that  heathendom  is  simply  "  a  mass  of  degraded 
and  corrupt  superstitions."     The  conviction  was  strengthened 
in   many  minds  that  truth  has  nothing  to  fear,  and  that  the 
truth  as   it  is  in  Christ    has    everything  to   hope    from   such 
mutual  interchanges   of  thought,  and  that  some  of  the  good 
results  of  the  Parliament  must  be  increased  fairness  of  mutual 
estimate,  a  new  sense  of  the  strength  and  universality  of  man's 
spiritual  desires,  and  heartier  good  will  on  the  part  of  individ- 
uals toward  each  other.     It   was  felt  by  many  that  to   claim 
everything  for  Christianity  and  deny  any  good  in  other  relig- 
ions is  not  Christian,'  and  is  an   impeachment  of  that  Divine 
goodness  which  is   not  confined  to  geographical   limits  and 
which    sends  its  favors  upon  the  just  and  upon  the  unjust. 
Christians  came  to   rejoice  with  an  increased  hopefulness  as 
they  perceived  that  religion,   however   imperfect,   is,  after  all, 
the  best  there  is  in  man,  and  that  God  is  not  confined  in  his 
mercy  and  benefactions  to  any  favored  race  or  people. 

"  So  many  roads  lead  up  to  God, 
T'were  strange  if  any  soul  should  miss  them  all." 

It  was  made  evident  that  high  and  beautiful  forms  of  char- 
acter have  been  fashioned  by  the  Divine  Spirit  in  faiths  the  most 
various.  Phariseeism,  sectarianism, narrowness  in  all  its  mani- 
festations, whether  ecclesiastical  or  dogmatic,  were  gently 
rebuked  by  this  Parliament.     Comparison  and  criticism,  it  was 


.;.V  . .-". 


i 


1566  REVIEW   AND    SUMMARY. 

made  evident,  are  helps  to  religion.  Father  D'Arby,  a  Catholic 
priest  of  Paris,  said  at  the  scientific  section  :  "  We  love 
science.  The  office  of  science  in  religion  is  to  prune  it  of 
fantastic  outgrowths.  Without  science  religion  would  become 
superstition,"  The  Parliament  has  been  called  a  great  inter- 
religional  clearing  house  to  promote  the  interchange  of  opin- 
ions.. The  impression  which  it  made  on  those  continually 
attending  its  sessions  has  often  been  compared  with,  what 
happened  at  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  although  "  the 
Jews,  devout  men  from  every  nation  under  heaven,"  consti- 
tuted a  more  provincial  assembly  than  that  which  met  at  Chi- 
cago. There  were  times  in  the  Parliament  when  the  religious 
feeling  was  most  intense  and  pervasive.  A  holy  intoxication, 
it  has  been  said,  overcame  the  speakers  as  well  as  the  audi- 
ence. An  eminent  professor  of  moral  philosophy  (Dr.  N.  J. 
Morrison,  of  Marietta  College)  declared  that  it  reminded  him 
of  the  emotions  he  had  felt  in  the  great  revival  meetings  of 
President  Finney  and  Mr.  Moody.  Dr.  Frederick  A.  Noble 
said  :  "  There  were  hours  when  it  seemed  as  though  the  Divine 
Spirit  was  about  to  descend  upon  the  people  in  a  great  Pente- 
costal outpouring.  Never  did  Christ  seem  so  large  and 
precious  to  me,  never  did  Christian  faith  seem  so  necessary  to 
humanity  and  so  sure  to  prevail  as  when  the  Parliament  of 
Religions  closed."  The  total  impression  which  it  made  on 
those  who  were  present  is  finely  pictured  in  a  letter  from 
Rev.  George  T.  Candlin,  written  on  the  Pacific:  '•'  I  feel  con- 
fident that  the  memory  of  that  great  assembly  will  have  a  most 
potent  influence  on  our  lives.  Chicago  will  be  the  Mount 
Tabor  of  our  experience,  and  the  holy  impulse  of  those  trans- 
figured hours  will  not  be  spent  while  life  shall  last.  I  shall  be 
full  of  the  spirit  so  finely  expressed  by  Shakespeare  in  Henry 
v.,  before  AgincoUrt  : 

'And  Crispin  Crispian  shall  ne'er  go  by, 
From  this  day  to  the  ending  of  the  world, 
But  we,  in  it,  shall  be  remembered, 
We  few,  we  happy  few,  we  band  of  brothers. 
And  he  that  hears 

Shall  hold  his  manhood  cheap  while  any  speaks 
That  fought  with  us. upon  Saint  Crispin's  day.'" 


MRS.   POTTER  PALMER. 


"the  gkaciols  ladv,  who  is  so  worthy  of  her  place  in  the  poke  front  of  this 
gathering  of  the  nations,  has  saiu  that,  as  columbus  oiscoverei)  america,  the 
columhian  exposition  discovered  woman.  these  volumes  will  show  many  ok  the 
jewels  of  thought  anp  self-sacrifice  which  she  has  contributed  to  the  golden 
treasury  of  history."    editor's  preface. 


CHAPTER  II. 

GRANDEUR  AND  FINAL  INFLUENCE  OF  THE    PARLIAMENT. 

nPHE  extraordinary  success  of  the  Parliament  was  due  to  its 
-'■  timeliness,  to  the  amount  of  work  put  into  it,  and  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  in  the  hands  of  men  who  were  fitted  to  secure 
the  cooperation  of  the  great  historic  churches  and  of  the 
representatives  of  the  non-Christian  faiths.  Liberal  Christians 
naturally  looked  upon  it  as  one  -of  their  triumphs,  but  they 
could  not  have  gained  the  cooperation  of  historic  Christendom. 
Liberal  minded  Jews  saw  in  it  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecy 
that  the  knowjedge  of  Jehovah  should  cover  the  earth,  but  Juda- 
ism alone  could  not  have  achieved  a  convention  of  Christians. 
The  Brahmo-Somaj  regarded  the  Parliament  as  fulfilling  the 
ideas  of  the  New  Dispensation,  but  the  Brahmo-Somaj  would 
have -been  unable  to  draw  together  the  representatives  of  the 
great  faiths.  No  Christian  missionary  society  could  have 
achieved  the  Parliament,  for  the  fear  of  aggressive  propagand- 
ism  would  have  kept  out  the  non-Christian  world.  No  eccle- 
siastical body  in  Christendom,  whether  Catholic,  Greek, 
Anglican,  or  Lutheran,  could  have  assembled  the  Parliament. 
No  kingly  or  imperial  government  in  which  church  and  state 
are  united  could  have  gathered  it,  and  no  republican  govern- 
ment where  church  and  state  are  separated  would  have 
deemed  it  a  part  of  its  office  to  summon  it.  But,  as  a  part  of 
an  international  exposition,  and  controlled  by  a  generous- 
minded  and  representative  committee,  under  no  ecclesiastical 
dictation,  and  appealing  in  the  spirit  of  fraternity  to  high- 
minded  individuals,  the  Parliament  was  possible,  and  was 
actualized.  The  imperial  government  of  China,  the  Buddhist 
Church  of  Southern  India,  the  Brahmo-Somaj,  the  Jains,  the 
Kayasth  Society  of  India,  and  the  Catholic  Church  of  Amer- 
ica are  all  the  governments  and  religious  bodies  that  were 
officially  represented  at  Chicago.  Still,  very  eminent  indi- 
viduals, representing  all  the  great   religious   bodies   of   man- 

XS68 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE    PARLIAMENT.  1 569 

kind  were  present.  The  world  needed  to  wait  till  English 
had  become  an  Asiatic  as  well  as  an  European  and  American 
language,  before  the  Parliament  could  be  successfully  held. 

It  is  unwise  to  pronounce  the  Parliament,  as  some  have 
done,  a  vindication  or  an  illustration  preeminently  of  one 
idea,  either  the  Liberal,  the  Catholic  or  the  Evangelical.  The 
Parliament  was  too  large  to  be  estimated  and  judged  in  this 
way.  It  did  emphasize,  as  the  Liberals  have  so  emphatically 
done,  liberty,  fellowship  and  character  in  religion  ;  it  did 
emphasize  the  Catholic  idea  o&*a  universal  church  and  the 
desirableness  of  greater  unity  in  religious  organization ;  it 
did  emphasize  and  illustrate  the  great  Evangelical  claim  that  - 
the  historic  Christ  is  divine,  the  sufficient  and  •  only  Saviour 
of  mankind  ;  but  from  the  fact  that  it  made  conspicuous  so  .. 
many  truths  and  phases  of  religion,  the  glory  of  it  cannot  be 
monopolized  by  any  one  division  of  the  religious  world. 

The  echoes  of  the  Parliament,  reduplicated  now  in  so  many 
lands,  show  that  it  is  destined  to  make  a  profound  and  €ver-  ' 
deepening  impression  on  religious  thcHight.  It  has  shown  that 
mankind  is  drifting  toward  religion  and  not  away  from  it;  it 
has  widened  the  bounds  of  human  fraternity;  it  is  giving  a 
strong  impetus  to  the  study  of  comparative  religion  ;  it  is 
fortifying  timid  souls  in  regard  to  the  right  and  wisdom  of  lib- 
erty in  thought  and  expression;  it  is  clarifying  many  minds  in 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  non-Christian  faiths;  it  is  deepen-  . 
ing  the  general  Christian  interest  in  non-Christian  nations  ;  and 
it  will  bring  before  millions  in  Oriental  lands  the  more  truth- 
ful and  beautiful  aspects  of  Christianity.  The  impression  that 
it  is  making  on  the  unbelieving  and  secular  world  is  salutary, 
for  it  gives  the  first  opportunity  for  men  to  see  religion  in  its 
entirety  and  to  apprehend  its  greatness.  The  Columbian 
E.xposition  which  accentuated  the  material  glories  of  modern 
civilization  needed  the  Parliament  of  Religions  to  bring  back 
to   the  human  mind  the  greater  world  of  the  Spirit. 

The  Congress  was  a  notable  event  for  the  African,  whose 
manhood  was  fully  recognized;  for  the  Jew,  who  has  suffered 
various  forms  of  persecution  ;  for  the   Liberal,  who  saw  the 
99 


1570  REVIEW    AND   SUMMARY. 

truths  for  which  he  had  specially  contended  grandly  recog- 
nized ;  for  the  Catholic,  who  came  out  into  a  new  atmosphere 
and  gained  from  theological  opponents  new  admiration  and 
respect :  for  woman,  for  then  she  secured  the  largest  recogni- 
tion of  her  intellectual  rights  ever  granted.  It  was  a  great 
event  for  the  social  reformer  and  the  advocate  of  international 
justice,  for  the  Parliament  was  unanimous  in  denouncing  the 
selfishness  of  modern  society  and  the  iniquity  of  the  opium 
trade  and  the  rum  traffic ;  for  the  Buddhist,  the  Brahman  and 
the  Confucian,  who  were  permitted  to  interpret  their  Own 
faiths  in  the  Parliament  of  Man  ;  for  the  orthodox' Protestanty 
whose  heart  and  .intellect  were  expanded  and  whose' faith  in 
the  Gospel  of  God's  grace* was  strengthened  by  the  words  and 
scenes  of  that  assembly ;  and  it  was  especially  a  great  event  for 
the   earnest   and   broad-minded    Christian    missionary,   who 

:  rejoiced  that  all  Christendom  was  at  last  forced  to  confront  the 
problem  of  bringing  Christ,  the  universal  Saviour,  to  kll  man- 
kind. '  '  '    -'      ' 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  expressed  the  opinion  in  iSgitlyt 

i  the  world  was  not  yet  ripe  for  such  a  movement  in  behalf  of 
human  brotherhood,  and  doubtless  even  yet  the  Parliament 
has  many  victories  to  win,  but  its  historic  importance  is  assured. 
It  is  a  fact  that  must  be  reckoned  with  henceforth.  It  will  leave 
its  mark  on  all  subsequent  history.     This  assembly  which,  as 

tone  has  said,  no  mandate  of  Augustus  Caesar  could  have  gath- 

'ered,  this  prophecy  of  Tennyson's  "  Federation  of  the  World," 
this  Congress  which  has  been  called  a  shadowy  outline  of  the 

'  great  last  Parliament  of  Man  at  which  all  races,  ages  and  relig- 
ions are  to  meet  before  the  Heavenly  Judge,  already  takes  rank 
with  the  chief  events  of  the  century  and  of  all  centuries.  How 
much  nobler  its  spirit  than  the  theological  contentions  at  the 
time  of  the  great  Reformation  !  What  a  contrast  it  presents 
with  the  Crusades  I  To  gain  control  of  an  ancient  sepulchre 
is  less  noble  than  an  effort  to  gain  possession  by  love  of  living 
truths.  Matched  with  its  significance  and  universality  how 
provincial  appear  some  of  the  greater  events  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  even  negro  emancipation,  the  Franco-Prussian   War, 


INFLUENCE   OF    THE    PARLIAMENT.  I  57 1 

the  Vatican  Council  of  1870,  and  the  frequent  changes  of 
national  boundary  lines  on  the  map  of  the  continents  !  How 
much  wider  the  reach  and  higher  the  quality  of  influence 
destined  to  proceed  from  this  meeting !  In  the  development 
of  Christianity  it  may  never  take  rank  with  the  Councils  of 
Nicea  and  Chalcedon,  of  Trent  and  Augsburg,  of  Dort  and 
Westminster,  but  may  not  its  significance  for  the  race  be  ulti- 
mately even  wider? 

The  prophecy  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  McPherson  of  Chicago, 
that  this  Parliament  would  afford' the  best  single  opportunity 
in  the  history  of  man  for  the  study  of  comparative  religion, 
has  been  fulfilled.  Dr.  James  Freeman  Clarke  has  called 
this  study  the  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  Christianity. 
Yet  timid  Christians  have  been  afraid  of  it  !  All  truth  and 
goodness  are  of  God.  Oh!  that  man  would  trust  truth  more  ! 
The  general  ignorance  in  Christian  lands  of  non-Chris- 
tian faiths  was  strongly  rebuked  by  one  speaker  at  the 
Parliament,  although  too  much  has  been  made  of  the  incident, 
and  his  condenmation  was  far  too  severe.  When  Mr.  Dharma- 
pala  asked  a  large  audience  (not  in  the  Hall  of  Columbus 
where  the  Parliament  was  assembled  but  in  one  of  the  subor- 
ninate  meetings)  how  many  had  read  the  life  of  Buddha,  five 
persons  responded  afifirmatively  by  holding  up  the  hand,  where- 
upon the  gentle  ascetic  exclaimed:  "  Five  only  !  Four  hundred 
and  seventy-five  millions  of  people  accept  our  religion  of  love 
and  hope.  You  call  yourselves  a  nation — a  great  nation — and 
yet  you  do  not  know  the  history  of  this  great  teacher.  How 
dare  you  judge  us  !"  The  principle  of  justice  here  afifirmed 
should  be  taken  to  heart,  though  the  application  of  it  was  not 
altogether  fair.  If  Mr.  Dharmapala  had  inquired  of  the  three 
thousand  people  at  the  Parliament:  "  How  many  of  you  have 
read,  in  whole  or  in  part,  Arnold's  Light  of  Asia,  with  its 
account  of  Buddha?"  many  hundreds  of  hands  would  have 
been  held  up.  The  ignorance  is  not  as  dense  and  wide  as 
was  imagined. 

While  the  Parliament  discovered  many  points  of  contact 
between  Christianity  and  the  ethnic  faiths,  still  it  did  not  show 


1572  REVIKVV    AND   SUMMARY. 

many  doctrinal  points  in  which  all  religions  agree.  There  was 
a  large  agreement,  but  not  a  total  and  universal  agreement,  in 
certain  things.  While  in  religious  sentiment  and  aspiration 
there  appeared  at  times  almost  a  complete  unison,  and  while  it 
could  be  said  that  certain  truths  of  Christianity  find  their 
prophecies  or  adumbrations  in  some  of  the  ethnic  faiths, 
and  other  truths  are  shadowed  forth  in  other  of  the  non- 
Christian  religions,  no  religion  e.xcepling  Christianity  put  forth 
any  strong  and  serious  claims  to  universality. 

The  idea  of  evolving  a  cosmic  or  universal  faith  out  of  the 
Parliament  was  not  present  in  the  minds  of  its  chief  promoters. 
They  believe  that  the  elements  of  such  a  religion  are  already 
contained  in  the  Christian  ideal  and  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
They  had  no  thought  of  attempting  to  formulate  a  universal 
creed.  Their  objects  were  more  reasonable  and  important. 
Dr.  Alger  conclusively  showed  that  men  must  be  unified  in 
other  subjects  before  they  will  become  one  in  their  intellectual 
faith.  The  best  religion  must  come  to  the  front,  and  the  best 
religion  will  ultimately  survive,  because  it  will  contain  all  that 
is  true  in  all  the  faiths. 

The  Parliament,  it  has  been  said,  awakened  a  new  world- 
consciousness  ;  it  concentrated  much  light  upon  the  greatest 
themes ;  its  disclosures  were  such  as  to  fill  thoughtful  men  of 
every  faith  with  humility  as  well  as  with  mutual  respect  ;  it  was 
an  effort  of  serious  minds,  in  a  fraternal  spirit,  "  to  help  each 
other  to  see,"  and  among  the  things  made  visible  are  the  uni- 
versal activity  and  guidance  of  God.  The  best  definition  of 
heathenism  is  "  organized  selfishness,"  and  this  exists  in  Chris- 
tian lands,  and  it  was  well  for  Christians  to  be  humbled  and 
rebuked,  and  it  was  equally  wholesome  for  them  to  discover 
and  gladly  recognize  the  brighter  side  of  so-called  heathenism. 
But  while  the  men  of  India,  for  example,  were  at  no  intellect- 
ual disadvantage  with  the  men  of  Christian  America  and 
Europe,  it  must  be  said  that  the  training  which  they  brought 
to  the  Parliament. was  largely  from  Christian  sources.  Chris- 
tianity has  become  so  pervasive  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  schol- 
arly men  who  have  not  been  touched  by  its  brightness.    A  few 


INFLUENCE    OF   THE    PARLIAMENT.  1573 

persons  felt  that  the  darker  aspects  of  paganism  were  not 
sufficiently  brought  out,  and  yet  it  will  be  found  that  the 
'•seamy  side  "  of  the  non-Christian  faiths  was  plainly  indicated 
by  Dr.  Pentecost,  Joseph  Cook,  Mr.  Mozoomdar,  Mr.  Nagar- 
kar.  Dr.  Post,  Mr.  Candlin,  Prof.  Wilkinson,  Mr  Gordon,  Mr. 
.NfcFarland,  Dr.  Clark,  Dr.  Dennis  and  others. 

One  effect  of  the  Parliament  will  be  to  bring  up  more 
prominently  than  ever  the  question  of  the  reunion  of  Christen- 
dom. Dr.  A.  H.  Bradford  has  said,  "Never  again,  after  the 
participation  of  the  Roman  and  Greek  Churches  in  this  great 
gathering,  will  the  union  sought  be  merely  a  union  of  Protes- 
tant sects."  "  One  result  of  the  Parliament,"  says  The 
Churchman,  "  is  the  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  the 
American  people  appreciate  religious  courage,  which  was  con- 
spicuously manifested  by  the  Catholics."  Says  Bishop  Keane  ; 
"  Nearly  every  sentence  during  these  seventeen  days  tended 
to  show  that  the  positive  doctrinal  divergences  which  had  held 
Christians  apart  during  three  centuries  are  fast  being  oblite- 
rated. The  Parliament  has  been  a  long  stride  toward  the  much 
desired  reunion  of  Christendom."  Dr.  Munger  writes  in  the 
Christian  World  (London),  "By  far  the  most  notable  feat- 
ure of  the  Parliament  was  the  participation  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  and  the  presence  of  its  ablest  representatives 
in  this  country,  and  the  earnest  and  genuine  catholicity  with 
which  they  entered  into  its  deliberations."  The  addresses  of 
Dr.  Schaff  and  Canon  Fremantle  are  classics  on  this  great  sub- 
ject of  the  reunion  of  Christendom,  but  the  assembling  of  the 
Parliament  was  itself  the  greatest  blow  in  the  present  genera- 
tion to  schism  and  narrow  Christian  sectarianism. 

But  to  most  of  the  readers  of  these  volumes  the  supreme 
question  regarding  the  Parliament  is  that  which  concerns  the 
relation  of  Christianity  to  the  other  faiths.  It  may  be  safely 
said  that  participation  in  this  meeting  did  not  compromise 
any  Christian  speaker's  position  as  a  believer  in  the  supremacy 
and  universality  of  the  Gospel.  There  was  no  suggestion  on 
the  part  of  Christian  speakers  that  Christianity  was  to  be 
thought  of  as  on  the  same   level  with   other  religions.     It  was 


1574  REVIEW    AND    SUMMARY. 

gladly  seen  that  some  of  its  truths  are  held  in  common  with 
other  faiths,  that  monotheism  appears  in  Mohammedanism, 
Parseeism,  original  Hinduism  ;  that  the  essence  of  religion  is 
always  the  same,  that  aspiration  and  dependence  are  universal, 
and  that  ethical  unity  is  more  marked  than  doctrinal  unity. 
Many  perceived  that  Christendom  has  important  lessons  yet 
unlearned,  that  the  Christianity  of  Japan  and  India  is  not  to 
be  a  bald  repetition  of  the  Christianity  of  America  and  Eng- 
land. It  will  mark  an  epoch  in  many  a  mind  to  fully  grasp 
the  truth  brought  out  by  Mr.  Candlin  in  regard  to  the  true 
relations  of  Christianity  with  the  faiths  which  it  expects  to 
supersede.  It  can  supersede  only  as  it  absorbs  and  takes  up 
into  itself,  as  a  part  of  its  own  birthright  and  heritage,  all  the 
truths  taught  by  Confucius  or  Buddha,  for  Christ  is  the  light 
enlightening  every  man.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  has  well  said 
that  "  the  difference  between  Christianity  and  the  other  relig- 
ions is  that  we  have  something  that  they  have  not.  We  have 
the  Christ,  the  revelation  of  God,  the  ideal  Man,  the  loving 
and  suffering  Saviour.  Those  who  attended  the  Parliament 
got  a  larger  conception  of  what  Christ  is  and  Christ  means." 
There  is  no  doubt  that  by  the  Parliament  Christianity  made 
a  favorable  impression  on  those  whom  it  desires  to  win.  The 
Christian  Religion  will  be  interpreted  from  the  Parliament  and 
not  hereafter  by  the  bad  laws  of  so-called  Christian  Nations. 
The  Orientals  learned  what  is  true  Christianity,  and  they  can 
speak  with  authority  and  say  that  these  evils  are  not  apolo- 
gized for  by  the  Christian  men  of  America  and  Europe.  The 
sages  of  the  Orient  will  learn  that  Christian  America  and  Europe 
have  no  sympathy  with  the  abominations  which  falsely-named 
Christians  have  practiced,  that  the  opium  trafficker  and  the  rum 
trafficker  do  not  represent  them,  and  that,  while  they  believe 
that  a  true  Christianity  is  the  world's  best  boon  and  hope, 
they  think  that  a  mild  and  sober  Buddhism  and  a  self-respect- 
ing and  temperate  Confucianism  are  preferable  to  a  brutal, 
drunken,  intolerant  and  persecuting  false-Christianity.  The 
Chairman  of  the  Parliament  said  to  the  Orientals,  "  that  while 
Christian  disciples  will  continue  to  obey  the  Master  more  and 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE    PARLIAMENT.  1575 

more  faithfully,  and  will  bring  the  messages  of  Bethlehem  and 
Calvary  to  those  for  whom  Jesus  lived  and  died,  we  believe 
that  the  Gospel,  instead  of  striking  mercilessly  at  indigenous 
faiths  should  adopt  them  so  far  as  they  agree  with  its  truth, 
and  should  always  present  io  men  the  sweetness  and  mildness, 
the  tenderness  and  grace  of  Jesus  Christ."  Reverent  men  in 
the  Orient  have  heard  Buddha  and  Confucius  spoken  against, 
and  have  felt  almost  as  Christians  in  America  sometimes  do 
when  they  hear  a  bitter  champion  of  infidelity  declaim  against 
the  Gospel.  A  better  missionary  than  even  the  Bible  is  the 
living  preacher,  wisely  enlightened  and  filled  with  the  spirit 
of  Christ.  Christianity  never  had  so  golden  an  opportunity 
to  show  her  true  spirit,  and  if  she  had  said  far  less  than  she  did, 
would  have  been  justified  in  calling  the  Parliament.  Dr. 
Pentecost  said,  "It  would  have  been  cowardly  and  contrary  to 
the  very  genius  of  Christianity  to  have  turned  our  backs  on  it." 
There  were  no  scenes  in  that  meeting  which  for  interest, 
general  enthusiasm  and  lofty  feeling  compared  with  the 
scenes  where  the  noblest  Christian  truths  were  eloquently 
uttered.  It  may  be  safely  said  that  Christ  was  never  more 
effectively  preached  than  when  Bishop  Dudley  and  others 
spoke  to  all  nations  the  old  evangel. 

Most  men  who  read  these  volumes  in  Christian  lands  will 
believe  with  Dr.  Munger  that  "The  Parliament  shows  that  the 
world  moves,  and  on  the  whole  moves  Christward."  It 
showed  a  great  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  critics  of  Chris- 
tendom that  they  should  stand  up  in  the  Parliament,  as  did 
the  eloquent  Hirai,  and  protest  not  against  real,  but  against 
false,  Christianity.  The  only  spoken  prayers  at  the  Parlia- 
ment were  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  petitions  offered  at  the 
close  of  their  addresses,  by  the  Archbishop  of  Zante  and 
Father  Phiambolis;  but  in  the  daily  repetition  of  the  Uni- 
versal Prayer  men  saw  a  divine  finger  pointing  to  the 
universal  and  ultimate  religion.  "That  religion,"  as  Prof. 
Goodspeed  has  said,  '"is  not  so  much  Christianity  as  Christ. 
Such  was  the  deepest  voice  of  the  Parliament." 

A  great  volume  of  Christian  evidences  will  be  found  in 


1576  •     REVIEW    AND   SUMMARY. 

this  book  by  any  reader  who  brings  together  twenty  of  the 
leading  Christian  addresses,  and  a  true  comprehension  of 
Christianity  will  show  that,  although  it  is  exclusive  in  the 
sense  that  it  requires  of  all  the  acceptance  of  Christ  as  the  one 
Saviour  of  the  world,  it  is  also  grandly  inclusive,  in  the  sense 
that  it  embraces  within  its  scope  all  religious  truths.  If 
the  great  Christian  missionary  societies  had  been  able  to 
send  to  the  Parliament  a  score  of  the  higher-class  educated 
converts  from  a  dozen  nations,  such  men  would  have  been  a 
sufficient  and  final  refutation  of  criticisms  abounding  in  the 
papers  of  non-Christian  religionists,  who  claim  that  only  the 
lower  classes  are  converted  by  the  missionaries. 

The  general  wisdom  and  humility  and  courtesy  with  which 
all  the  faiths  endured  the  criticisms  which  were  inevitable  are 
greatly  to  be  commended.  Christianity,  so  serene  and  impreg- 
nable, was  able  to  receive  patiently  nearly  all  the  arrows  aimed 
at  the  imperfections  of  Christendom.  I  have  said  that  no  other 
religion  made  any  serious  claim  to  be  the  final  faith  for  all 
mankind.  It  contains  in  itself,  not  as  actualized,  but  as 
revealed  in  its  Sacred  Books  and  sacred  ideals,  whatever  truths 
belong  to  natural  religion,  and  these  truths  are  made  vital  and 
vigorous  by  its  Lord  and  Saviour.  However  great  the  excel- 
lences and  services  of  the  non-Christian  faiths,  Christianity,  for 
hopefulness,  for  confidence  in  its  own  resources,  for  essential 
catholicity,  for  adaptation  to  all  men's  needs,  holds  the  field. 
To  a  remarkable  degree  the  effect  of  the  Parliament  must  be  to 
bring  before  many  minds  the  essential  elements  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  Great  truths  make  little  truths  seem  smaller  still 
and  put  to  shame  the  foolish  and  wicked  divisions  of  Christ- 
endom. 

There  are  certain  characteristics  of  Western  Christianity 
which  are  peculiarly  offensive  to  many  Eastern  minds — a  lack 
of  daily  seriousness  and  thoughtfulness  and  prayerfulness,  a 
roughness  and  discourtesy,  a  fondness  for  brutal  sports  and 
pleasures.  Christendom,  as  it  is  now  organized,  is  not  fitted 
for  the  swift  or  immediate  conquest  of  the  globe.  The  follow- 
ers of  Christ  are  wickedly  and  foolishly  divided  and  they  thrust 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  PARLIAMENT.       1577 

their  divisions  and  follies  before  the  eyes  of  heathendom.  An 
acquaintance  with  Christian  civilization  furnishes  many  plaus- 
ible arguments  to  the  non-Christian  mind  for  clinging  to  the 
old  faiths.  Not  until  the  disciples  of  Christ  get  closer  together, 
not  until  Christian  society  becomes  more  Christlike,  far  more 
perfectly  in  accord  with  the  ideas  which  Prof.  Peabody  enforced 
in  his  masterly  address,  not  until  the  church  is  radiant  with 
more  of  the  beauty  of  holiness  and  returns  in  meekness  to  the 
simplicity  that  is  in  Christ, and  not  until  missionaries  generally 
are  equipped  with  abetter  knowledge  of  ethnic  faiths  and  filled 
with  more  Christian  ideas  in  regard  to  them,  will  there  dawn 
upon  the  globe  the  golden  age  of  Christian  missions. 

Without  reserve  it  may  be  said  that  the  Parliament  of  Relig- 
ions was  as  much  an  achievement  of  faith  as  anything  recorded 
in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Hebrews.  Christianity  alone  had 
interest  enough  in  such  a  conference  to  insure  its  success.  In 
spite  of  its  divisions,  Christianity  realized  that  its  essential 
unity  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  one  center  of 
Christendom,  would  enable  it  to  make  a  distinct  and  truthful 
impression  on  the  world.  Knowing  its  impregnability  in  that 
one  divine  center  —  its  unique  feature  among  the  religions  of 
the  world — Christianity,  with  bold  and  not  boastful  confidence 
in  its  own  ultimate  victory,  gladly  faced  the  consequences  which 
such  a  Parliament  would  bring  in  its  train.  Christianity  was 
ready  to  criticise  itself,  its  actual  condition,  while  the  non- 
Christian  faiths  said  little  or  nothing  that  was  critical  of  the 
present  condition  of  their  peoples.  Bravely,  and  with  grateful 
cheerfulness,  Christendom  took  the  strong  blows  which  her 
sins  deserve.  True  Christianity  has  not  in  this  generation 
been   more  highly  honored  than  by  such  criticism. 

The  spirit  which  organized  and  carried  on  this  movement 
was  that  of  positive  and  earnest  religious  faith,  not  of  indiffer- 
ence or  agnosticism.  Nothing  was  said  in  the  Parliament  to 
weaken  the  force  of  the  tremendous  arguments  offered  for  the 
existence  of  the  one  God,  and  in  behalf  of  Immortality.  Many 
garbled  and  utterly  misleading  reports  of  the  Parliament  went 
abroad,  but  nothing  more   incorrect  than    the   statement  that 


I57S  REVIEW    AND    SUMMARY. 

little  was  said  about  Christ.  The  Christian  spirit  pervaded  the 
Parliament  from  first  to  last.  Christ's  Prayer  was  daily  used. 
His  name  was  always  spoken  with  reverence.  No  word  with  a 
shadow  of  criticism  was  uttered  against  him.  His  doctrine 
was  preached  by  a  hundred  Christians  and  by  lips  other  than 
Christian.  "  The  Parliament  ended  at  Calvary."  The  glorifi- 
cation of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man 
shows  how  eager  men  were  to  take  refuge  in  Christian  ideas, 
and  what  occurred  in  the  Parliament  is  manifestly  taking 
place  in  the  new  sects  which  are  rapidly  forming  in  Hindustan. 
Good  men  have  criticised  the  Parliament  mercilessly,  but  all 
Christians  should  remember  that  Christianity  called  it,  inspired 
it,  conducted  it,  has  defended  it,  and  is  likely  to  point  to  it 
as  one  of  its  greatest  achievements.  "'  Never  since  the  day 
when  Paul  stood  on  the  stairs  of  the  castle  at  Jerusalem,  and 
spoke  so  confidently  of  the  Way  to  the  angry  and  turbulent 
multitudes,  have  words  more  positive,  clear  and  opportune,  and, 
v/ithal,  delicately  courteous,  been  voiced." 

Those  who  believe  that,  in  the  work  of  Christian  evangeli- 
zation, it  is  better  to  find  points  of  agreement  before  accentuat- 
ing points  of  antagonism,  and  that  the  non-Christian  nations 
must  be  dispossessed  of  the  impression  that  Christians  are  their 
foes,  intent  upon  desecrating  all  that  they  hold  sacred;  those 
who  rejoice  with  Joseph  Cook  that  "the  Christian  homes  and 
churches  of  the  Occident  are  determined  to  secure  justice  in 
national  as  well  as  international  politics;"  those  who  perceive 
that  a  new  era  of  sympathy  and  enlightenment  must  precede 
an  era  of  rapid  evangelization,  will  rejoice  that  the  Parliament 
has  forced  Christendom  to  face  more  intelligently  some  neg- 
lected truths  and  many  problems  of  serious  urgency.  No  harm 
can  come  to  Christianity  by  recognizing,  as  Paul  did  on  Mars 
Hill,  that  there  is  more  than  one  religion  in  the  world.  Paul 
spoke  courteously  even  to  polytheists,  but  polytheism  had  no 
standing  in  the  Parliament  except  in  a  rhetorical  blessing  at 
the  end  of  one  address. 

One  liberalizing  and  enlightening  effect  of  the  Parliament 

«  Dr.  Frederick  A.  Noble. 


INFLUENCE  OF   THE    PARLIAMENT.  IS79 

will  be  to  bring  before  many  minds  the  importance  of  natural 
religion.  "  It  was  the  religion  of  Abram  while  he  was  yet  inUr  of 
the  Chaldees  ;  for  his  father  was  an  idolater.  It  was  the  relis:- 
ion  of  Canaanitish  Melchizedek,  priest  of  God  Most  High.  It 
was  the  religion  of  Philistine  Abimelech,  Mesopotamian 
Balaam,  Idumean  Job,  Persian  Zoroaster,  Indian  Gautama, 
Chinese  Confucius,  Greek  Socrates,  Eastern  Magi,  Roman 
Epictetus,  Arabian  Mohammed,  our  own  American  Aborigines. 
This  is  why  we  find  in  heathen  literatureso  many  anticipations, 
dim  indeed  but  significant,  of  Christ's  own  sayings.  For  Jesus 
Christ  did  not  come  to  destroy;  Jesus  Christ  came  to  fulfil."' 

One  effect  of  this  Parliament  will  be  to  show  Christian 
men  that  they  may  have  fellowship  with  aspiring  and  godly 
souls  who  cherish  far  different  faiths  from  their  own,  while  these 
same  Christian  hearts  cling  more  tenaciousl/  and  gratefully 
than  ever  to  the  truth  which  has  set  them  free.  Many  wise  and 
true  opinions  are  held  by  the  disciples  of  the  ethnic  faiths,  but 
opinions,  however  true,  are  not  man's  crying  need.  Jesus 
Christ  is  not  only  the  Truth,  but  he  is  also  the  Way  and  the  Life. 
In  him  the  two  ideas  which  found  most  universal  acceptance 
in  the  Parliament — human  brotherhood  and  divine  fatherhood 
— find  their  proof  and  explanation.  Take  away  Jesus,  the  Son 
of  Man,  and  the  silver  cord  which  is  binding  human  hearts 
into  a  cosmopolitan  fraternity  will  be  loosened.  Take  away 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  golden  bowl  on  which  he  has 
written  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  into  which  he  has  poured 
his  own  life  blood,  will  be  forever  broken. 

Because  the  Parliament  brought  into  clear  light  the  better 
side  of  heathendom,  and  showed  some  of  the  mistakes  of 
Christian  missionaries,  a  few  have  prophesied  that  missionary 
activity  would  certainly  be  diminished.  The  opposite  effect 
will  follow.  "  A  n^w  impetus,"  as  Rev.  D.  S.  Schaff  has  said, 
"  will  come  to  Christian  Missions." '  As  the  "  Oceanic  "  steam- 
ship, which  carried   Mr.  Dharmapala  and  Mr.  Pung  across  the 

I  From  a  notable  address  on  "  The  Parliament  of  Religions,"  by  George  Dana  Board- 
man,  D.D.,  LLD.  (The  National  Baptist  Print,  Philadelphia). 

»"  The  Homiletic  Review,  Dec.  1893,  p.  559. 


1580  REVIEW    AND    SUMMARY. 

Pacific,  had  on  board  a  large  number  of  Christian  missionaries 
in  whose  hearts  glowed  the  light  of  Bethlehem  and  Calvary  and 
Pentecost,  so  the  tides  of  missionary  activity,  purified  and 
enlightened,  and  also  strengthened,  are  to  flow  over  all  the  earth. 
Human  nature  needs  the  Gospel.  Certain  Orientals  at  the 
Congress,  who  have  heard  and  rejected  the  Gospel,  are  not  the 
best  witnesses  to  the  needs  of  India.  Some  of  the  speakers 
at  the  Parliament  objected  to  the  carrying  of  Christian  the- 
ology to  India,  and  demanded  that  Christendom  should 
minister  to  the  sick,  the  famine-struck  and  the  impoverished. 
The  two  go  together,  and  have  gone  together  since  Jesus 
preached  the  kingdom  and  healed  the  sick.  The  record  of 
Christian  charity  in  non-Christian  lands,  of  the  various  minis- 
tries which  Christian  love  has  wrought  for  the  bodies  of  men, 
should  have  prevented  such  unfounded  criticism  of  missionaries 
as  was  expressed  by  one  speaker  in  the  Parliament.  I  doubt 
if  any  Orientals  who  were  present  misinterpreted  the  courtesy 
with  which  they  were  received  into  a  readiness  on  the  part  of 
American  people  to  accept  Oriental  faiths  in  the  place  of  their 
own.  On  the  other  hand,  they  confidently  expect  that  out  of 
the  Christian  civilization  which,  with  all  its  imperfections,  has 
been  a  blessing  to  their  peoples,  will  come  an  ever-renewed 
army  of  the  messengers  of  Christ.  "  I  regard  Christ,"  said 
Mozoomdar,  "as  an  essential  factor  in  the  future  of  India." 
'  "  The  Parliament  of  Religions  opens  up  the  gate  of  a  golden 
era,  an  era  which  shall  purge  off  all  the  un-Christian  elements 
of  the  different  faiths,  both  Christian  and  non-Christian,  and 
unite  them  all  in  Christ." 

While  some  of  the  criticisms  of  missionaries  at  the  Parlia- 
ment were  criticisms  of  ancient  history,  not  of  modern  practice, 
yet  in  all  cdndor  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  we  have  not 
reached  perfection  in  missionary  methods.  The  mild  and  gentle 
Asiatic  may  seem  a  feeble  or  incomplete  type  of  manhood  com- 
pared with  the  Scotchman,  the  Englishman,  the  German,  the 
American,  with  centuries  of  Christian  training  behind  him, 
inured  to  self-government,  and  strong  in  the  manly  virtues,  but 

'  From  "  Unity  and  the  Minister,"  Calcutta,  Septcmher  24. 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE    PARLIAMENT.  I  58  I 

this  same  Asiatic,  is  in  some  respects  superior  to  his  rougher  and 
more  vigorous  brethren.  He  is  certainly  responsive  to  the 
touch  of  love  and  gentle  kindness,  but  he  resents  the  icono- 
clasm  which  rudelv  smites  the  idols  of  his  heart.  One  of  the 
most  beloved  of  the  Oriental  speakers  at  the  Parliament  said  : 
"I  was  trained  in  a  Christian  school,  I  took  prizes  for  my 
knowledge  of  the  New  Testament,  and  if  I  had  respected  the 
ways  and  words  of  my  teacher,  I  should  undoubtedly  have 
become  a  Christian." 

The  Mission  Congresses  and  the  meeting  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  which  followed  the  Parliament,  and  were  really  a  con- 
tinnation  of  it  on  the  Christian  side,  emphasized  the  fact  that 
Christianity  must  become  more  united  and  active  in  promot- 
ing the  social  well-being  of  men.  The  enthusiasm  with  which 
all  responded  to  the  law  of  Christ,  as  applied  to  the  affairs  of 
life,  shows  that  the  Religious  Congresses  marked  out  the  path 
of  future  social  progress.  It  should  be  added,  also,  that  Christ- 
ian Europe  and  America  should  not  be  so  resolute  to  reproduce 
their  own  ideals  and  systems  in  Oriental  lands.  The  theology  of 
Geneva  and  the  sacerdotalism  of  London  may  not  be  adapted  to 
the  Japanese  mind.  To  evangelize  the  world  it  is  not  necessary 
that  India  should  be  another  England  and  China  another 
Russia.  The  Christianity  of  the  future  must  be  as  compre- 
hensive as  the  utterances  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers  and  as  broad 
in  its  universal  adaptations  as  the  Gospel  of  Jesus.  The  Par- 
liament has  shown  that  Christianity  is  still  the  great  quick- 
ener  of  humanity,  that  it  is  now  educating  those  who  do 
not  accept  its  doctrines,  that  there  is  no  teacher  to  be  com- 
pared with  Christ,  and  no  Saviour  excepting  Christ,  that  there 
is  no  assured  and  transforming  hope  of  conscious  and  blessed 
immortality  outside  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  and  that  all 
the  philosophies  do  not  bring  God  so  near  to  man  as  he  is 
brought  by  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  The  non-Christian  world 
may  give  us  valuable  criticism  and  confirm  scriptural  truths 
and  make  excellent  suggestions  as  to  Christian  improvement, 
but  it  has  nothing  to  add  to  the  Christian  creed.  It  is  with 
the  belief,  expressed  by  many  a  Christian  missionary,  that  the 


1582  REVIEW    AND    SUMMARY. 

Parliament  marks  a  new  era  of  Christian  triumph  that  the 
Editor  closes  these  volumes.  This  council  of  the  creeds  will 
be  the  precursor  of  grander  things  for  God's  kingdom  on 
earth.  But  before  closing  my  work  I  wish  to  contribute  my 
strong  and  grateful  testimony  to  the  truth  and  power  of  the 
Christian  Gospel.  While  I  write  these  words,  the  body  of  my 
eldest  son,  John  Manning  Barrows,  a  noble  boy  of  thirteen, 
lies  unburied  in  my  house.  From  behind  this  earthly  shadow 
I  would  that  a  gleam  of  heavenly  brightness  might  fall  on 
these  final  pages.  With  millions  of  sorrowing  hearts  I  now 
know  the  precious  and  unspeakable  consolations  of  Christ,  and 
to  all,  who  in  the  Old  World  or  the  New,  dwell  in  death-smit- 
ten homes,  I  would  that  He  might  enter,  who  is  the  Conqueror 
of  death  and  who  fills  the  believing  heart  with  sweet  and  satis- 
fying assurances  of  endless  reunion  and  conscious  blessedness 
beyond  the  grave. 

When  the  Parliament  opened,  the  new  Columbian  Lib- 
erty Bell  rang  with  ten  strokes  amid  the  ivory  palaces  of  the 
"  White  City,"  in  honor  of  the  ten  great  religions  represented 
in  that  historic  assembly.  Inscribed  upon  that  bell  are  the 
old  words,  which  I  would  send  as  a  Christmas  greeting  to  all 
who  have  toiled  with  me  in  loving  fraternity  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  uplifting  of  humanity.  "  Peace  on  Earth.  Good 
Will  to  Men."  And  remembering  the  "  transfigured  moments" 
at  the  Parliament,  let  us  in  the  spirit  join  once  more  in  the 
prayer  of  Him  who  is  the  unifier  of  humanity:. 

<©ut  jFattec,  tof)icf)  art  I'n  \)ea\itn,  taUotoetj  tt  ti)g 
name.  Cf)g  kiitg^om  rome.  Cf)B  toill  be  ^onc  in  enttf),  as 
I't  10  in  f)fabpn.  <®ibe  U0  ti){0  tiap  out  "bailB  ftcralj.  an"b 
forgibe  U0  our  tietts  as  toe  forQi'be  our  tjebtors.  ^nli  leal) 
us  not  into  temptation;  but  tieliber  us  from  ebi'l;  for  ti)i»e 
is  tf)e  kingtiom,  antj  tbe  potoer,  anii  tfje  glorp,  foreber. 
amen. 


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■I 


BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTES. 


Abbott,  Rev.  Lyman,  D.D.,  b.  1835;  graduated  at  University  of  the 
City  of  New  York,  1853.  Pastor  of  Plymouth  Congregational  Church  and 
editor-in-chief  of  "The  Outlook"  ("Christian  Union").  Has  published 
several  religious  books  and  many  pamphlets  and  periodical  articles  on 
religious  and  social  questions. 

Adler,  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Hermann,  Ph.D.,  b.  1839;  attended  Uni- 
versity College  ;  graduated  at  London  University ;  studied  Jewish  theology  ; 
ordained  1862;  studied  at  Leipzig  University;  became  Principal  of  Jews' 
College*,  London,  1863;  delegate  chief  rabbi  of  British  Empire,  1879;  suc- 
ceeded his  father  as  chief  rabbi,  1890.  Author  of  "Sermons  on  the  Biblical 
Passages  Adduced  by  Christian  Theologians  in  Support  of  the  Dogmas  of 
their  Faith  "  ;  "  Is  Judaism  a  Missionary  Faith  ?  " 

Arnett,  Rev.  Benjamin  William,  D.D.,  b.  1838;  presiding  "bishop 
of  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  for  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  Indian 
Territory  and  Oklahoma;  author  of  the  bills  abolishing  the  Black  Laws 
of  Ohio,  and  for  teaching  scientific  temperance  in  the  schools ;  both  made 
laws.     Organized  the  U.  O.  O.  F.  and  other  societies  among  the  negroes. 

ASHITSU,  Rt.  Rev.  Zitsuzen,  b.  1851  ;  studied  Chinese  classics  and 
Buddhist  doctrine  and  literature  ;  took  monastic  vows,  1865 ;  studied  doc- 
trines of  the  Tendai  sect ;  editor-in-chief  of  handy  edition  of  the  Buddhist 
Sutras,  1881-85;  founded  the  Meido  Society  for  spreading  the  Buddhist 
religion,  1883-85;  author  of  "The  Future  of  the  Japanese  Religion,"  "On 
the  Real  Body  of  Amitabha  Buddha,"  "  New  Buddhism  in  the  Orient," 
and  "  Philosophical  Doctrine  of  Buddhism." 

Boardman,  George  Dana,  D.D.,  b.  1828  ;  graduated  at  Brown  Uni- 
versity, 1852,  Newton  Theological  Institution,  1855  ;  pastor  1st  Bap.  Church, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.,  1864,  till  present  time  ;  president  of  American  Baptist 
Missionary  Union,  1880-84;  he  has  published  "Studies  in  the  Creative 
Week ;"  "  Studies  in  the  Model  Prayer ;"  "  Epiphanies  of  the  Risen 
Lord;"  "  The  Mountain  Instruction." 

Bonet-Maury,  Rev.  Amy  Gaston  Charles  Auguste,  b.  1842  ;  grad- 
uated Strasburg,  1867;  became  professor  in  ecclesiastical  history,  Protest- 
ant Faculty  of  Paris,  1 881;  has  published  "E  quibus  Nederlandicis  fontibus 
script£E  libri  de  Imitalione  Christi?"  "  Les  origines  du  christianisme 
unitaire  chez  les  Anglais;"  "La  doctrine  des  douze  Apotres,  Essai  de 
traduction,  avec  un  commentaire  critique  et  historique." 

Bonney,  Charles  Carroll,  b.  1831  ;  educated  in  Hamilton,  N.  Y.; 
took  a  leading  part  in  establishing  present  educational  system  of  Illinois; 
moved  to  Chicago  i860;  president  of  Citizens' Law  and  Order  League  of 
the  United  States  1885  to  1890;  of  International  Law  and  Order  League  since 
1890;  author  constitutional  and  economic  reforms,  including  the  national 
banking  system  and  the  national  regulation  of  inter-state  commerce;  pro- 
jector of  the  series  of  World's  Congresses  and  president  of  the  World's  Con- 
gress Auxiliary;  author  of  hand-books  of  railway  law  and  the  law  of  insur- 
ance, and  of  numerous  addresses  and  essays,  principally  on  important  sub- 
jects connected  with  economic  and  legal  questions. 

1584 


BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTES.  ^S^S 

BURRELL,  David  James,  U.D.,  pastor  of  Marble  Collegiate  Church, 
New  York,  N.  Y.;  b.  1844;  studied  at  Phillips  (Andover)  and  Yale;  author 
of  "Ten  Religions  of  the  World,"  and  many  articles. 

Chapi.n,  Rkv.  .A.UGUSTA  J.,  D.D.,  pastor  of  Oak  Park  Universalist 
Church ;  studied  at  Olivet  College  and  University  of  Michigan ;  ordained 
iSbj;  first  woman  to  receive  D.D.;  lecturer  on  English  literature  for  the 
University  of  Chicago. 

Cleary,  Rev.  James  M.,  pastor  of  St.  Charles  Church,  Minneapolis, 
Minn.;  b.  1849  ;  studied  at  St.  Francis  Seminary,  Milwaukee,  Wis.;  ordained 
1872;  in  1874  began  active  work  in  the  cause  of  temperance;  five  years 
president  of  the  Catholic  Total  Abstinence  Union  of  America. 

Cook,  Joseph,  b.  1838.  Well-known  lecturer  on  living  questions. 
Founder  and  editor-in-chief  of  "  Our  Day."  Has  delivered  lectures  in  all 
parts  of  the  United  States,  as  well  as  in  Great  Britain  and  the  far  East.  His 
*'  Boston  Monday  Lectures  "  have  been  extensively  published  both  through 
the  papers  and  in  book  form  through  numerous  editions. 

Dawson,  Sir  John  William,  C.M.G.,  LL.D.,  b.  1820.  Studied  at  Pic- 
tou  College  and  University  of  Edinburgh.  Author  of  "Story  of  the  Earth 
and  Man,"  and  important  books  treating  of  science  in  relation  to  religion. 

Dennis,  Rev.  James  S.,  D.D.,  b.  1842.  Instructor  in  Arabic  at  Prince- 
ton Theological  Seminary,  Princeton,  N.  J.  Was  in  Syrian  Mission  1868- 
1892.  Has  prepared  theological  textbooks  in  Arabic  on  "Evidences  of 
Christianity,"  "Scripture  Interpretation,"  and  "Christian  Theology." 

Dharmapala,  H.,  b.  1864.  General  Secretary  of  the  Maha-Bodhi 
Society  of  Calcutta,  and  editor  of  the  "Journal  of  the  Maha-Bodhi  Society." 

Dike,  Rev.  Samuel  W.,  LL.D.,  b.  1839.  Well  known  lecturer  on 
Sociological  Subjects,  and  has  written  much  for  periodical  literature  in  that 
field.  Was  pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church  at  West  Randolph,  Vt., 
for  ten  years,  and  secretary  of  the  National  Reform  League  since  1881. 

Dudley,  Right  Rev.  T.  U.,  D.D.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D.,  b.  1837.  Has  been 
rector  in  Harrisburg,  Va.,  and  Baltimore,  Md.;  assistant  Bishop  of  Kentucky, 
and  succeeded  as  Bishop  in  1885.  Was  Bohlen  lecturer,  1881,  and  Bald- 
win lecturer,  1893. 

D'vivedi,  Manilal  Mabhubhai,  B.  A.,  b.  1858.  Member  of  highest 
caste  of  Brahmans.  Justice-  of  the  Peace  of  the  town  of  Nadiad  and  promi- 
nent member  of  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Bombay. 

DwiGHT,  Thos.  LL.D.,  b.  1843;  Parkman  professor  of  anatomy  in 
Harvard  Medical  School  r  studied  at  Harvard  and  in  Europe;  author  of 
a  Massachusetts  Medical  Society  prize  essay,  "The  Identification  of  the 
Human  Skeleton." 

Elliott,  Rev.  Walter,  C.S.P.,  editor  of  the  Paulist  "  Catholic 
World  "  ;  author  of  "  Life  of  Father  Hecker,"  founder  of  the  Paulist  Order  ; 
was  lawyer  in  Detroit,  Mich.;  served  in  the  civil  war  as  Union  soldier;  was 
ordained  priest,  1872,  and  has  since  been  preaching  on  missions  through- 
out the  country. 

Fisher,  Prof.  George  Park,  D.D.,  b.  1827  ;  graduated  at  Brown 
University,  1847;  studied  theology  at  New  Haven  and  Andover ;  spent  a 
vear  at  the  German  universities,  chiefly  at  Halle  under  Julius  Miiller  and 
Tholuck  ;  became  professor  of  divinity  and  university  preacher  in  Yale  Col- 
lege, 1854  ;  professor  of  ecclesiastical  history,  Yale  Divinity  School,  since 
1861  ;  author  of  "Essays  on  the  Supernatural  Origin  of  Christianity;" 
"Grounds  of  Theistic  and  Christian  Belief;"  "History  of  the  Christian 
Church,"  and  other  works. 

FkEMANTLE,  The  Hon.  and  Rev.  William  Henry,  M.A.,  b.  1831  ; 
educated    at   Eton    and    Balliol    College,   Oxford ;    fellow    of      All    Souls 

100 


1586  BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES. 

College,  185410  1864;  ordained  1855-56;  fellow  and  tutor,  Balliol  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  since  1882  ;  Hampton  lecturer,  1883.  He  has  published 
many  scattered  articles,  besides  the  following  works  :  '■  The  Doctrine  of 
Reconciliation  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ ;  "  "  The  Gospel  of  the  Secular 
Life;"  "The  World  as  the  Subject  of  Redemption." 

Gibbons,  His  Eminence  James,  Cardinal,  D.  D.,  b.  Baltimore 
1834;  graduated  St.  Charles  College,  EUicott  City,  Md.,  1857,  St.  Mary's 
Seminary  of  St.  Sulpice,  Baltimore,  1861,  and  ordained  priest;  assistant 
pastor  St.  Patrick's  Church,  Baltimore,  1861  ;  pastor  at  Canton,  Md., 
fall  of  1 86 1  ;  assistant  pastor  Baltimore  Cathedral  and  secretary  to 
Archbishop  Spalding,  1865  ;  vicar  apostolic  of  North  Carolina,  1866;  conse- 
crated bishop,  1868;  translated  to  See  of  Richmond,  Va.,  1872;  coad- 
jutor of  Dr.  Bayley,  archbishop  of  Baltimore,  1877  ;  archbishop  of  Baltintore, 
1877;  cardinal  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  1886.  Took  part  in  Vatican 
Council,  1869-70;  presided  as  apostolic  delegate  at  Third  Plenary  Council 
of  Baltimore,  1884;  chancellor  ex-officio  of  Catholic  University  of  America, 
1889.  He  has  published  "The  Faith  of  Our  Fathers,"  "Oiir  Christian 
Heritage,"  and  many  articles  in  Catholic  and  secular  periodicals. 

Gmeiner,  Rev.  John,  b.  1847;  entered  St.  Francis  Theological  Semi- 
nary, 1859;  ordained  1870;  editor  of  "Columbia"  in  Milwaukee,  1872-76; 
professor  in  St.  Thomas  Seminary,  St.  Paul,  Minn.,  1887  ;  is  a  frequent  con- 
tributor for  the  press.  Author  of  *'  Modern  Scientific  Views  and  Christian 
Doctrines  Compared;"  "The  Spirits  of  Darkness  and  Their  Manifesta- 
tions on  Earth;  "  "Emmanuel,  or  the  Light  of  the  World;"  "The  Church 
and  Foreignism." 

GooDSPEED,  Prof.  Geo.  Stephen,  Ph.D.,  b.  i860.  Associate  profes- 
sor of  comparative  religion  and  ancient  history  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 
Graduated  at  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I.,  and  studied  in  German 
universities. 

Grant,  The  Very  Rev.  George  Monro,  principal  of  Queen's  Uni- 
versity, Kingston,  Canada;  b.  1835;  educated  in  Nova  Scotia  and  in  Scot- 
land; was  ordained  in  i860,  and  in  1877  was  called  to  his  present  position. 
Author  of  "Ocean  to  Ocean,  across  Canada,"  editor  of  "Picturesque  Can- 
ada." 

d'Harlez,  Monsignor  Charles,  b.  1832  ;  founder  and  rector  of  Jus- 
tus Lipsius  College,  University  of  Louvain,  1868;  has  been  there  professor 
of  Oriental  languages,  and  of  Chinese  and  Barbaric  languages  and  litera- 
ture ;  became  Roman  prelate,  1881  ;  author  of  "Translation  and  Com- 
mentary of  the  Avestas,"  and  numerous  works  treating  of  Asiatic  religions, 
history  and  languages. 

Harris,  W.  T.,  LL.D.,  b.  1835  ;  editor  of  "Journal  of  Speculative 
Philosophy ;"  departments  of  philosophy  and  psychology  in  "  Johnson's 
Universal  Encyclopaedia;"  "  Appleton's  International  Education  Series;" 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Education  ;  has  published  translation  of 
"  Hegel's  Logic,"  and  other  books  as  well  as  numerous  articles  in   reviews. 

Haweis,  Rev.  H.  B.,  b.  1838  ;  became  a  violinist  of  remarkable  skill  ; 
studied  at  Trinity  College,  i857-'9;  now  rector  of  St.  James's  London  ; 
traveled  in  United  States,  1885;  author  of  "The  Key  of  Doctrine," 
"Music  and  Morals,"  "On  the  American  Humorists,"  and  "Christ  and 
Christianity";  the  latter  work  an  exposition  of  religious  views  of  the  Broad 
Church. 

Headland,  Rev.  Isaac  T.,  b.  1859;  graduated  Mt.  Union  College, 
Ohio,  1884;  graduated  theological  department,  Boston  University,  1890; 
professor  of  mental  and  moral  philosophy,  Peking  University,  1890-93. 
Author  of  "  Four  Religious  Teachers." 


BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES.  I587 

Henderson,  Rev.  Charles  Richmond,  b.  1848;  graduated  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago  ;  graduated  Baptist  Theological  Seminary,  Chicago,  1873  ; 
pastor  of  Woodward  Avenue  Baptist  Church,  Detroit,  Mich.,  since  1883; 
active  in  University  extension. 

Hewitt,  Very  Rev.  Augustine  Francis,  D.D.,  C.S.P.,  b.  1820 ;  rec- 
tor of  affiliated  Paulist  College  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Catholic  University; 
ordained  deacon  of  P.  E.  Church,  1843 ;  ordained  priest  of  R.  C.  Church,  1847  ; 
joined  Hecker  and  others  in  founding  Paulist  order  of  missionary  priests. 
Has  published  various  books  and  numerous  magazine  articles. 

Howe,  James  Albert,  b.  1834;  graduated  Bowdoin  College,  1859, 
and  at  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  1862  ;  professor  of  systematic  theol- 
ogy and  homiletics,  Freewill  Baptist  Theological  School  of  Bates  College, 
Lewiston,  Me.,  since  1872. 

HoYT,  Hon.  John  Wesley,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  founder  of  the  Wisconsin 
Academy  of  Science,  Arts  and  Letters  ;  United  States  Commissioner  to 
several  International  Expositions;  knighted  by  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  for 
services  to  the  cause  of  education ;  Governor  of  Wyoming  1878-82, 

Jessup,  Henry  Harris,  b.  1832;  director  of  Presbyterian  missionary 
operations  in  northern  Syria ;  missionary  to  Tripoli,  Syria,  1856 ;  was 
removed  to  Beirflt,  i860.  Author  of  "  The  Mohammedan  Missionary  Prob- 
lem." 

JosHi,  PuRUSHOTTAM  Bal  KRISHNA,  b.  1856;  hereditary  high  priest 
of  Kelwa-Mahim  ;  Marathi  Examiner  in  Bombay  University  ;  has  published 
many  Sanscrit  and  Marathi  verses ;  a  Sanskrit  poem  he  wrote  for  the 
Imperial  Jubilee  brought  him  the  thanks  of  Queen  Victoria. 

Kennedy,  Very  Rev.  D.  J.,  O.P.,S.T.L.,  b.  1862  ;  entered  St.  Joseph's 
College,  Ohio,  in  1877;  in  1878  he  entered  upon  ecclesiastical  studies  for 
the  priesthood  ;  in  1881  went  to  Louvain,  Belgium;  ordained  1884  ;  profes- 
sor of  philosophy  and  theology  at  St.  Joseph's  till  1889  ;  of  philosophy  in 
the  University  of  Fribourg,  Switzerland,  till  1891  ;  returned  to  St.  Joseph's 
1 89 1  ;  sub-prior,  master  of  novices  and  professor  of  theology.  ^ 

Kiretchjian,  Herant  Mesrob,  graduated  at  Robert  College,  Con- 
stantinople; engaged  in  journalistic  and  mercantile  work;  member  and 
treasurer  of  the  Protestant  National  Council. 

Kohler,  Rev.  Kaufman,  Ph.D.,  b.  1843;  Rabbi  Beth-El  congrega- 
tion, New  York  City;  studied  in  German  universities;  has  been  Rabbi  in 
Detroit  and  Chicago ;  one  of  the  foremost  representatives  of  the  reform 
movement  in  Judaism. 

KoHUT,  Rev.  Alexander,  D.D.,  Ph.D.,  b.  in  Hungary;  Rabbi 
of  Ahawath  Chesed,  New  York  City;  studied  Oriental  languages  at  Univer- 
sity of  Breslau,  and  is  authorof  numerous  works  treating  of  Oriental  religions 
and  national  subjects,  in  several  European  languages.  Notable  among 
these  is  his  "  Talmudic-Midrashic  Oriental  Encyclopedia,"  the  most  stupen- 
dous work  of  the  kind. 

Lee,  Rev.  James  Wideman,  D.D.,  b.  1849;  pastor  St.  John's  M.  E. 
Church,  St.  Louis ;  authorof  "The  Making  of  Man,"  and  many  addresses 
and  articles  in  the  periodical  press. 

Lewis,  Abram  Herbert,  D.D.,  b.  1836;  pastor  at  Plainfield,  N.  J.; 
author  of  various  works,  chiefly  on  the  Satabath  question;  editor  "The 
Sabbath  Outlook;"  professor  of  church  history  and  homiletics,  Alfred 
University,  New  York. 

Lyon,  David  Gordon,  Ph.D.,  b.  1852;  specialist  in  Assyriology ; 
studied  at  Harvard  and  Leipzig  universities  ;  Hollis  professor  of  divinity  at 
Harvard,  1882;  his  principal  publication  is  "  Keilschrift-texte  Sargons." 

McFarl.-\nd,   Rev,   Samuel  Gamble,   b.    1830 ;  missionary   of   the 


1588  BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES. 

Presbyterian  Church  to  Siam  ;  entered  into  the  service  of  the  king  of  Siam, 
and  organized  the  first  school  in  the  country  on  western  models,  which 
grew  into  Sunandalaya  College  ;  organized  First  Church  of  Petchaburi  and 
Second  of  Bangkok  ;  translated  into  Siamese  portions  of  the  Bible. 

Martin,  W.  A.  P.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  b.  1827  ,  president  of  the  Imperial 
Jungwen  College,  Peking ;  was  missionary  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  to 
China ;  assisted  in  negotiation  of  treaty  of  Tientsin  ;  made  by  Imperial 
decree  mandarin  of  the  third  rank  ;  member  of  the  European  Institute  of 
International  Law;  author  of  "The  Chinese,"  and  numerous  works  in 
Chinese. 

MatsUYAMA,  Rev.  TakayOSHI,  b.  1846  ;  professor  in  University  of 
Doshisha;  was  lecturer  thereon  Japanese  literature  and  history  and  the 
Shinto  religion  ;  was  member  of  the  committees  for  the  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  Japanese ',  member  and  pastor  of  the  Congregational  church  of 
Japan.  ' 

MoMERiE,  Rev.  Alfred  Williams,  M.A.,  D.Sc,  LL.D.,  b.  1848; 
professor  of  King's  College,  London ;  University  preacher,  Cambridge,  1882; 
author  of  "Origin  of  Evil,"  "The  Religion  of  the  Future,"  and  other  works. 

MoxoM,  Philip  Stafford,  D.D.,  b.  1848;  pastor  of  First  Baptist 
Church,  Boston ;  lecturer  and  writer  on  educational,  social  and  economic 
questions,  and  a  contributor  to  the  leading  reviews. 

MuNGER,  Theodore  Thornton,  b.  1830;  pastor  ot  the  United  Church, 
New  Haven,  and  member  of  the  Yale  University  Corporation  ;  author  of 
"The  Freedom  of  Faith,"  "The  Appeal  to  Life,"  "Lamps  and  Paths,"  and 
"On  the  Threshold." 

Nagarkar,  B.  B.  b.  i860,  of  Brahman  family  of  the  highest  order; 
entered  Christian  Mission  High  School  and  Free  Church  College,  Bom- 
bay; active  member  of  the  Brahmo-Somaj,and  writer  and  lecturer  on  theism." 

NiccOLLS,  Rev.  Samuel  J.,  D.D.  LL.D.,  b.  1838  ;  graduated  Jefferson 
College.  1857  ;  studied  Western  Theological  Seminary,  1857-60;  pastor  pf 
2d  Presbyterian  Churchy  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  since  1864;  moderator  of  General 
Assembly  of  Presbyterian  church,  1872  ;  author  of  "The  Eastern  Question 
in  Prophecy." 

Orelli,  Conrad  von,  D.D.,  b.  1846  ;  professor  of  Theology  at  Basel, 
Switzerland  ;  author  of  various  works  on  the  prophecies,  including  commen- 
taries. 

Phillips,  Maurice;  missionary  to  the  Tamils  and  editor  of  "The 
Messenger  of  Truth,"  Madras  ;  b.  1840. 

Post,  Rev.  Geo.  E.,  b.  1838;  president  of  the  Syrian  Protestant  Col- 
lege, Beirut ;  missionary  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  to  Tripoli ;  author  of 
"Flora  of  Syria  and  Palestine,"  Arabic  text  books  on  zoology,  botany, 
physiology  and  materia  medica,  and  a  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 

Powell,  Aaron  M.,  b.  1832;  editor  of  the  "Philanthropist,"  New 
York  City,  and  identified  with  temperance  and  reform  movements  ;  lectur- 
ing agent  of  the  American  Anti-slavery  Society  eleven  years  ;  delegate  to 
the  International  Prison  Congress,  1873;  visited  Europe  several  times, 
attending  congresses  for  the  abolition  of  state  regulation  of  vice. 

Rexford,  Rev.  E.  L.,  D.D.,  pastor  of  Roxbury  Church,  Boston  ;  ex- 
President  of  Buchtel  College,  Akron,  O.,  and  held  pastorates  in  Ohio  and 
California. 

Schaff,  Philip,  L.Th.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  b.  18 19,  died  1893;  professor  of 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York  City,  since  1869-  studied  in  Tubin- 
gen, Halle  and  Berlin;  founder  and  honorary  secretary  American  Branch 
of  Evangelical  Alliance;  president  of  the  American  Bible-Revision  commit- 
tee;   founded  American   Society   of  Church   History;    studied  at  Vatican 


BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES.        .  1 589 

Library;  author  of  "Creeds  of  Christendom,"    "History. of  the  Christian 
Church,"  and  a  multitude  of  historico-theological  classics. 

Semmes.  Thomas  J.,  b.  1824;  graduated  at  (Georgetown  University, 
1842  ;  graduated  at  Harvard  Law  School,  1845  ;  member  of  the  Legisla- 
ture of  Louisiana,  1855-57  ;  appointed  by  President  Buchanan  United  States 
District  Attorney  for  Louisiana  in  1858;  in  Confederate  Senate,  1861-65; 
now  professor  of  constitutional  law  in  University  of  Louisiana. 

Seton,  Rt.  Rev.  Mgr.  Robert,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  b.  1839,  of  American 
stock;  rector  of  St.  Joseph's  Church,  Jersey  City,  N.  J.;  spent  ten  years  in 
study  at  Rome;  was  made  private  chamberlain  to  Pope  Pius  IX.;  member 
of  the  New  York  Historical  and  other  societies;  author  of  "Letters  of 
Elizabeth  Seton,  Foundress  of  Sisters  of  Charity  in  the  United  States,"  and 
essays  on  religious  and  archaeological  themes.  ^ 

^  Sewall,  Rev.  Frank,  A.M.,  b.  1837;  general  pastor-of  the  Maryland 
Association;  studied  at  Tubingen  and  Berlin;  was  president  of  Urbana 
University,  and  pastor  of  New  Church  Society,  Scotland;  authoJ-  of  "The 
Hem  of  His  Garment,"  etc.,  etc. 

Seward,  Theodore  F.,  b.  1835  ;  devoted  himself  to  the  musical  pro- 
fession ;  besides  teaching  music,  has  edited,  since  1864,  the  "  New  York 
Musical  Pioneer,"  the  "  New  York  Musical  Gazette,"  the  "  Musical  Reform," 
and  the  "  Universal  Song  ;"  traveled  in  Europe  as  musical  director  of  the 
Fisk  Jubilee  Singers  ;  has  since  devoted  himself  to  the  introduction  of  the 
tonic  sol-fa  system  into  America  ;  in  1891  organized  the  Brotherhood  of 
Christian  Unity,  and  is  its  president.  Author  of  musical  works,  including 
"  Rally  'round  the  Flag,  Boys." 

Shaku,  Most  Rev.  Soven,  (also  called  Kogaku),  b.  1858;  head 
of  the  Engakuji  division  of  the  Rmzai  Zen  sect ;  a  scholar  in  the  sacred 
books  and  doctrines  of  Buddhist  sects,  having  studied  in  various  monasteries 
in  Japan  and  Ceylon  under  the  guidance  of  leading  priests  and  teachers. 

Shibata,  Rt.  Rev.  Reuchi,  b.  1840 ;  president  of  the  Jikko  sect  of 
Shintoism  ;  has  under  his  supervision  3,000  teachers  and  500,000  students 
of  his  faith. 

SiLVER.viAN,  Joseph,  D.D.,  b.  i860;  Rabbi  of  Temple  Emmanuel, 
New  York  City ;  member  of  Executive  Board  of  Central  Conference  of 
American  Rabbis,  the  Emmanuel  Theological  Seminary  Society,  and  other 
Hebrew  organizations  ;  has  published  many  sermons,  lectures  and  articles. 

Slater,  Rev.  Thomas  Ebenezer,  b.  1840 ;  London  Missionary 
Society  Evangelist  to  educated  Hindus,  Bangalore ;  was  missionary  to 
Calcutta,  and  head  of  High  School,  Madras;  author  of  "God  Revealed,"  etc. 

Slattery,  J.  R.,  D.D.,  b.  1851  ;  founder  and  president  of  St.  Josephs, 
Seminary  for  Colored  Missions,  Baltimore,  Md.,  and  of  Epiphany  Apostolic 
College,  has  contributed  to  periodical  publications  many  articles  relating  to 
the  colored  missions  and  race  ;  studied  at  College  of  City  of  New  York, 
Columbia  Law  School,  and  Seminary  of  St.  Joseph's  Missionary  Society  in 
London. 

Small,  Albion  W.,  Ph.D.,  b.  1859  ;  head  professor  of  Social  Science, 
University  of  Chicago ;  studied  at  Colby  University,  Newton  Theological 
Institute,  Berlin  and  Leipzig  ;  author  of  "  Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Sociology,"  and  various  other  historical  monographs. 

Sne'll,  Merwin-Marie  Fitz  Porter,  b.  1863;  assistant  to  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Parliament  of  Religions;  presided  over  scientific  section  of  the 
Parliament;  contributor  to  American  and  English  periodicals;  in  collabora- 
tion with  European  specialists  inaugurated  the  "Oriental  Review"  (1893); 
author  of  "  Hints  on  the  Study  of  tlie  Sacred  Books." 

Spe.ncer,  Anna  (Garlin),  b.  1851;  educated  in  Providence;  in  1871 


1590  BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES. 

connected  with  the  Providence  "Journal"  and  contributed  to  many  maga- 
zines;  in  1878  married  a  Unitarian  clergyman  and  worlted  with  him  in 
parishes  in  Massachusetts  and  New  York  ;  in  1888  was  called  to  lead  a 
free  religious  movement ;  minister  of  Bell  St.  Chapel,  Providence. 

TCHERAZ,  MiNAS,  b.  1852  ;  editor  of  "Armenia,"  a  political  and  literary 
journal  in  the  French  and  English  languages  ;  attended  Congress  of  Berlin 
in  the  interests  of  the  Armenian   people  ;  left  Turkey  for  political  reasons 
>and  resides  in  London;  professor  of  Armenian  in  School  of   Modern   Ori- 
ental Studies. 

Terry,  Milton  S.,  D.D.,  b.  1849  ;  professor  of  Old  Testament  exegesis 
and  Biblical  theology,  Garrett  Biblical  Institute  ;  studied  at  Wesleyan  Uni- 
versity and  Yale  Divinity  School  ;  pastor  of  M.  E.  churches  in  New  York  ; 
author  of  commentaries  on  Old  Testament  books  and  a  complete  English 
translation  of  "  The  Sibylline  Oracles." 

TiELE,  Cornelius  Petrus,  D.D.,  b.  1830;   rector  of  the  University  of 
Leyden;  contributor  to'  "The  Revue  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions";  has  pub-, 
lished  numerous  works  treating  of  religions  and  kindred  subjects. 

Valentine,  Milton,  D.D.,  president  of  Theological  Seminary,  Gettys- 
burg, Pa.;  graduated  at  Pennsylvania  College,  1850;  has  been  pastor  of  the 
Lutheran  Church  in  various  cities  of  Pennsylvania,  and  president  of  Penn- 
sylvania College;  ex-editor  of  "The  Lutheran  Quarterly,"  and  author  ol 
"Natural  Theology  or  Rational  Theism."  • 

Vivekananda,  SwAMi,  b.  1863;  studied  in  University  of  Calcutta; 
became  disciple  of  Ram  Krishna  about  1889. 

Wade,  Martin  J.,  b.  1861  ;  profesior  in  law  department  of  Iowa  Uni- 
versity ;  studied  at  St.  Joseph  College  and  in  law  department  of  Iowa  Uni- 
versity. 

Waxren,  Rev.  Samuel  M.,  New  Church  pastor  at  Brookline,  Mass.; 
studied  at  Harvard  Law  School. 

Washburn,  George,  D.D.,  b.  1833;  president  of  Robert  College, 
Constantinople;  graduated  from  Amherst  College,  1855;  Andover  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  1859;  for  many  years  a  regular  contributor  to  the  "Con- 
temporary Review,"  and  other  English  and  American  periodicals. 

Wilkinson,  William  Cleaver,  D.D.,  b.  1883;  counselor  of  the 
Chautauqua  Literary  and  Scientific  Circle,  and  Dean  of  the  Department  of 
Literature  and  Art  in  the  Chautauqua  School  of  Theology ;  author  of  Greek 
and  Latin  courses  in  English  and  other  works  on  social  and  literary  sub- 
jects. 

WOOLLEY,  Mrs.  Celia  Parker,  pastor  of  Unitarian  Church,  Geneva, 
111.;  was  president  of  Chicago  Women's  Club ;  lecturer;  author  of  "Love 
and  Theology,"  many  essays,  poems  and  short  stories. 

Whitman,  Benaiah  Langley,  b.  1862;  graduated  at  Brown  Univer- 
sity, 1887;  Newton  Theological  Institute,  1890;  pastor  Free  St.  Baptist 
Church,  Portland,  Me.,  1890-92  ;  president  Colby  University,  Waterville, 
Me.,  1892. 

Wright,  Theodore  F.,  b.  1845;  pastor  at  Bridgewater,  Mass.,  and 
editor  of  "New  Jerusalem  Magazine";  instructor  in  New  Church  Theolog- 
ical School ;  studied  at  Harvard  and  at  New  Church  Theological  School  ; 
author  of  "Life  Eternal."      ' 

Yen,  Rev.  Y.  K.,  b.  1839  ;  pastor  of  P.  E.  Church  of  our  Saviour,  and 
general  evangelist,  Shanghai ;  studied  at  Anglo-Chinese  School  and  at 
Kenyon  College. 


INDEX. 


ABBOTT,  Rev.  Lyraan,  D.D.,  paper  on 
religion  essentially  characteristic  of  hu- 
manity, 494-501 ;  portrait,  497. 
Advent  Christian  Church,  1391-3. 
African   Methodist     Episcopal,    1393-96; 

I479- 

Akbar,  his  dream  of  union  of  faiths,  11,  30; 
his  liberality  of  faith,  145,  508;  his  parlia- 
ment of  religions,  84a. 

Akkadian  hymns  of  nature- religion  ante- 
dating Vedic  and  Parsee,  70a. 

Alger,  Rev.  William  R.,on  how  to  achieve 
religious  unity,  1313-14. 

Anglican  Church,  presentation  of,  1383- 
92;  its  three  great  claims,  1384-5,9. 

Armenians,  Murditch  Khrimian,  Catho- 
licos  of  All  Armenians,  portrait,  83 ;  Prof. 
Minas  Tcheraz  represents,  98;  letter  on  be- 
half of,  130;  paper  on  the  Armenian  Church, 
928-934;  a  body  of  5,000,000  souls  revering 
Etchmiadzin,  928-9;  their  charitv,  929;  their 
version  of  the  Bible,  929;  remarkable  litera- 
ture, liturgy,  canticles,  930. 

Arnett,  Bishop  Benjamin  W.,  African 
Methodist  Episcopal  response  to  welcome, 
107  ;  address  at  dosing  meeting,.  180;  address 
on  the  American  Negro,  1101-4;  portrait, 
1 105. 

Ashikian  Khoren,  arjhbishop  and  Ar- 
menian patriarch,  portrait,  69. 

Ashitsu,  Rt.  Rev.  Zitsuzen,  advocates  in 
his  magazine  Buddhist  cooperation,  57; 
presented  in  parliament,  92;  address  on 
Buddha,  1038-40;  portrait,  1043. 

Asia,  its  service  to  religion,  1083-93;  ori- 
ental insight  of  nature,  10)83 :  spiritual  intro- 
spection, 1084  ;  philosophy  of  the  spirit,  1086 ; 


knowledge  of  God  wittiin,  loSjjj  passion  for 
renunciation,  1089;  the 
templative  East,  1090. 


1087:  pa 
ive  West, 


the  con- 


Asoka,  Buddhist  emperor  of  India  twenty 
centuries  ago  held  great  parliament  of  relig- 
ion, 8,  95 ;  erected  the  great  Buddha  Gaya 
temple,  131. 

Atmaramji,  Muni,  high-priest  of  the  Jain 
religion,  India,  portrait  and  mes.sage,  56. 

Atonement,  the  older  view  of,  314;  self- 
sacrificing  love  the  concept  of,  314. 

Azarias,  Brother,  paper  on  the  religious 
training  of  children,  759-766. 

BABYLONIA-Assyria,  originated  idea  of 
the  transcendence  of  the  divine,  556; 
influence  on  religion  of  the  Hebrews  during 
three  great  periods,  560. 

Baker.Edward  P.,on  the  Hawaiian  Islands, 
portrait ;  1091. 

Baldwin,  Rev.  S.  L.,  D.D.,  on  interna- 
tional justice  and  amity,  1130-1132;  portrait, 

1147- 

Baptists,  alienated  from  Parliament  by 
Sunday  opening  of  Exposition,  58  ;  presen- 
tation of,  1397-1401. 

Barrows,  Rev.  John  Henry,  D.D.,  por- 
trait, 41 ;  labors  as  chairman  of  general  com- 


mittee, 26-28;  labors  from  May,  1891  to  Sep- 
tember, 1893;  prophecy  of  unhistoric  Chi- 
cago, 60;  'Sermon  Sept.  3,  1893,  on  "Christ 
the  Wonderful,"  61 ;  address  at  opening  of 
the  Parliament,  73-79;  address  at  opening  of 
morning  session  on  the  seventeenth  day,  148 ;_ 
address  at  final  session,  183 ;  introduction  to' 
the  second  volume,  v,  vi ;  the  spirit  enjoined 
bv  him  in  his  opening  address  generally 
^observed,  1560. 

Berger,  Rev.  J.,  German  MethodLst,  mem- 
ber t)f  General  Committee,  6. 

Berkowitz,  Rabbi  H.,  D.D.,  the  voice  of 
the  mother  of  religions  on  the  social  ques- 
tion, 1150-1 ;  portrait,  1147. 

Bcmstorff,  Count  A.,  aodress  in  response 
to  welcome,  ^;  address  on  Religion  in  Ger- 
many, 986-9;  portrait,  987. 

Bharucha,  Ervad  S.  D.,  aids  to  secure  Par- 
see  cooperation,  58;  portrait,  1351. 

Bible,  a  chapter  of  accounts  of  various 
Bibles  of  mankind,  307-213;  papers  on  the 
truthfulness  of,  6jo;  its  intrinsic  excellence 
has  given  Christian  Scripture  Its  supreme 
,  place,  650 ;  compelled  to  recognize  errors  of 
science  in  the  Bible,  653 ;  substantial  truth- 
fulness not  impossible  with  circumstantial 
errors,  654 ;  redemption  the'essential  charac- 
teristic element  of  Christian  Scripture,  old 
and  new,  660, 

Bible  Orthodoxy,  essentials  of,  1330; 
mere  dogma-s  of  not  life-giving,  1339;  ortho- 
doxy of  dogmas  giving  place  to  that,  of  life 
and  work,  1283. 

Blackwell,  Rev.  Antoinette  Brown,  on 
woman  and  the  pulpit,  1148-50;  portrait, 
1147. 

Blodget,  Henry,  D.D.,  on  using  "Tien- 
Chu  "  for  "  God  '•  in  China,  1378-80. 

Boardman,  Rev.  George  Dana,  D.D.,  ad- 
dress at  final  session,  17^ ;  address  on  Christ 
the  unifier  of    mankind,   1338-46;   portrait, 

1343- 

Bonet-Maury,  Rev.  G.,  paper  on  the  fu- 
ture of  religion  in  France,  1361-65.  •• 

Bonney,  Charles  Carroll,  President 
World's  Congress  Auxiliary,  made  appoint- 
ments of  committee  on  Religious  Congresses, 
6;  portrait,  7 ;  address  of  welcome  at  open- 
ing of  Parliament,  67 ;  address  at  final  ses- 
sion, 184-6. 

Brahma,  the  abstract  totality  of  all  exist- 
ences, 302,  303 ;  idea  of  emphasized  by 
Vedantic  philosophy,  335. 

Brahmanism, teaches  tolerance, 102  ;charges 
of  immorality  at  temples  made  by  Dr.  Pente- 
cost, 143;  repelled  by  V.  Ghandi,  144;  fails 
to  give  a  theistic  sanction,  286;  ideas,  and 
aspects  of  suggesting  gospel  truth,  457  ;  the 
revolution  in  from  which  Buddhism  arose, 
862 ;  pundits,  979. 

Brahmo-Somaj,86;  its  ideals,  88  ;  its  funda- 
mental principle,  106 ;  its  founder,  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  propounded  the  ideal  of  a  Par- 
liament   of    Religions,  107;    telegram  from 


1591 


1592 


INDEX. 


BrahmoSomaj  of  Calcutta,  tio;  account  of, 
h'stoTand  principles,  by  Moz^mdar,  344" 
,  ,  Tts  founder.  Ram  Mohan  Roy,  345, 
^^Brand  Rev.  James,  D.D., paper  on  Chr>s- 
,ian"vangelisr^'  as  one  of  ^e  worUmg  forces 

65"   "aper    on    the    truthfulness  of    Holy 

'•^SrCF^rti^M..  D.D..addres.  at   f^nal 

^t:^^  ^:Sp^.%aperof.  idealism 

'^^•^ro^rR-' Oly^^^ron  crime  and  its 

.^llt^::',^d^S-d&^n  faith,  68.. 
Bm^.  Prif.  A.  B..  D.D..  on  man's  place 
♦  in  the  universe,  938-941 ;  portrait,  8". 

Buddha.overthrew  monotheism  »nd£"«''y 
s.,fi,hn«sof  B-hmamsm  borj,  a^  feaptla^ 

lTM\^%?M^^J'r^  world,  traveled 
IndU  fo;  forty  year,  with  a  '<"""f  °f  ^rtiats 
or  holy  men,  864;  the  ««>rd  of  his  first  chs 
rrtiirse  864-  s ;  essence  of  teaching  oiauoani, 
Sc^sVemitic  adequate  study  of  Buddha's 
doltri^e  h^  not  yeVbeen   made  by  western 
Sa4,  866 ;  hi|h  ideal  of  ^--^■^"l^^^^. 
caoacitv,  866-7;  human  brotherhood  tunaa 
m^«r in  i««chinB  of  Buddha.  867 '.a  quail- 
fi^    theism.   868;    the  evolution   theory  o 
Bud<Uu,  868;    injunction  of  free  study  of  a  I 
^itl«^86q;   ideal  of  advanced  alUinmcnt, 
&^'the  Quality  of  mercy,   870;    spiritual 
-.      ^?rity"nd  thoroughness,  870;  characteristics 
o  Vh^  ideal  BOoJfman,  870;  things  prohib- 
?ted;870 ;  five  particulars  of  ideal  wealth  879 
closi  /elation  pf  ««cheranddisc^le,  870   the 
man  bf  honor  871 ;  master  f  "f.  f '^"••3°7\.' 
ministers  and  laymen,  871 ;   the  !»'««  »"" 
but«  of  a   Buddha,  87.-?;. traits  of  a   true 
disciple.  87a;  Buddhist  mission  spm  .  872, 
ceraal    pea«  the  ultimate  goal-N.rvana, 
I"   ,•  iSr  words  of  Buddha,  873;  his  m- 
^^c'tlois  made  Asia  mild.  874.  876 :  mfl^- 

ence    upon    family    ^'^''  M'^ L,^^%^- 
brotherHood    of   men    and   of    faiths,    877 . 
the    SDlrit   of    perfect   tolerance,  877,  l«a 
SoralPty  878 ;  r«cue  of  the  fallen.  878 ;  social 
problems  mcu  878 ;  te^nperance  and  prohibl- 
Soa  of  Intoxicants  878;  eouality  of  wo  man, 
879;  patriotism.  879}  works  °n   ^"^f  ^""j 
87d  880;  oldest  of  missionary  relig.ons,   and 
working  v)lely  by  the  intrinsic  excellence  of 
rt«c^in"s.  ^4^   «';^Tathaga«  BuJJha  s 
Iniunctions    anticipated     the      rar  lameni -^ 
dlXC;  wscnt'ials  of  his   teaching,  806  . 
he  five  «tl itudes  of  Buddha,  1038-40 ;  of  K.s 
l^rlptures  collected  after  h.s  death,  '040 ,  «he 
t^r.e  stores  or  baskets,  '040;   secret  ««  is 
success.  1288;   its  philosophical    (not  real; 
aSm.  1288;  teachings  of  represented  by 
words    of    Jesus,  1289 ;  sprung  from  the  old 
B?ahman  religion   288   1290;  ^octnnes  o^^  the 

Nichiren  school  of  in  J.^P^^'.'X'rlcteristics 
Mandala  conceoiion  of,  1292  ,  characteristics 
SlTn  Japan  indicating  that  it  is  "Ot  a  final 
Religion.  1293 ;  nowhere  an  "elusive  .eligipn, 
'lof  life  and  teaching  in  present  Budd>iism 
rs  am  compared  with  Christian  1296 . 
morals  of   social  life   remarkably  Christian, 

"buddhism,  present  King  of  Siam  the  only 
crowned    representative    of,   3'!    2'°"?    °' 


Japanese  priests  of  presented   '"/^e  _Pf;''|-. 

Tnent,   92;    enjoins    ""'^ersa    toUration,  8. 

Jlntleness   everywhere   established    by,    96, 

^^fn  npoftheliEhtof  truth  and  mercy  over 
he  S  wor  ftst ;  not  atheistic  in  reality, 
,8.  bo  h  Uuddhi.^  andTaoist  teachings  in 
China  speak  often  of  immortality  421  ,  no 
Mnhavana  doctrine  put  into  English,  442 , 
t^e&yanS  vehicles)  of  Buddha's  teach- 
ng   542;  Ekayana  incfudes  in  one  H.nayana 

'and  \Iahayana\  544;  "°  •*'??".'?!  "^Selnd 
rxA-  all  creatures  are  of  Buddha  nature  and 
^t^ible  development.  546  i  teaches  the  ngh 
^tho  cause  and  effect  (inevitable  r«ult  or 
&a)r546;  theory  of  good  and  evil,  547. 
naCTand  pleasure  not  inflicted  or  bestowed, 
L7"  ?he  soul  eternal,  548;  Nirvana  the  pin- 
nae e  of  the  unknowable,  in  lower  con«ption 
ex.incticm.butinlugl.r^^^o;;^^ 


extinction,  but  in  nigiier  graim  ""^7"*  ■" 
ac  ve  betiefit.  5489;  Buc&has  teach  n  two 
ways,  549;  the  Ten  Commandmentsof  Bud- 
S.'yg.SSoj  Buddhist  idea  of  bbnd^d 

immutable  law    dharma),  6t2,  044,  the  ooc 
r^nes   and  moralities  taught  by  Buddhism 
7in   Siim)     645649;    three  phenomena  of 
^Dhaf.Z^645^he  t^ur  noble  -ths^^T^lJ* 
Tripitaka,  or  three  baskets,  of  «cred  s^ip 
.ur^sof   Buddhism,  700;   tone  »nd  style  o 
Buddha's  discourses,  700;  Japanese  expo6i 
^od  of  doctrine,  716 ;  the  Buddhas  'nnumef- 
able,  718 ;  principles  and  teachings  of  Buddha 
from 'he  complete  preachings  of  fifty  yeart. 
,T  Buddha^s  law  of  causes.  829;  past  and 
^^r^'ent  as  well  as  future,  covered  by  the  law, 
830;  all  experience  and  suffering  fottn  cau^ 
and    efiect    within    ourselves,  830.    .^  *« 
within    nature    forever,    831 ;     the    "aw    ot 
Christ  laid  down  by.  844 ;  not  P-X/'^sh    ne 
T  "  false"  relig  on,  848;  a  Buddhist  bhriiie 
(picture).    875'  .^  Nipal   BuddhUt   temp  e 
(picture),  T099;  interior  of  Buddhist  ternpe, 
Ninepo  (picture),  1287;  the  great  Mandala, 
a    c^t  of   Nichiren   Buddhism   (picture), 

''Kurmah,  interior  of  the  Sheve  Dagon 
Paeoda,  Rangoon  (picture) ,  895. 

iSmlu,  Rev.  David  lames,  paper  on  what 
Christianity  has  vtTOught  for  America,  1157- 
60;  portrait,  1245' 

PANADA,  peculiarly  disposed  to  broad 
I  .     union  of  faiths,  T03. 

Candlin,  Rev.  George  T.,  missionary  at 
Tienstln,  China,  letter  of  hearty  sympathy,  26 , 
address  'at  final  session,  168;  afdr"';  „°" 
Christian  unity,  1179-91 ;  portrait  ol,  ii83- 

Carpenter,  Prof.  J.  Estlin,  paper  on  the 
sacrerh^k;  of  the  world,  showing,  the  need 
of  a    wider   conception   of    revelation,  842- 

^*?:arroll,  Rev.  H.  K.   paper  on  «he  Presen| 
religious  condition  of  America,  1162-55,  por 

""cirul^'Dr.    Paul,   paper   on   a  religious 
science  and  revelation,  978-^1. 

Catholic,  American  Archbishops  endorse 
proposal  of  Pariiament,  15;  >dea  of  man  as 
Tup^natural  in  capacities  and  POwers  364  , 
th^  inspiration  of  the  Catholic  Church  for 
her  mission  of  love  has  been  "cognition  o 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherho^  o^ 
man.  487  ;  her  wonderful  system  of  organized 
?:en<;volencean  attraction  greater  than  any 
other,  487;    St.   Patrick's,  N.  Y.  (picture), 


INDEX. 


1593 


1007;  principles  of  in  treatment  of  the 
poor,  1032;  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  (died  1660) 
as  founder  of  great  charities,  1032-3;  later 
Catholic  f9undations,  1033  ;  prospect  of  great 
changes  to  secure  more  perfect  methods, 
1034;  over  seven  hundred  organizations  for 
charity  in  the  United  States,  1034. 

ChaKmvarti,  response  to  welcome,  98  ;  por- 
trait, 1519. 

Chant,  Mrs.  Laura  Ormiston,  poem  by, 
150- 1 ;  remarks  on  the  real  religion  of  to-day, 
591-594;  portrait,  595. 

Chapin,  Rev.  Augusta  J..  D.D.,  Chairman 
of  the  Woman's  Committee,  38 ;  portrait,  55  ; 
address  of  welcome  at  opening  meeting,  81 ; 
address  at  final  meeting,  179. 

Chatschumyan,  Ohannes,  on  the  spirit  and 
mission  of  the  Apostolic  Church  of  Armenia, 
1126-8. 

China,  American  ill  treatment  of,  88;  Im- 
perial Govemraent  of  cordially  united  in  the 
Parliament,  88;  a  religion  apart  from  and 
older  than  Confucianism,  379,  384 ;  religion 
properly  so  called  in  not  in  favor  with  the  gov- 
ernment of  China,  384;  authoritative  divine 
instruction  by  rulers,  389;  present  day  etluca- 
tion  in,  393;  priesthood  dates  in  China 
five  thousand  years  back,  412;  early  Jesuit 
missionaries  in  China  took  high  rank  as 
scholars  and  men  of  action,  432;  recent 
missionaries  have  taken  a  wrong  way  and 
reach  only  the  lowest  class,  434 ;  evident 
excellent  intentions  and  sincere  purpose  of 
missionaries,  4^6 ;  need  of  special  scholarship 
as  well  as  religious  qualifications,  436 ;  no 
Chinese  objection  to  the  progress  of  Christi- 
anity as  such,  439;  the  Chinese  anticipation 
of  the  ideals  of  Christ,  845. 

Christ,  fruits  of  the  religion  of,  3 ;  the 
supreme  manifestation  of  the  religious  life  of 
the  world,  500;  in  defiance  of  him  some  bio- 
graphical sketches  and  sundry  epistles  set  up 
as  of  divine  authority,  677;  is  to  be  put 
among  the  great  poets,  680;  is  humanity  un- 
der the  power  and  grace  of  God,  683  ;  Christ 
in  literature  has  been  the  corrective  of  theol- 
ogy. 692 ;  the  man  Jesus  in  the  story  of 
Christian  belief,  785  ;  the  results  of  disaple- 
ship  in  him,  785 ;  his  doctrine  of  God  as  a 
supreme  energy  in  the  sphere  of  the  moral 
life,  786^  all  human  life  made  sacred,  787; 
the  Saviour  of  the  world,  997-1000;  reveals 
what  God  is  and  what  man  must  be  997 ; 
the  four  heads  expressing  this,  997-999; 
Christian  failure  due  to  not  having  done  the 
things  that  Christ  said,  999,  1000;  Catholic 
doctrine  of  the  work  of  in  redemption,  roi6- 
1018;  the  great  individualist  yet  the  great 
socialist  of  history,  1024;  his  character  in 
Renan's  view,  1167;  Oriental  tendency  10 
bring  all  faiths  into  one  in,  1176  ;  the  ideal  of, 
sacrifice  in  service  of  man,  1112;  central  es- 
sence of  the  religion  of,  1213;  fatherhood  of 
God  his  supreme  >ruth,  1228  ;  perfect  idealism 
of,  1264  ;  his  esseniialethlco-rellgious  teach- 
ings, 1284;  unifies  mankind  by  his  incarna- 
tion, 1339;  and  by  his  teaching,  1340;  and 
again  by  his  death,  1344;  the  sole  unifier  of 
mankind,  1346. 

Christian  Church,  The,  is  simply  human 
society  transformed  by  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
1207. 

Christianity,  no  possible  eclipse  of  by  any 
or  all  of  the  great  historic  faiths,  34  ;  its  doc- 


trine of  God,  284,  288  ;  manifest  blemishesof 
historical,  500;  first  entered  into  literature  in 
Dante,  682;  is  a  spirit  seeking  to  inform 
everything  with  which  it  romes  in  contact, 
677,688;  a  wide  thing  with  nothing  human 
alien  to  it,  683  ;  not  obviously  but  essentially 
represented  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  684; 
chief  ways  in  which  literature  interprets  it, 
691  (see  Literature)  ;  a  religion  whicn  incor- 
porates historical  facts  and  transactions  in  its 
very  essence,  832 ;  shown  by  Paul's  appeal 
to  the  stoiy  of  Jesus  Christ,  his  death  and 
resurrection,  as  constituting  the  gospel 
which  he  preached,  832 ;  a  religion  of 
facts  it  is  not  less  a  doctrine  and  system  of 
doctrine,  834;  God  free  in  creating,  836; 
and  in-  reoeeming,  836-7;  the  plan  of 
salvation  by  repentance  and  trust  made  of 
none  effect  oy  a  defective  theory  of  sin,  838; 
false  view  of  gospel  among  Protestants  from 
taking  Christ  as  solely  or  mainly  a  teacher,  ' 
840;  complete  revival  of  Christianity  con- 
templated by  Prof.  Max  Miiller  in  his  vol-' 
ume  on  Theosophy,  935;  the  first  system  of 
Christian  theology  based  on  Greek  philoso- 
phy with  faith  in  Christ,  935  ;  was  really  from 
the  beginning  a  synthesis  of  the  best  thoughts 
of  the  past  936;  Christ's  truth  superior  to 
Paul's  expositions  of  theology  and  philo- 
sophy, 1283;  what  it  has  done  for  the 
Chinese,  1310;  its  unsurpassable  wealth  in 
root- thoughts  of  all  faiths,  1330. 

Christian,  ■Science,  1419-29;  address  by 
Rev.  Mary  Baker  G.  Eddy,  1419-23;  aa- 
dress  by  Dr.  E.  J.  Foster  Eddy,  1423-4; 
other  addresses,  1424-29. 

Chudhadharn,  H.R.H.  Prince  Chandradat, 
portrait,  643 ;  paper  on  Buddhism  in  Siam, 
64S-649- 

Churches,  the  present  relations  of  to  the 
condilions  which  create  city  soci.Tl  problems, 
1081-2;  a  summary  of  hints  for  churches 
wishing  to  solve  city  social  problems,  1082. 

Cities,  characteristics  of  the  religious 
problems  of,  1281 ;  symptoms  peculiar  to 
these  problems,  1081 ;  present  relation  of  the 
churches  to  these  problems,  1081-2;  hints 
towards  solution  of  city  social  problems  by 
churches,  1082. 

Civic  Church,  W.  T.  Stead's  idea  of,  1209; 
the  restitution  of  human  society, itsaim,i2io; 
how  made,  1213. 

Claj^,  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  M.,  bishop  of 
Rho^  Island,  portrait,  24. 

Cf»k,  Rev.  F.  E.,  D.D.,  paper  on  Chris- 
tianity as  seen  by  a  voyager  around  the 
world,  1237-42;  portrait,  1239. 

Cleary,  Rev.  James  M.,  paper  on  religion 
and  labor,  1065-67;  portrait,  1071. 

Comparative  Tneology,  paper  on  the  study 
of,  583  590;  early  stages  of  the  study,  582; 
founders  of  the  present  science,  586;  aims  to 
give  knowledge  of  the  true  nature  and  real 
origin  of  religion,  589;  chief  requirements  of 
the  research,  589;  importance  of  a  serious 
study  of  all  systems  of  religion,  606. 

Confucianism,  paper  on  by  Pung  Kwang 
Yu,  374-424  ;  first  supplement,  424-430;  sec- 
ond supplement,  430-439;  religion  as  defined 
by,  375;  idea  of  and  name  for  God,  376; 
Trinity  in  unity,  378;  ethical  systems  of 
Confucius  not  offered  as  a  religion,  378-9; 
Confucian  conception  of  "  Ti,"  or  Supreme 
Ruler,  Heaven,  422;  Confucian  idea  of  pray 


1594 


INDEX. 


crs  spoken  by  obeying  conscience  and  living 
virtuously,   423;  Chinese  parallels  to  teach- 
ing of   Ctirist.  434-30;  instances  of   marvels 
inChinese  story  exceeding  those  of  the  Chris- 
tian  Gospels,  429;  self-examination   by  the 
light  of  conscience  and  a  humane  disposition 
made  of  chief  importance  in  Confucianism, 
430 ;  overshadowing  importance  of  conduct  in 
the  present  life,  433 ;  prize  tssay  on,  596-604 ; 
Confucian  emphasis  on  respect  for,  the  will  of 
heav«n,  596;  human  affairs  the  chief  Con- 
fucian interest,    597;  the  Confucian   sacred 
books  as   literature,  701 ;  '  the   genesis  and 
devek)pment  of  Confucian  teaching,  1350-53. 
Confucius,  summed  up  duty  in  reciprocity, 
'  88;   living  lineal   descendant  stands   at   the 
head  of  the  five  classes  of  the  Chinese  nobil- 
■   \t.  ,^  .  k    ity.  383;  date,  592;  his  revision  of  ancient 
. .'  •  "  '.      works  to  make  the  Six  Classics  or  Confucian 
■'i-><  ■ .   *    Scriptures, 396 ;  the  debt  of  mankind  to," 397; 
.''.■?ti^..     '  his  exposition  of  the  laws  of  nature,  398-402; 
':'..  ■      V       how  he-atuined  to  be  the  universally  reooe- 
■•'..■-   ■    nized  father  of  learning,  403;  words  of   the 
.^  "■  •  sage's  wisdom,  403-4 ;  venerated  for  example  . 

■  ^   "  and  teaching,  not  for  marvels,  428. 

Congregational  Church  congress,  1429-33; 

i.    ,     -    -  Woman's  Congregational  congress,  1434-^6. 

•j-^.,/':  \   .'•  Constantian,  Rev.  A.,  on  what  the  Chris- 

■  ■^[i'.i    -  tian  Bible  has  wrought  for  the  Orient,  1398- 
-/:•■  "      -1300. 
-  ;;feV  •   -l  Coolc,  Rev.  Joseph,  paper  on  the  strategic 

.'.''l' '■':.!.'  certainties  of  comparative  religion,  536;  por- 
■-•>   :      trait,  539?  paper  on  columnar  tniths  In  scrip- 

■  V  ■  ■    ture,  1073-75. 

..<"'       :        Cumberland  Presbyterian  church,  congress 
;  V  -,  of,  1595-7 ;  group  of  portraits,  1505. 

El  ANTE,  the  first  not  the  greatest  name  in 
'  Christian  literature,  681 ;  the  divine 
medy  an  allegory  of  human  life,  682. 

Dawson,  Sir  William,  on  the  religion  of 
science,  943-^46 ;  portrait,  94s. 

Dead  Religions,  what  thev  have  be- 
queathed to  the  living,  s54-5°4;  Egyptian 
contribution  of  the  idea  of  the  nearness  of  the 
divine,  556;  Babylonia-Assyria  contributed 
the  idea  of  the  transcendence  of  the  divine, 
556;  special  influence  of  Babylonia- Assyria 
on  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews,  560 ;  light  on 
church  and  stale  from  the  dead  religions, 
562  ;  on  the  elements  of  the  nltimate  religion, 
563 ;  on  man's  need  of  God  and  capacity  to 
know  God,  564. 

Dennis,  Rev.  James  S.,  D.D.,  paper  on 
the  message  of  Christianity  to  other  religions, 
i353-'s8;  portrait,  1353. 

Dev  Dharm,  the,  a  reformed  Hindu  order 
founded  in  1887  by  a  Brahman,  1369. 

D'Harlez.iMgr.  C.  D.,  portrait,  359;  paper 
on  comparative  study  of  religions,  605-621. 

Dharmapala,  H.,  recalls  Buddhist  parlia- 
ment of  religions  3,000  years  since,  8;  makes 
response  to  welcome,  95 ;  introduces  small 
stone  figure  of  Buddha,  123  ;  address  at  final 
session,  169;  portrait,  861;  paper  on  the 
world's  debt  to  Buddha,  862-880;  on  mission- 
ary methods,  1093;  paper  on  points  of  re- 
semblance and  difference  between  Buddhism 
and  Christianity,  1288-93. 

Dickinson,  Mrs.  Lydia  Fuller,  paper  on 
the  woman  question,  592-508. 

Disciples  of  Christ,  congress  of,  14^6  40. 

Donnelly,  Charles  F.,  paper  on   the  rela- 


tions of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  the 
poor  and  destitute,  1033-36. 

Drummond,  Henry,  LL.D.,  paper  on  evo- 
lution and  Christianity,  1316-35.      , 

Dudley,  Rt.  Rev.  T.  U.,  paperon  the  His- 
toric Christ,  785-795;  portrait,  791. 

Dwight,  Thomas,  on  man  in  the  light  of 
revelation  and  science,  950-956. 

D'vivedi,Manilal  N.,  portrait,359;  paper  on 
Hinduism,  316-333;  supplemental  paper  of 
Vedantic  answers  to  religious  problems,  333. 

EASTMAN,  Rev.  Annis  F.  F.,  the  influ- 
ence of  religion  on  women,  752-758. 

Eddy,  Dr.  E.  J.  Foster,  address  by,  i4a3-4' 

Eddy,  Rev.  Mary  Baker  G.,  address  on 
Christian  science,  1410-23;  portrait,  i43i. 

Egerton,  Rt.  Hon.  Loia,  chairman  Church 
Defense  Institution,  portrait,  4a. 

Egypt,  originated  the  idea  of  the  nearness 
of  the  divine,  556 ;  religious  ideas  of  spread 
westward,  558 ;  possible  influence  among  the 
Hebrews,  558 ;  the  sacred  Book  of  the  Dead, 
703;  ethical  ideals  not  less  high  than  the 
Hebrew,  844;  inspired  consciousness  of  God 
older  than  Moses,  846 ;  the  influence  of  on 
other  religions,  1548-9. 

Elliott,  Rev.  Walter,  O.S,P.,  paper  on  the 
supreme  end  and  office  of  religion,  462-465 ; 
portrait,  419.       , 

Ely,  Prof.  Richard  T. ,  portrait,  1029 ;  paper 
on  Christianity  as  a  social  force^  1056-61. 

EvaneeUcal  Alliance  congress,  1441-49; 
group  of  portraits,  i44<;. 

Evangelical  Association  congress,  1449-53 1 
group  o?  portraits,  1451. 
'^  Evolution,  Buddha's  theory  of,  868;  the 
greatest  generalization  the  world  has  ever 
known,  1316;  has  remade  the  doctrine  of 
creation,  1317 ;  settles  the  question  of  origins, 
1319;  has  remade  the  design  argument,  1333; 
theological  questions  beginning  to  feel  the 
effect  of  the  new  standpoint,  1333-4. 

FAITH,  in  contrast  with  system,  1204;  its 
essential  character,  laoo. 

Feehan,  Most  Rev.  Patrick  A.,  Catholic 
Archbishop  of  Chicago,  member  of  the  Gen- 
eral Committee,  8;  portrait,  49;  speaks  for 
Catholics  at  meeting  of  welcome,  70. 

Field,  Rev.  Henry  M.,  D.D.,  address  at 
opening  of  tenth  day^i26. 

Fisher,  Rev.  George  Park,  D.D.,  portrait, 
665 ;  paper  on  Christianity  an  historical  relig- 
ion, 832-841. 

Fletcher,  Miss  Alice  C,  on  the  religion  of 
the  North  American  Indians,  1078-9;  por- 
traits, 1091. 

Fliedner,  Pastor,  of  Madrid,  Spain,  address 


at  Jinal  meeting,  177 
jtist     C" 
1453-56 


Free    Bapti 


hurch,     presentation    of. 


Fremantic,  W.  H.,  religious  reunion  of 
Christendom,  1201-09. 

Friends,  congress  of  the  Society  of, — ortho- 
dox—1456-7;  Hicksite,  1457-1460;  groupof 
portraits,  1459. 

pAINES,  Bishop  W.  J.,  portrait,  1479. 
\J     Gannett,  Rev.  Wm.  C.,  Rochester,   N. 
Y?,  very  cordial  .ipproval,  38. 
Gandhi,  Virchand  A.,  96 ;  paper  on  "  The 


INDEX. 


1595 


History  and  Tenets  of  the  Jains  of  India," 
with  a   relulal  of  charges  of   immoralitjr   in 
Brahmanism,  145;   address  at  final  session, 
171 ;  portrait,   H25. 
German  Evangelical  Church,  1460- 1. 
Germany,  the  religious  state  of,  986-989. 

Ghermanus, metropolitan  of  Athens, Greece, 
letter  of  sympathy  and  prayer  from,  1107; 
portrait,  1155- 

Gibbons,  Cardinal,  letter  cordially  approv- 
ing Parliament,  14;  speech  at  meeting  of 
welcome  presenting  platform  of  charity,  hu- 
manity and  benevolence,  80;  paper  on  the 
needs  of  humanity  supplied  by  the  Catholic 
religion,  48;-493;  portrait,  489. 

Gilbert,  Rev.  Simeon  E.,  portrait,  39.  . 

Gladden,  Rev.  Washington,  D.D,  paper 
on  religion  and  wealth,  1068-70;  portrait, 
1001. 

Gladstone,  Rt.  Hon.  William,  autograph 
letter  of  sympathy,  August  8,  1891,  12. 

Gmeiner,  Rev.  J.,  on  primitive  and  pros- 
pective union  of  human  family,  1265-66; 
portrait,  1309. 

God,  chapter  of  various  ideas  of,  194-197; 
summary  of  faith  in,  253 ;  rational  demonstra- 
tion of  the  being  of,  256-269;  philosophic 
and  moral  evidence  for  the  existence  of,  270- 
278;  theistic  teaching  of  the  various  historic 
faiths,  280-289;  the  Veda  fundamentally 
monotheistic,  J04;  proofs  of  the  being  of 
God  — Greek,  Hindu  and  Christian  thought, 
306-314;  the  Vedantic  conception  of  God, 
333;  of  duties  to  God,  336;  Confucian  con- 
ception of  "Ti,"  or  Supreme  Ruler,  Heaven, 
422;  the  God  of  Hinduism,  458;  Christian 
idea,  499 ;  the  test  of  a  system  the  fullness  of 
its  consciousness  of  Goo,  563 ;  Egypt,  India, 
and  China  demonstrate  an  imperfect  mono  • 
theism,  617  ;  theistic  faith  profoundly  natural, 
882  ;  an  idea  of  moral  import,  978  j  aboriginal 
American  view  of,  1078;  Buddhist  doctrine 
of,  1293  ;  support  of  theistic  faith  by  science, 
1321  ;  widespread  idea  of  unity  of  the  god- 
head, 1328. 

Goethe, his  service  in  checking  the  infidelity 
of  Voltaire  and  the  naturalism  of  Rousseau, 
684 ;  taught  Christianity  to  think  scientific- 
ally, 686. 

Golden  Rule,  forms  of,   1168;   Confugian, 

Goodspecd,  Prof.  George  S.,  portrait,  475; 
paper  on  what  the  dead  religions  have  be- 
queathed to  the  living,  454-464. 

Gordon,  Rev.  M.  L.,  his  "American  Mis- 
sionary in  Japan,"  31;  disuseof  "  heathen," 
38;  paper  on  Buddhism  in  Japan,  1293-96; 
portrait,  1245. 

Gottheil,  Rabbi  G.,  portrait,  671 ;  address 
on  the  greatness  of  Moses,  673-676. 

Gracey,  Rev.  John  Talbot,  D.D.,  paper  on 
the  religion  of  the  future,  1327-30. 

Grant,  George  M.,  D.D.,  response  to  wel- 
come, 103  ;  address  on  Presbyterian  reunion, 
1502-4;  portrait,  1499. 

Grant,  J.  A.  S.,  the  Egyptian  religion  and 
its  influence  on  other  religions,  1348-9  ;  por- 
trait, 1029. 

Greek  Church,  the,  historical  sketch  of, 
1128;  Orthodox,  .Apostolic,  Catholic,  1130; 
traces  origin  to  Church  of  Jerusalem,  1196; 
paper  on,  by  .Archbishop  Latas,  352-359; 
origin  of,  353;  treasury  of  sound  doctrine, 
359- 


H 


ALE,    Rev.    Edward   Everett,    D.D.,  a 
paper  on    spiritual    forces   in    human 
progress,  523-526;  portrait,  525. 

Harris,  Hon.  W.  T.,  LL.D.,  portrait,  287  ; 
paper  on  the  existence  of  God,  306-314. 

Haweis,  Rev.  Dr.  H.  R.,  paper  on  music, 
emotion,  and   morals,  947-950;  portrait,  951. 

Haworth,  Rev.  M  r. ,  address  on  missionary 
methods,  1098-9. 

Headland,  Prof.  Isaac  T.,  paper  on  religion 
in  Peking,  1019-23 ;  portrait.  1021, 

Hebrew,  negative  influence  of  Egypt  on 
religion  of  Hebrews,  558;  three  great  periods 
of  positive  Babylonian-Assyrian  influence, 
560. 

Henderson,  Prof.  C.  R.,  paper  on  individ- 
ual effort  at  reform  not  sufficient,  1061-64 ; 
portrait,  1029. 

Henrotin,  Mrs.  C  H.,  portrait,  63;  address 
at  final  meeting,  178.  ;  . 

Hewitt,  Rev.  Augustine  F.,  CS.P.,  paper 
on  the  Being  of  God,  256-269;  portrait.  259^ 

Higglnson,  Thomas  Wentworth,  paper  m  ' 
"The  Sympathy  of  Religions,"  123,  780-84  ; 
address,  132-35  ;  portrait,  665. 

Higinbotham,  H.  N.,  address  of  w'rfcomc 
at  opening  meeting,  83;  portrait,  86i. 

Hindu,  conception  of  God,  i9<{  doctrine 
of  the  nature  of  man,  198;  oature'of  religion. 
200 ;  the  Veda  or  Bible  of,  207,-308 ;  reformed 
theism  of,  213 ;  general  accotfnt  of  Hinduism, 
316-332 ;  idea  of  the  All  umfcrlying  apparent 
polytheism,  318;  early  ideas  of  caste,  319; 
present  day  Hinduism,  3'K>;  summary  of 
requirements,  331 ;  Hfodu  ideas  reviewed  by 
Rev.  T.  E.  Slater,  456-460;  Vedic  idea  of 
creation  as  without  b^inning  and  without 
end,  969;  inheritance  trom  past  lives,  970; 
man  a  child  of  God  the  Almighty  and  All- 
Merciful,  971-a;  incarnate  God  in  Krishna, 
972  ;  man  to  become  perfect  through  purity, 
972-4;  polytheism  in  appearance  only  from 
use  of  symbols  of  the  manifestations  of  God, 
975;  no  Hindu  word  ever  expressed  exclusive 
claim  to  salvation,  977  ;  religious  nature  of, 
456,  1 178;  thought  compared  with  Christian, 
1269;  Hindu  thoughts  which  are  like  Chris- 
tian, 1374. 

Hirai,  Kinza  Riuge  M.,  on  the  Real  Po- 
sition of  Japan  toward  Christianity,  115, 
444-450;  portrait,  447;  address  at  final  ses- 
sion, 165;  address  on  Synthetic  Religion. 
1286-88. 

Hirsch,  Dr.  Emi!  G.,  address  at  final  ses- 
sion, 173;  led  closing  use  of  Lord's  Prayer, 
186;  on  the  elements  of  universal  religion, 
1304-8. 

Howe,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward,  portrait,  1245; 
address  on  What  is  Religion?  1250-1. 

Hoyt.  John  W.,  on  religion  and  the  love 
of  mankind,  1 107-8;  portrait,  1147. 

Hugenholtz,  Rev.  F.  W.  M.,  address  on 
morning  of  closing  day,  148. 

Hultin,  Ida  C,  paper  on  essential  ethical 
ideas,  1003-5  >   portrait,  065. 

Hume,  Rev.  R.  A.,  address  on  missionary 
methods,  1095;  on  Christian  and  Hindu 
thought,  1269-76. 

TDOL  WORSHIP,  its  origin  and  signifi- 
1  cance  in  Hinduism,  327;  symbolizes  re- 
ligious conceptions,  456,  458. 

Idols  of  the  nature-religfon  of  the  New 
Hebrides,  1359. 


1596 


INDEX. 


Ignados,  Rev.  M.,  Protestantism's  mission 
in  Turkey,  1358-61. 

Immortality,  hope  of  not  dimmed  in  the 
religion  of  the  future,  H07 ;  idea  of  in 
light  of  evolution,  1324 ;  Vedantic  idea  of, 
336;  the  argument  for,  466-479;  the  soul  and 
iLo  future  lite,  480-484;  Confucianism   upon, 

598. 

Incarnation,  ideas  of  in  all  religions,  848; 
that  of  theistic  Buddhism,  8.^8;  the  incarna- 
tion idea  in  history  and  in  Jesus  Christ, 
883-888. 

India,  ancient  religion  of  in  relation  to 
primitive  revelation,  296 ;  the  conquest  of 
India  by  the  English,  767 ;  reform  in  India 
771;  refomis  already  attempted,  771,775; 
the  scene  twenty-five  centuries  ago  of  the 
greatest  religious  revolution  the  world  has 
ever  seen,  863. 

■   Inspiration,  ideas  of  in   all  religions,  845- 
848. 

Ireland,  Archbishop  of  St.  Paul,  portrait, 
16 ;  promises  active  cooperation  in  Parliament, 
16. 

JAIN  Religion,  Muni  Atmaramji  high 
priest  of,  31 ;  an  elder  sister  of  Buddhism 
in  I  ndia,  96 ;  system  and  canonical  books, 
1333 ;  philosophy,  1333;  ethics,  1224;  tem- 
ple, Mt.  Aboo  (picture),  isiT- 

Japan,  interest  to  attend  Parliament,  6j  ; 
real  position  towards  Christianity,  444-450; 
Christianity  unwelcome,  445 ;  Japanese  false- 
ly stigmatized  as  heathen  and  maltreated, 
448-0;  Buddhism  in,  543-552;  has  and  will  be 
.the  living  spirit  of  Japan,  550;  nationality 
very  charming  and  lovely,  550-551 J  Chris- 
tianity in,  1240;  future  of  religion  in,  1279; 
Shintoism,  Confucianism  and  Buddhism  in, 
blended  in  unitv,  1280;  elements  of  the 
Christianity  needed  in,  1282 ;  sixteen  sects  in 
the  Buddhist  church  of,  1290;  Buddhist  cem- 
etery, Kyoto  (picture),  1127. 

Jessup,  Rev.  Henry  H.,  D.D.,  on  the  re- 
ligious mission  of  the  English-speaking  na- 
tions, 1122-26. 

Jews,  popular  errors  about,  1120-22;  voice 
of  Judaism  on  the  social  question,  1150; 
Jewish  congress,  1461-66;  Jewish  Women's 
congress,  1466-7;  synagogue  in  Berlin  (pict- 
ure). 827. 

Jones,  Jenkln  Lloyd,  6,66 ;  address  at  final 
session,  177;  portrait,  889. 

Judaism  and  the  modern  state,  360-365. 

KABURAJI,  P.  Goro,  on  the  Shinto  relig- 
ion, 373-4- 

Karma,  Buddha's  use  of  law  of,  1288. 

Keane,  Rt.  Rev.  John  J.,  D.D.,  portrait, 
881 ;  paper  on  the  incarnation  idea  in  history, 
and  in  Jesus  Christ,  882-888;  paper  on  the 
ultimate   religion,  1331-38. 

Kennedy,  Rev.  Dr.  D.  J.,  paper  on  the 
redemption  of  sinful  man,  1016-1018. 

Kerr,  Rev.  James,  Glasgow,  Scotland,  ex- 
presses approval,  34. 

Khrimian,  Murditch,  Calholicos  of  all 
Armenians,  portrait,  83. 

Kidder,  Rev.  B.  F.,  Ph.D.,  on  some  super- 
stitions of  North  Africa  and  Egypt,  1362. 

Kiretchjian,  H.  M.,  portrait,  1245;  paper, 
1276-79. 

kishimoto,  N.,  future  of  religion  in  Japan, 
X379-83. 


Kohler,  Dr.  K.,  paper  on  human  brother- 
hood, 366-373. 

Kohiit,  Rev. Alexander,  D.D.,  Ph.D.,  paper 
on  what  the  Hebrew  scriptures  have  wrought 
for  mankind,  724-731  ;  portrait,  727. 

Koran,  on  polygamy,  and  on  use  of  the 
word  in  propagandism,  140;  its  claim  as  a 
new  and  perfect  revelation,  566;  passages 
from  which  show  grave  moral  defects  in 
Islam,  1096-98;  passages  which  show  that 
Islam   is  tolerant,  humane  and  moral,  1146. 

Kosaki,  President, the  Doshisha  university, 
paper  on  the  present  condition  and  future 
prospectsof  Christianity  in  Japan,  1013-1014; 
portrait,  1015. 

Kung  Hsien  Ho, on  Confucianism,  596-604. 

r  ANDIS,  Prof.  J.  P.,D.D.,onhowphilos- 
1-/    ophy  can  aid  religion,  960-968. 

Lao-tze,  a  historiographer  of  the  Chau 
dynasty,  407  ;  founder  of  Taoism,  contempor- 
ary with  Confucius,  411 ;  the  law  of  Christ 
laid  down  by  before  B.  C.  500,  844. 

Latas,  Dionysios,  Archbishop  of  Zante, 
response  to  welcome,  85 ;  third-day  paper  on 
"The  Greek  Church,"  114, 353-358; portrait, 
357 ;  presents  a  protest  against  calumny  upon 
the  Jews,  141. 

Lazarus,  Miss  Josephine,  on  the  outlook  of 
Judaism,  704-715. 

Lee,  Rev.  Tames  W.,  D.D.,  on  Christ  the 
Reason  of  the  universe,  850-860;  portrait 
287. 

Lewis,  Rev.  A.  H.,  D.D.,  portrait,  665; 
on  the  weekly  rest-day,  739-742. 

Liberty,  religious,  grand  foundation  of,  93; 
Buddhist  principle  of,  q6. 

Literature,  the  great  literature  of  Christen- 
dom mainly  Christian,  683 ;  its  highest 
achievements  reached  in  explication  oT  the 
central  truth  of  Christianity,  691 ;  chief  ways 
in  which  literature  becomes  the  interpreter  of 
Christianity,  691. 

Lorimer,  Rev.  G.  C,  portrait,  1337;  pres- 
entation of  the  Baptist  churches,  1397-1402. 

Lutheran  church  of  America,  1476-7. 

Lutheran  General  Cxiuncil  congress,  1473- 
76 ;  educational  needs   and  progress  in   the 

Lutheran  General  Synod  congress,  1468-73. 

Lutheran  Missouri  Synod  congress,  1477-8. 

Lyon,  Prof.  D.  G.,  on  Jewish  contributions 
to  civilization,  817-828;  portrait,  821. 

MAHAYANA,  or  Great  vehicle,  the  high- 
est form  of  Buddha's  teaching,  542. 

Man,  Nature  of,  196-8;  the  love  of,  under 
various  faiths,  234-5;  Vedantic  idea  of,  334; 
Confucian  idea  of  man,  416;  417;  faculties 
of  the  highest  dignity,  418;  Buddha's  lofty 
idea  of,  866;  his  place  in  the  universe, (538- 
914;    God    known    through    man,    939. 

Mandala,  the  Great,  a  chart  of  Nichiren 
Buddhism  in  Japan,  1290;  cut  of,  1371. 

Marillier,  Prof.  Leon,  on  the  estimate  of 
human  dignity  in  the  lower  religions,  1361. 

Martin,  Dr.  William  A.  P.,  8;  portrait 
1141 ;  paper  on   America's  duty  to  China, 

IIJ7-44. 

Massaquoi,  Prince  Momolu,  address  at  final 
session,  172. 

Matsugama,  Takayoshi,  on  the  origin  of 
Shintoism,  1370-73. 

Matthew  Arnold,  one  of  the  modern  Greeks 


INDEX. 


1597 


686;  of  profoundly  Christian  honesty  and 
courage,  687  ;  his  best  sonnet,  687,  692. 

Matz,  Bishop,  portrait,  14H. 

McFadden,  Rev.  John  Duke,  D.D.,  on 
the  world's  salvation,  1308. 

McFarland,  Rev.  S.  G.,  Buddhism  in  Siam, 
i296-q7. 

Menclus,  author  of  Analects  in  the  third 
generation  of  disciples  of  Confucius,  406  ;  on 
laws  of  conduct,  598;  his  appearance  in 
Chinese  history  and  composition  of  a  book 
in  seven  chapters,  602. 

Mendes,  Rev.  Dr.  Pereira,  paper  on  ortho- 
dox or  historical  Judaism,  537-535;  portrait, 

531- 

Mercer.  Rev.  L.  P.,  New  Church  member 
General  Committee,  6;  address  by,  1493-5; 
portrait,  1491. 

Methodist,  strength  in  America,  1162-4; 
congress,  1480-88;  group  of  portraits,  1485.  « 

Mills,  Rev.  B.  Fay,  paper  on  Christ,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  997-1000;  portrait  965. 

Milton,  a  great  teacher  of  the  ethics  of 
Christianity,  but  did  nothing  to  better  theo- 
logical thinking,  686. 

Missions,  why  so  little  success,  1181 ;  im- 
portance to  of  Christian  union,  1184- 5  ;  pitia- 
ble injury  to  by  lack  of  unity,  1242;  no 
greater  obstacle  to  success  of  than  the  un- 
christian antagonistic  attitude  of  missionaries 
to  other  faiths  and  philosophies,  56. 

Missions,  congress  of,  1^36-1549. 

Missionary  methods,  criticism  and  discus- 
sion of,    1093 -1 100. 

McKenzie,  Rev.  Alexander,  D.D.,  speech 
of  welcome  at  opening  meeting,  84. 

Modi,  Jinanji  Jamshedji,  Parsee,  on  the 
religious  system  of  the  Parsees,  898-920; 
portrait,  259. 

Mohammed,  believed  himself  to  be  su- 
perndturally  guided  578;  known  to  Mo- 
hammedans chiefly  through  traditions 
colored  by  stains  on  his  character, 
578 ;  the  prophet's  history  and  chr.racter, 
990-1;  his  monotheism  almost  savage,  1228. 

Mohammedanism,  the  spirit  of  Islam,  989- 
996  ;  polygamy  never  was  and  is  not  a  part  of 
the  Islamic  system,  989-1046  ;  Islam  has  more 
religion  than  theology,  990;  Mohammed's 
history  and  character,  990-1;  Islam  means 
resignation,  submission,  aspiration  to  God, 
991  ;  prayers,  992;  indifference  to  this  world 
characterizes  the  higher  class  of  Moslem 
believers,  995;  thorough  spirit  of  fraternity, 
995;  ethics  of  Islam  practically  identical 
with  those  of  every  other  great  system, 
1046 ;  slavery  not  favored,  1047 ;  woman 
ranked  equal  with  man,  1047;  practical  re- 
quirements of  Islam,  1048;  rule  of  prayers, 
1048  ;  strict  temperance,  1049;  no  prostitu- 
tion, 1050;  brotherly  kindness  and  hospital- 
ity, 1051,  inspiration  of  great  civilization, 
1051  ;  points  of  contact  ?nd  contrast  with 
Christianity,  565- 582  ;  interior  of  mosque  at 
Brousa,  1049;  interior  of  mosque  of  Omar, 
1259;  Muezzin  announcing  the  hour  of 
prayer,  1301. 

.Momerie,  Rev.  Alfred  Williams,  D.D., 
English  representative,  response  to  welcome, 
100;  address  at  final  session,  160;  paper  on 
the  Being  of  God,  370-78;  portrait,  373;  on 
the  essence  of  religion  in  conduct,  11 10-12. 

Monier- Williams,  Prof.,  urged  new  Chris- 
tian attitude  towards  alien  faitns,  192. 


N' 


Morals,  various  religious  ideals  of,  324- 
226. 

Motherhcxxi  of  God,  Brahmo-Somaj  idea 
of,  1229. 

Moxom,  P.ev.  Philip  S.,  D.D.,  paper  on 
the  argument  for  immortality,  466-479;  por- 
trait. 475. 

Mozoomdar,  P.  C,  Brahmo-Somaj  repre- 
sentative, response  to  welcome,  86  ;  paper, 
114,  345;  portrait,  349 ;  address  at  final  ses- 
sion, 163;  paper  on  the  Brahmo-Somaj, 
34S'35i>  paper  on  the  world's  religious 
debt  to  Asia,  1083-92. 

Miiller,  Prof.  Max,  interest  in  Parliament 
study  of  comparative  religion,  15;  his  recent 
volume  of  prayers  collected  from  non-Chris- 
tian sources,  74 ;  paper  on  Greek  philosophy 
and  the  Christian  religion.  835-6. 

Munger,  Rev.  ThetKiore  l.,  portrait,  66s; 
paper  on  Christianity  as  interpreted  by  lit- 
erature, 677-693;  on  the  Parliament,  157^. 

Murdock,  Rev.  Marion,  paper  on  a  New 
Testament  woman,  796-800;  portrait,  831. 

[ADD.ARA,  J.  Sanna  Abou,  letter  of  on 
the  Koran  and  other  scriptures,  1146-8. 

Na^arkar,  Mr.  B.  B.,  of  the  Brahmo- 
Somaj,  response  to  welcome,  106;  portrait, 
359;  paper  on  the  work  of  social  reform  in 
India,  767-779. 

Narasima  Charya,  Brahman,  address  of 
on  the  Salvation  Army  in  India,  137;  address 
on  missionary  methods,  1094. 

New  Hebrides,  the  nature -religion  of, 
1358-60. 

New  Jerusalem  Church  congress,  1488-95. 

NiccoTis,  Rev.  Dr.  S.  J.,  vindicates  Parlia- 
ment proposals,  19;  adaress  on  taking  the 
chair  at  opening  of  the  second  day,  353; 
portrait,  821. 

Nirvana,  freedom  from  both  life  and  death, 
under  four  aspects,  1038-9;  Buddha's  idea  of 
self-effacement,  1228. 

Noguchi,  Z.,  Japanese  interpreter  for 
Buddhist  bishops,  92;  paper,  440-43;  por- 
trait, 419. 

Non-Christian  Religions,  Count  Beyistorff 
declares  uncompromising  denial  of  equal  rank 
of  all  religions,  93;  new  spirit  of  dealing 
with,  1185;  all  essentially  good,  1186;  false 
test  applied  to,  1186  ;  affinities  in  all  to  Chris- 
tian belief  and  life,  1207. 

OFFORD,  Daniel,  on  the  doctrine  and  life 
of  the  Shakers,  1380. 
O'Gorman,  Prof.,  Christianity  and  Amer- 
ica, 1132-57;  portrait,  1309. 

Olympianism  (Greek  and  Roman),  atti- 
tude of  Christianity  towards,  1247. 

Orelli,  Prof.  Conrad  von,  paper  on  the  gen- 
eral belief  in  the  need  of  vicarious  sacrifices, 
1041-45;  portrait,  1281. 

PALMER,  Mrs.  Potter,  portrait,  1567. 
Parkhurst,  Dr.  C.  H.,  portrait,  1445. 
Parliament  of  Religions,  its  object  in  part, 
3-8  ;  Buddhist  example  of  2,000  years  since, 
8;  idea  of  at  various  times,  8,  9,  191;  con- 
siderations favoring,  15;  American-Catholic 
official  endorsement.  November,  1892,  15; 
general  objects  proposed  by  projectors, 
18;  grandest  visible  ehibodiment  of 
Christian  aspirations,  ti8i;  sneered  at  as 
visionary,  1188;  tendency  to  restore  union, 
1201  ;   Bishop  Keane's  summary  of  prospcc- 


1598 


INDEX. 


tive  results,  1331 ;  actual  scene  at  one  of  the 
sessions,  (picture),  frontispiece  to  first  vol- 
ume; plattorm  scene  on  the  morning  of  Sep- 
tember 14  (picture),  853  ;  scene  on  the  evening 
of  the  last  day  (picture),  1583. 

Parsec,  the  Parsees  of  India  enlisted  to 
cooperate,  58 ;  idea  of  God,  194  ;  of  man,  108 ; 
of  religion,  201;  Bible  of,  the  Avesta,  an; 
the  Avesta  little  more  than  the  ruins  of  a 
great  religion,  703  ;  the  Cathas  imply  relig- 
ious experience  lilce  that  of  Isaiah,  846 ;  the 
religious  system  of  the  followers  of  Zoroaster, 
898-030;  overthrown  in  Persia  A.  D.  643  by 
Moslem  conquest,  898;  a  pure  monotheism 
resting  on  the  evidence  from  nature,  901 ; 
God  an  absolute  moral  ruler  as  well  as  physi- 
cal maker,  901 ;  in  Parsee  philosophy  two 
primeval  spirits  or  principles,  one  creative 
and  the  other  destructive,  901-3;, not  origi- 
nally a  dualism  except  by  misunderstanding, 
003 ;  Ahriman  a  second  only.  904 ;  Abuta- 
Mazda,  the  "All-Knowing  God,"  904. 

Paton,  Rev.  John  G.,  D.D.,  on  the  nature- 
religion  of  the  New  Hebrides,  1358-60. 

Paul,  his  epistles  the  earliest  liferary  pro- 
duct of  Christianity  after  the  words  of  Cnrist 
himself,  680. 

Peabody,  Prof.  F.  G.,  on  Christianity  and 
the  social  question,  1034-KM0;  portrait,  1039. 

Pentecost,  Rev.  Geo.  F.,  on  "The  In- 
vincible GAspel,"  143;  portrait,  1169;  ad- 
dress of,  ii6t>. 

Phiambolis,  Rev.  P,,on  the  Greek  Church, 
1128-30;  portrait,  1133. 
■  Phillips,  Rev.  Maurice,  portrait,  287;  pa- 


per on  the  Ancient   Religion  of   India  and 
Primitive  Revelation,  296-305. 

Philipson,  Rabbi  David,  D.D.,  paper  on 


Judaism  and  the  modem  state,  360-65. 

Plato,  study  of  proofs  of  the  divine  exis- 
tence, 306;  first  authentic  survey  of  human 
reason,  309. 

'  Pope,  the,  suggested  as  a  representative  of 
moral  force  whose  position  might  be  utilized 
for  purpose  of  arbitration  between  nations, 
1118;  portrait  of  Leo  XIII,  1035. 

Post,  Rev.  Dr.  George  E.,  exposes  moral 
defects  of  the  Koran',  140;  paper  on  explora- 
tion in  Bible  lands,  983-983  ;  address  expos- 
ing defects  of  the  ethics  of  Islam,  1096-98. 

Powell,  Aaron  M.,  on  grounds  of  sympa- 
thy and  fraternity  among  religious  men  and 
women,  1108-9;  portrait,  1113. 

Pratt,  Prof.  Waldo  S.,  paper  on  religion 
and  music,  1005-8 ;  portrait,  965. 

Prayer,  its  permanence  and  place,  1307. 

Presbyterian  congress,  1495-1504;  Presby- 
terianism  and  jnissions,  1498-1500;  Presby- 
terianism  and  education,  1500-1503;  Presby- 
terian reunion,  1503-4. 

RAM  Mohan  Roy,  founder  of  the  Brahmo- 
Somaj  of  India,  345. 

Redemption,  Buddhist  doctrine  of,  1394; 
Vedantic  doctrine  of,  338;  the  characteristic 
element  of  in  Christian  Scripture,  660; 
is  a  free  act  of  God,  836;  method  of  in 
Christ  that  of  reconciliation  of  an  offender 
837;  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church,  1016- 
1818;  the  method   of   Christ,  1038. 

Redwood,  Archbishop  of  New  Zealand, 
makes  response  to  welcome,  93. 

Reformed  Church  in  the  United  States, 
congress  of,  151 1  -14. 


Reformed  Episcopal  Church,  congress  of, 
1507-1510. 

Religion,  as  simple  faith  in  divine  father- 
hood and  human  brotherhood,  p.  ix;  the  great 
bond  of  love  and  duty  to  God,  3;  the  best 
will  come  to  the  front,  29;  the  bond  of  faith 
in  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God,  31 ; 
chapter  of  various  ideas  of  its  nature 
and  importance,  200-202;  a  chapter  of 
various  systems  of,  204-206  ;  various  views  of 
the  elements  of  a  perfect,  247-250;  Vedantic 
conception  of  essence  and  office  of,  336 ;  the 
underlying  element  of  all,  faith  that  man  is 
made  in  a  divine  image,  457 ;  end  and  office 
of  the  elevation  of  man  to  union  with  God, 
465;  esseiitially  characteristic  of  humanity, 
494-501 ;  light  from  dead  religions  on  the  ele- 
ments of  the  ultimate  religion,  563; 
founders  _  of  the  science  of,  586 ;  a 
thing  which  kindles  and  makes  operative 
and  irresistible  the  sway  of  the  moral 
nature,  948;  infinite  positive  blessings  of  the 
distinctly  religious  life,  956 ;  religion  looks  . 
to  philosophy  to  settle  the  problems  which  are 
purely  rational,  963 ;  services  rendered  to 
religion  by-music,  1005 ;  relation  between  re- 
ligion andmorality,  looo;  has  not  yet  come  to 
Its  rights  because  of  inaaequate  conceptions  of 
God  and  of  the  moml  life,  loii;  the  relation 
of  to  the  erring  and  criminal  classes,  1030; 
its  characteristic  developments  in  America, 
1153-7;  57,720,odb  adherents  in  America 
(U.  S.  of)  to  about  5,000,000  non-reli^ous 
and  anti- religious;  all  religion  everywhere 
essentially  good,  1186;  sects  now  its  worst 
hinderers,  1204 ;  as  service  of  God  by  service  of 
man,  1235 ;  as  aspiration,  pursuit  01  the  divine 
in  the  human,  1251 ;  Renan's  basis  of,  1263 ; 
facts  to  be  taken  into  account  in  the  true  defi- 
nition of  religion,  1364;  religion  as  lasting 
as  humanity,  1366;  morals  the  meeting- 
ground  of  all  religions,  1367 ; '  principles  of 
the  scientific  classification  of  religions,  1367-9. 

Religious  unification  greater  in  Canada 
than  in  England  or  the  United  States,  104 ; 
universal  unity  suggested  by  One  God  Our 
Father,  372 ;  the  unity  of  brotherly  love 
with  whatever  diversity  of  beliefs  a  new  and 
just  ideal,  621 ;  "pagan,  Jew,  or  mussulman, 
the  true  pbilosopner  sees  in  each  a  fellow- 
seeker  after  Gofl,"  842 ;  human  brotherhood 
a  fact  of  the  natural  orderdivinely  established 
1134-36  ;  how  fardue  to  mission  work,  1182  ;  a 
gigantic  problem,  1183;  strangling  effect  of 
divisions,  1188;  causes  disturbing  union  from 
early  days  of  Christianity,  1197  ;  movements 
towards,  1 194 ;  instances  of,  1195;  possible 
Catholic  concessions  to,  1196;  means  serving 
to  hasten,  1198;  1204;  sects  the  worst  of 
all  enemies  to  religion,  1204;  conditions  of 
comity  between  sects  in  America,  1215. 

Renan,  his  ethical  basis  of  religion,  1263. 

Revelation,  Vedantic  conception  of,  338 ; 
revelation  alike  in  all  tim:s  and  in  all  ages, 
500;  need  of  a  wider  conception  of,  842; 
the  ideas  of  ethics  of  all  religions  show  true 
divine  revelation,  844-5;  so  also  the  ideas 
of  inspiration  and  the  consciousness  of  God, 
845-8;  revelation  universal  by  "wisdom 
in  all  ages  entering  into  holy  souls  and  mak- 
ing them  friends  of  God  and  prophets,"  848; 
not  of  books  and  men,  but  of  the  spirit,and  in 
all  a^es  alike,  1238. 

Reville,  Prof.  Albert,  D.  D.,  on  thecondi- 


INDEX. 


1599 


ditions  and  outlcx>k  for  a  universal  religion, 
1363-67. 

Reville,  Jean,  on  the  principles  of  the 
scientific  classification  of  religions,  1367-g. 

Richey,  Rev.  Thomas,  S.T.D.,  on  the 
claims  of  the  English  Church,  1383-91;  por- 
trait, 1385. 

Rexford,  Rev.  E.  L.^  D.D.,  portrait,  475; 
paper  on  the  religious  intent,  509-522. 

Rig-veda,  hymn  of  creation  from  (Bk.  10, 
ch.  1 29), 696. 

Roberts,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  C,  address  of,  114. 

Russia,  refuses  to  cooperate  in  Parliament, 
56;  informally  represented  by  Prince  Serge 
vVolkonsky,  89;  Pobedonotizeff,  M.,  por- 
trait, 1300;  Ostankino  cathedral,  839;  Ca- 
thedral of  the  Annunciation  in  Kremlin, 
1057;  Church  of  Nativity  of  Holy  Virgin, 
1161. 

S CHAFF,   Dr.    Philip,   address  on  liberty 
and  union  in  religion,  138;  address  on 
reunion  of  Christendom,  1193-1301 ;  portrait. 

Science,  postulates  a  first  cau.se,  642;  the 
consciousness  of  God  and  of  immortality 
given  in  nature,  943 ;  belief  in  a  divine  rev- 
elation welcome  to  science,  944;  miracle  not 
against  natural  law,  945;  men  of  science 
commonly  religious  men,  946;  is  a  revelation 
of  God,  is  truth  revealing  nis  will,  980;  rela- 
tion of  church  to,  1198. 

Scientific  Section,  chronicle  of  meetings 
and  papers,  152. 

Scott,  Rev.  T.  J.,  paper  on  divine  provi- 
dence and  the  ethnic  religions,  921-925;  por- 
trait, 1091. 

Scovel,  Rev.  Sylvester,  D.D.,  paper  on 
what  constitutes  a  religious  as  distinguished 
from  a  moral  life,  956-960;  portrait,  821. 

Semmes,  ITiomas  J.,  paper  on  interna- 
tional arbitration,  1116-20;  portrait,  1147. 

Seton,  Mgr.,  paper  on  the  Catholic 
Church  and  the  Bible,  662-672;  portrait,  665. 

Seventh  Day  Baptist  congress,  1401-1406; 
group  of  portraits,  1403. 

Sewall,  Rev.  Frank,  portrait,  419;  paper 
on  the  character  and  degree  of  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  732-738. 

Seward,  Theodore  F.,  introduces  plan  of 
Brotherhood  of  Christian  Unity  under  inspi- 
ration of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Christ, 
132;  portrait,  889. 

Shakers,  the  doctrine  and  life  of,  1380. 

Shakespeare,  Christian  because  so 
thoroughly  on  the  side  of  humanity,  684. 

Shelley,  value  of  his  protest  against  the 
theology  in  which  Christianity  was  ensnared, 
686,  688. 

Shibata,  Rt.  Rev.  Reuchi,  reception  in 
Parliament  and  paper  on  Shintoism,  90,  116, 
451-454  ;  portrait,  455  ;  address  at  final  ses- 
sion, i68. 

Shintoism,  state  religion  of  Japan,  90;  high 
priest  of  makes  response  to  address  of  wel- 
come, 90;  paper  on  by  R.  Shibata,  116,  451- 
454 ;  Shinto  tombs  of  Shoguns  (picture),  125  ; 
a  priest  in  full  uniform  (picture),  245;  hus- 
band and  wife  of  Shinto  f^aith  on  a  pilgrim- 
age (picture),  461  ;  entrance  gateway  to  a 
Shinto  temple  (picture),  483;  tne  origin  of, 
1370-73;  characteristics  of  Shinto  faith, 
1373-4;  the  three  principles  of  Shintoism, 
1374-5;  stone  lanterns,  1295; 


Siam,  picture  of  Buddhism  in,  1296;  Man- 
dapa  Pavilio::  in  the  Aruna  Rajawararama 
temple,  Bankok,  323  ;  account  of  Buddhism  as 
it  exists  in,  645-649  ;  the  royal  white  elephant 
before  the  Rajapradittha  temple,  Bankok 
(picture),  699;  Phoo  Kan  Thong  or  Golden 
Mount,  with  the  pagoda  on  its  summit, 
Bankok  (picture),  777;  religious  procession, 
1541. 

Silverman,  Rabbi  loseph,  D.D.,on  popu- 
lar errors  about  the  Jews,  1120-22;  portrait, 
1119. 

Sin,  various  views  of  reIigiQi\  and  civil  so- 
ciety, 233-3;  under  various,  religions,  327- 
330;  mast  intense  Hindu  consciousness  of, 
303,  459;  a  theory  of  which  makes  Christian- 
ity as  a  religion  of  facts  of  no  effect,  838 ;  not 
dwelt  on  in  Buddhism,  1293;  as  a  theological 
imputation  and  as  a  weakness,  1306;  new 
theory  of  under  evolution,  1325,  the  sense  of 
in  Babylonian  penitential  psalms  1043. 

Sjx  Classics,  The,  anci^iit  works  made 
Sacred  Books  of  Chiiw  under  revision  by 
Confucius,  396,  406. 

Slater,  Rev.  L.  E..  portrait,  387 ;  religious 
outlook  of  India,  1173-78. 

Slattery,  Rev.  J. R.,  on  the  Catholic  Church 
and  the  negro  race,  1104-5. 

Small,  Prof.  A.  W.,  Ph.D.,  paper  on  the 
churches  and  city  problems,  1079-83  ;  portrait, 

lOOI. 

Smyth,  Rev.  Julian  K.,  paper  on  God  in 
Christ,  800-895;  VOTUiit,  831. 

Snell,  Merwin-Marie,  on  the  future  of  re- 
ligion, 1325-7;  opening  address,  scientific 
section,  1347 ;  address  on  religion,  1375. 

Socialism,  relation  of  Christ  to  the  plans  of, 
1037 ;  Christianity  above  eveiything  else  a 
social  force,  1056 ;  how  far  Judaism  was  a 
social  force,  1056-8;  the  change  made  by 
Christ,  1059;  individualism  isanti-Christian, 
1059;  failure  to  make  a  land  trul^  Christian, 
1060;  Christianity  stands  for  social  progress, 
1060. 

Social  problems,  a  sound  Christianity  must 
solve,  1207  ;  sect  hinders  dealing  with,  1208  ; 
Buddhist  social  morals  in  Japan,  1296. 

Somerset,  Lady  Henry,  portrait,  755 ;  letter 
of  cordial  endorsement,  926-7. 

Sorabji,  Miss  Jeanne,  paper  on  Women  of 
India,  1837-8  ;  portrait,  1469. 

Soul,  Buddhist  doctrine jof,  1293. 

Soyen,  Rt.  Rev.  Shaku,  presented  in  Par- 
liament, 92;  portrait,  419;  paper  on  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect  as  taught  by  Buddha,  829- 
831  ;  on  arbitration  instead  of  war,  1285. 

Spencer,  Rev.  Anna  G.,  paper  on  religion 
and  the  criminal  classes,  1030-31  ;  portrait, 
1029. 

Stanton,  Elizabeth  Cady,  address.  1234-7  ; 
portrait,  1525. 

Stead,  Rev.  K.  Herbert,  vindication  of 
Parliament  proposals  in  Rfvitxv  of  the 
Churches,  22. 

Stead,  Wm.  T.,  paper  on  the  Civic  church, 
1209- 15;  portrait,  1211. 

St.  Anselm,  proofs  of  the  divine  existence, 
312,  966. 

Strong,  Rev.  J.,  portrait,  1445. 

Sugao,  Nishikawa,  on  the  three  principles 
of  Shintoism,  I374-5- 

Sumangala,  Rt.  Rev.  H.,  paper  on  ortho- 
dox southern  Buddhism,  894-897. 

Sunday  Rest  Congress,  1549-53. 


i6oo 


INDEX. 


Sunderland,  Mrs.  Eliza  R.,  ponrait,  475; 
on  the  study  of  all  religions,  632-638. 

Swedish  Evangelical  Mission  Covenant  in 
America,  congress  of,  1514-17;  group  of  por- 
traits, 1515. 

Szold,  Miss  Henrietta,  paper  on  what  Ju- 
daism has  done  for  woman,  1053-56. 

TAOISM,  founded  by  Lao-tze,  407,  411; 
represented  by  one  sacred  book  oi  about 
five  thousand  words,  411 ;  present  exponents  of 
an  ignorant  priesthood,  411 ;  its  present  spir- 
itual head  called  Heavenly  Teacher,  or 
Tien-»ze,  383,  41a ;  the  foremost  priestly  per- 
sonage of  China,  383;  Taoists  and  Bud- 
dhists in  China  quite  alike  in  training  ot 
priests,  411;  both  teach  immortality,  431 ; 
on  rewards  and  punishments,  599;  Taoisi 
mendicant  (picttirc),  783;  a  prize  essay 
sketch  of,  X35S-58. 

Tcheraz,  Vrof.  Minas,  Armenian  represen- 
tive — response  to  welcome,  g8 ;  address  on 
toleration,  •  1145-6;  address  on  Armenian 
Church,  938-934;  poTUait,  931;  references, 
to,  1557,  1563.  .,     .      -  ,      ,    ,. 

Tennyson,  Alfrcd.on  the  sympathy  of  relig- 
ions,11  ;at  the  head  of  the  poctspwho  strive  to 
enthrone  love  in  man  and  for  nian  as  supreme 
law  seated  in  God,  688 ;  the  undoubtedjeader 
in  recent  thorough  discussion  of  Christianity,' 
689;  his  attitude  that  of  Job,  trust-in  God 
without  a  solution  of  life,  690. 

Terry,  Prof.  Milton  S.,  D.D.,  portrait, 693; 
pap>er  on  the  sacred  books  of  the  world  as  lit- 
erature, 694-764. 

Theology,  tends  to  divide  where  religion 
unites,  37;  religion  independent  of,  56; 
Jewish,  290-295 ;  folly  of  the  dream  of  religion 
without  theology,  563;  the  true  continuityof 
Christian  in  tne  mystics  and  poets,  693 ; 
the  new  critical  school  of  making  headway 
in  Germany,  088;  need  of  a  clearinghouse 
for,i3i9;  changes  wrought  by  evolution,  1323- 
4 ;  definite  and  compact  system  of  the  future 
comprehensive  of  all  faiths,  1327. 

Theosophy,  representative  of  from  Alla- 
habad, India,  98. 

Theosophical  Society,  congress  of,  1517- 
1522;  group  of  portraits,  1519, 

Tiele,  Prof.  C  P.,  portrait,  475;  paper  on 
the  study  of  comparative    theology,   583-590. 

Toki,  Rt.  Rev.  Horiu,  Japanese  Buddhist 
priest,  presented  in  Parliament,  93;  paper'on 
Buddhism  in    lapan,    543-552;  portrait,  545. 

Tomlins,  Mt.  W.  L,,  on  religion  and 
music,  1302-3. 

Townsend,  L.  F.,  D.D.,  persistence  of 
Bible  orthodoxy,  i22o«22;  portrait,  1309. 

Toy,  Prof.  C.  H.,  paper  on  religion  and 
conduct,  1009- ion  ;  portrait,  965. 


u 


NITARI.\NS,  congress  of,  1523-28. 
United  Brethren  in  Christ,  1528-1531. 
Universalists,  congress  of,  1531-35. 


v 


"ALENTINE,  Prof.  M.,  paper  on  the 
theistic  teaching  of  the  various  historic 
faiths,  380-89;  p<>rtrait,  287. 

Veda,  the  Bible  of  Hinduism,  207-8; 
fundamentally  monotheistic,  304;  Rig- Veda 
the  oldest  of  four  primitive  Vedic  books,  317  ; 
Brahmo  Somaj  doubt  of  infallibility,  346; 
aspects  of  the  Vedas,  460;  the  VedIc  hymns 


33  sacred  literanire,  697;  ethical  ideal  of, 
844  ;    theistic  gropings,  846. 

Vivekananda,  Swami,  on  platform  at 
opening,  65;  response  to  welcome,  loi ;  de- 
clares Brahmanical  doctrine  of  universal  tol- 
eration and  acceptance  for  their  truth  of  all 
religions,  103,  343;  criticises  Christian  anxi- 
ety for  souls  in  India  with  indifference  to 
sufferings  of  famine,  138;  address  at  final 
session,  170;  paper  on  Hinduism,  968-978; 
portrait,  973. 

WADE,    Prof.    Martin  J.,   portrait,  665; 
paper  on  the  Catholic  Church  and  the 
marriage  bond,  743-751 ;  portrait,  665. 

Warren,  Rev.  bamuel  M.,  paper  on  The 
Future  Life,  480-484. 

Washburn,  Prcs.  Geo.,  D.D.,  full  sympa- 
thy with  Parliament  aims,  14,  39;  paper  on 
Christianity  and  Mohammedanism,  565-582; 
portrait,  5S7. 

Wealth,  now  dealt  with  by  Christ,  1035; 
definition  of,  1068;  religious  view  of  its  pro- 
duction, 1069;  of  its  distribution.  1070. 

Webb,  Mohammed  Alexander  Russell, 
paper  on  "The  Spirit  of  Islam,"  989-996; 
paper  on  the  influence  of  Islam  on  social 
conditions,  1046-1053;  portrait,  965. 
■  Whitman.-Rev.  6.  L.,  D.D.,  interdenomi- 
national comity,  1215-30;  portrait,  1300. 

Wilkinson,  Prof.  W.  C,  attitude  of  Chris- 
tianitv  to  other  religions,  1343-49. 

Wiflard,  Miss  Frances,  a  wfiitelife  for  two, 
1330-3^;  portrait,  1231. 

Williams,  Fannie  Barrier,  on  religion  and 
the  negro,  1114-15;  portrait,  1147. 

Wise,  Rabbi  Isaac  M.,  D.D.,  paper  on  the 
thcoloey  of  Judaism,  Mo-295 ;  portrait,  293. 

-Wolkonsky,  Prince  Serge,  informally  rep- 
resents Russia,  89;  address  at  finalscssion, 
164;  portrait,  637;  paper  on  the  social  office 
of  religious  feefing,  639-644. 

Woolley,  Mrs.  C.  P.,  on  world's  debt  to 
America,  1268-69;  portrait,  1267. 

Womanhood,  idealof  being  reconstructed, 
1333;  Buddhist  inferior  conception  of.  1294; 
improved  treatment  of  women  from  Bible  in- 
fluence in  the  Orient,  1398;  influence  of  relig- 
ion on,  753—758;  the  improved  position  of  in 
India,  1037. 

Worcester  cathedrsjl,  England  (picture), 
685. 

Wright,  Rev.  Theodore  F.,  paper  on  re- 
conciliation vital,  not  vicarious,  1002;  por- 
trait, 1491. 

YATSUBUCHI,  Banriu,  Japanese  Bud- 
dhist priest  presented  in  Parliametit, 
92;  paper  on  Buddhism,  716-723;  portrait, 
721. 

Yen,  Rev.  V.  K.,on  what  Christianity  has 
done  for  the  Chinese,  1310. 

Yokoi,  J.  T.,  on  Christianity  in  the  far 
East,  1783-4;  portrait,  1281. 

Vu,  Hon.  Pung  Kwang,  Chinese  Secretary 
of  Legation,  address  in  response  to  welcome, 
88;  paper  on  Confucianism,  115,  374-424; 
supplements  to,  424-439;  portrait,  377;  ad- 
dress at  final  session,  166. 

yHIKKO  (practical),  the  chief  sect  of 
/j  Japanese  Shintoism,  452;  its  founder, 
Hasegawa  Kakugyo,  born  1541,  4S3->y 


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OCKER  &  TRAPP,  INC. 

AND 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

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